You can take a lot of things from Warner Brothers’ President Jeff Robinov’s talk with Entertainment Weekly for their Summer Preview issue, which should hit subscriber’s mailboxes today and newsstands on Monday, but the main thing we’re taking from the interview is that we should never trust scoop from Latino Review’s El Mayimbe ever again.

Back in the beginning of March, El Mayimbe once again broke out the camcorder and gave us a video blog detailing some hot scoop regarding the tumultuous Justice League film. Unfortunately, that video has been taken down (surprise, surprise), but we reported on the contents of it here. Mayimbe stated emphatically that Christopher Nolan would be taking over a Joss Whedon-like supervisory role with Warner’s DC Comics films, that Zack Snyder would be on board as producer if not director for Justice League and that Christian Bale would be returning to the film as Batman.

Entertainment Weekly, which is part of the same Time Warner media conglomerate that Warner Brothers is, asked Robinov point blank about the rumor:

However, Robinov was unequivocal when asked if the rumor is true that Nolan will produce aJustice League movie, and bring Christian Bale back with him: “No, no it’s not.” (Nolan’s reps, who have previously declined to comment on that rumor, also confirmed Robinov’s statement and told EW that he definitely wasn’t involved with Justice League. Nolan is currently busy prepping his sci-fi film Interstellar.)

I’m sure Mayimbe will say these denials is just a smokescreen by the studio to throw people off the scent of his rumor. But Nolan is prepping Interstellar, and casting has already begun. It’s not logical that the director can have as hands on a role on the DC Comics film franchises that El Mayimbe claims while directing a new film at the same time, especially with a 2015 target date for the Justice League film.

This has come at the end of fairly bad stretch for El Mayimbe. How bad? Let’s roll out the “El Mayimbe Roll Call of Shame!”

•  June 5, 2012: El Mayimbe claims that four sources have told him that Black Panther will be the second film released by Marvel in 2014. We all know now that it is Guardians of the Galaxy.
• December 3, 2012: States Darkseid will be the villain in Justice League. And…
• December 13, 2012: States the movie will be based on three particular issues of the Justice League of America comic book. And…
• January 24, 2013: That the JL line-up will consist of Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern and Flash. This version of the film was eventually scrapped, making these three rumors moot.
• January 29, 2013: Theorizes that Tony Stark will be headed into space at the end of Iron Man 3 based on a armor that showed up in a toy design. This has yet to be rejected, but as recent ads for the film show us, the armor could simply be part of the armor armada that Stark calls in during that big battle scene. UPDATE: We now know this one isn’t true either.
• February 4, 2013: A big one, where El Mayimbe states that Planet Hulk and World War Hulk will be the framework for Marvel’s Phase II and Phase III. This was shot down by Ain’t It Cool News and Joss Whedon. Mayimbe holds on to the idea that his version is still true, and gives reasons here.
• February 15, 2013: States Jason Momoa was offered the part of Drax in Guardians of the Galaxy. The part went to Dave Bautista. El Mayimbe states Momoa priced himself out of the role.
• March 3, 2013: The Nolan/Justice League thing we are talking about today.
• April 3, 2013: States the Controller will be a henchman for Thanos in Guardians of the Galaxy. Rumor yet to be refuted.
• April 8, 2013: Stated Evil Dead director Fede Alvarez is developing a film for Marvel, most likely Doctor Strange. Rumor yet to be refuted.

El Mayimbe has become the film rumor version of The Boy Who Cried Wolf. And like that fable, there will quickly come a time when film sites like us will simply refuse to listen to him anymore.

Why is he so wrong so often? Is it like he wants us to believe, that he is right and the studios are lying just to make him look bad? Dubious. Are the studios changing their plans after lets the cat out of the bag? Even more dubious. Or are his sources at Marvel and Warner Brothers deliberately feeding him incorrect information just to discredit him? That seems more likely.

The truth will come out in the coming months and years. Maybe, flying in the face of all logic and all denials, El Mayimbe’s rumors will come true. We’ll see. But if that happens, I’ll be the first to apologize for being wrong, something El Mayimbe is reticent to do.

Well, now that that’s over, let’s go back to the Robinov interview. The other big news from the interview is that Robinov states that there will be an announcement coming in the next few weeks about Warner’s plans for films based on the DC characters, including what films they will be making. My guess this would come after The Man of Steel debuts on June 14th. No better time than than after a big weekend for your tentpole film to tell us where you’ll be going from there.

Robinov also states that starting with The Man of Steel and going forward all the DC films will not be standalone films but be open to be part of a shared universe. That goes for the new Batman films as well.

Be sure to check out this week’s issue of Entertainment Weekly for more.

El Mayimbe is like an bad girlfriend. She treats you wrong again and again, yet you feel compelled to believe her over and over again because what she tells you is so sweet.

The often wrong Latino Review reporter is back again, this time with big scoop from the DC Comics film franchise. Scoop so big that El Mayimbe broke out the video camera, found a location somewhat near DC’s Manhattan headquarters, and filmed another video blog about it (Which you can see embedded below).

For those of you who do not have the time nor inclination to watch a video right now, let me give you the Reader’s Digest version of what El Mayimbe said  He states that since Warner Brothers is so impressed with his Batman trilogy and the advance buzz from The Man of Steel, the studio has tapped Christopher Nolan to be the Joss Whedon/J.J. Abrams-esque creative overlord for all of Warner’s DC properties. El Mayimbe also says that Zack Snyder will be joining Nolan’s team as least as a producer, quite possibly as the director of Justice League film. And, personally, what I consider the biggest scoop of all, Christian Bale will be returning as Batman for wherever the DC heroes go in the future.

Here is the video. I do recommend that you find time to watch it, as El Mayimbe comes off as the high school jock trying to convince the class nerd that the head cheerleader has a crush on the geek. He used a similar hard sell while giving us the “Planet Hulk”scoop. We’ve seen how that worked out.

Now is the point in the post, as I always do with scoop from this source, where I say that El Mayimbe does not have all that good a run in spreading accurate rumors. He was wrong when he said that Black Panther was going to be coming from Marvel in 2014, he was wrong when he said Jason Momoa was a lock for Drax in Guardians of the Galaxy, and he was wrong when he said Marvel’s Phase III would be based on Planet Hulk and World War Hulk.

He lists all the DC rumors he got right in the post presenting the video blog. However, it is only fair to note that the freshest of those rumors is Three years old. He can only get an incomplete on his most recent DC related rumors–that Darkseid would be the villain, that the story would be taken from Justice League of America  #183-185, and that there would only be five main characters in the film–because that version of the script was apparently scrapped and will never come to pass.

El Mayimbe’s rumors get so much play because they are the perfect mix of wish fulfillment and plausibility. Having Nolan head up Warners’ superhero output makes sense. Having Christian Bale come back would be a film fan’s dream come true. But if Nolan was being tapped for this, wouldn’t we have heard it way before now? Wouldn’t it be in Warners’ best interest to have it become official as quickly as possible to cut into the Abrams news? Would they really let the negotiations lag enough so El Mayimbe could catch wind of it?

I don’t know. It is a developing situation, and we’ll see if El Mayimbe finally got one right soon enough.

In a multi-part series, Comic Book Film Editor William Gatevackes will be tracing the history of comic book movies from the earliest days of the film serials to today’s big blockbusters and beyond. Along with the history lesson, Bill will be covering some of the most prominent comic book films over the years and why they were so special. This time, we’ll talk about superhero films not adapted from any comic book.  

Not every movie starring a superhero is adapted from a comic book but each has been inspired by or in turn inspired comic books.  Many of these non-comic book comic book films have sprung up in recent years but they have been appearing in movie theaters for over thirty years. We will dedicate the next few installments to these movies. We’ll try to talk about all of them here, but odds are one or two will slip our notice. Let us know what you think we’ve missed and maybe we’ll include them in a future installment.

One of my most fondly remembered superhero movies was 1980’s Hero At Large.

John Ritter stars as Steve Nichols, an underemployed actor who is hired to portray the character Captain Avenger at the opening of a film based on the character. A job that entailed just signing autographs for fans becomes something more when Nichols breaks up a robbery while in costume. The media grabs hold of it, and his life becomes much more complicated. Nichols is compelled to keep fighting crime as Captain Avenger while political interests want to use Nichols for their own interests.

I haven’t seen the film in a while, but it was one of my favorites as a youth. It wasn’t Hamlet, but it wasn’t awful either. Anne Archer, passed over several years prior for Lois Lane in Superman, gets to play a similar part here as Nichols’ neighbor/love interest. Kevin Bacon has a small part in the film as well.

The film made $15,934,737 at the box office that year. That might seem paltry by today’s standards, but it out grossed other, better well known films from that year such as Prom Night, Used Cars, Stardust Memories and Mad Max.

A year later, Disney came out with its take on the superhero, Condorman.

Hero At Large might have been cheesy, but it was nothing compared to this film. Condorman couldn’t have been cheesier if it was paired with a beef stick and sold at a Hickory Farms kiosk over the holidays. The film has been all but consigned to the dustbin of history by most (the above trailer was put together by a fan), those that do remember it recall it fondly in a “so-bad-it’s-good” sort of way.   Michael Crawford, five years before he would take the stage as the Phantom in Andrew Lloyd Webber’s production of Phantom of the Opera, stars as Woody Wilkins, a comic book writer of a character called “Condorman” who is pulled into a spy exchange in Europe. Wilkins adopts the Condorman identity, becomes a spy for the CIA, and rescues a Russian double agent played by Barbara Carrera.

In all fairness, the film is more a Disneyfied version of the James Bond-esque spy thriller than an actual comic book, although Crawford does appear in costume as Condorman and uses many Batman-esque gizmos and gadgets. It goes without saying that the film was a critical and commercial flop.

While Condorman probably began with the noblest intentions and wound up at cheesiness accidentally, The Toxic Avenger wallowed in its inherent cheesiness to the fullest extent from the very first day of production, as is the trademark of the studio that released it, Troma Entertainment.

Whether it was intended to be or not, 1984’s The Toxic Avenger was like all of the Marvel Comics from the 1960s brought to the big screen all wrapped up in one. Toxie, as he is lovingly referred to, starts the film as a nerdy janitor bullied by his peers (much like Peter Parker was before he became Spider-Man). One day, he has an accidental exposure to radioactive materials (like, well, take your pick: Spider-Man, Fantastic Four, The Hulk, Daredevil, any number of other heroes and villains from Marvel at that time) which causes the nebbish to grow into a superhumanly strong creature (like The Hulk). He uses his new power to fight crime in Tromaville, finding love along the way with a blind woman who loves him for who he is and not what he looks like (mimicking a plot point featuring the Fantastic Four’s Thing and blind sculptress Alicia Masters).

What separated the film from the Marvel Comics of the 1960s was the schlocky, off-center and off-color humor, the violence that was so graphic that it became absurd, and the copious amounts of sex and nudity that is the trademark of the Troma film. But the first film was a success and that spawned a sequel, 1989’s The Toxic Avenger Part II:

When Troma found they shot enough footage for two films, they released another sequel in 1989, The Toxic Avenger Part III: The Last Temptation of Toxie:

And yet another sequel, 2000’s Citizen Toxie: The Toxic Avenger IV:

That last film pulled out all the stops when it came to celebrity cameos, featuring Ron Jeremy, Corey Feldman, Hugh Hefner, and Julie Strain, with Stan Lee serving as narrator.

The Toxic Avenger was also adapted into a short-lived Marvel comic book in 1991 and a stage musical in 2008. A rumored fourth sequel was planned, but might have made way for a PG-13 remake produced by Akiva Goldsman and directed by Hot Tub Time Machine’s Steve Pink.

The next film we are going to discuss was made with noble intentions but became a box office failure. Hollywood Shuffle’s Robert Townsend wanted to make a film that was a counter-point to the popular “gangsta” films such as New Jack City and Juice that dominated cineplexes at the time. So, in 1993, he came up with a film idea that presented a positive black role model that would work to stop black-on-black violence instead of glorify it. That film was The Meteor Man.

The film told the story of Jefferson Reed, a Washington, DC teacher who is struck by a meteor and given superpowers. He uses these powers to clean up his neighborhood—stopping gang violence, demolishing crack houses, and stopping robberies. While the Toxic Avenger was a mix of a bunch of Marvel superheroes, the Meteor Man seemed to borrow from a number of DC Comics heroes, most notably Superman (who shares most of the same powers and the “mom-made costume” bit) and Black Lightning (DC’s first major black superhero, who was also a teacher named Jefferson Pierce).

The film featured a veritable who’s who of the best African-American actors America had to offer, including Bill Cosby, James Earl Jones, and Robert Guillaume and did earnestly try to present a more positive African-American role model.  But the film was rather simplistic and the naive (the two gangs in the film, the Bloods and the Crips, put aside their differences to support Meteor Man in his fight against the white drug lord) script led to box-office disappointment.

Next time, we cover three popular movies that might stretch the definition of the superhero, but that had an effect on comic books for years to come.

There was a bit of an Internet kerfuffle over the fact that the brunette Lois Lane will be played by the redhead Amy Adams in The Man of Steel. Well, brace yourselves, another kerfuffle is coming because it appears that the redhead Jimmy Olsen will not only be a brunette, but also…a woman! Batten down the hatches, prepare for the Internet outrage.

The whole ball got rolling this morning when Digital Spy noticed something in the cast listing on the IMDB page for the film. While the film features notable minor characters from the comic book Superman mythos such as Pete Ross, Kenny Braverman, and Steve Lombard, there was no Jimmy Olsen. There was, however,buried deep in the cast list, a Jenny Olsen, played by a brown-eyed, brunette actress named Rebecca Buller (that’s her to the left).

To say that Jimmy Olsen is a popular part of the Superman mythos would be an understatement. He is one of Superman’s longest-running supporting characters (officially debuting in 1941), and was popular enough to not only get his own series, Superman’s Pal, Jimmy Olsen, but also to have it run for 163 issue over almost 20 years.  So, the idea of a Superman film without Jimmy Olsen would be almost unheard of. So, this Jenny Olsen HAS to be the female version of Jimmy right?

The website uses the trailer to further sell the idea that Jenny has been switched in for Jimmy. There is a scene in the trailer, screencapped for you at the right, where Perry White is fleeing a destroyed Daily Planet. As you can see, he is holding on to a female employee who looks remarkably like Buller. Is that an I.D. lanyard around her neck…or is it a strap for a camera? And who else would Perry take such an interest in making sure that they are safe than Jimmy…er…Jenny Olsen?

Of course, this is all conjecture based on a single IMDB listing, and IMDB isn’t exactly the most accurate website around. Numerous news sites have tried to reach Warner Brothers for a comment, but as of yet they have not spoke on the matter.  But until they do, fans will proclaim their outrage on message boards and comment pages around the Internet.

Many casual fans of Superman might ask, “What’s the big deal? Why should this bother them so much?” And, speaking as a rather involved Superman fan, the film presentation of Jimmy/Jenny Olsen shouldn’t bother us too much. What makes the comic book incarnation of Jimmy Olsen so great, and this will be a gross simplification of the character’s 72 -year history, is that he gets himself into trouble that only Superman can get him out of. That quality will never translate over into a 2-hour Superman film where Jimmy is only a supporting character. This characterization at best will only be briefly touched upon, as we saw in Richard Donner’s first Superman film. Add to that the fact that Jenny Olsen is so far down on the IMDB cast list that she is likely to be an extremely minor character to begin with, so even if she was still Jimmy, it wouldn’t be close to the comic book Jimmy anyway.

However, while every cinematic appearance of Jimmy Olsen ends up being a essentially just a nod to the character’s comic book origins, it was at least a nod. This is at least the fourth break from comic book continuity that The Man of Steel has shown us, and the one that seems most arbitrary and hardest to explain away.

Yes, the redhead Amy Adams is playing the typically brunette Lois Lane and the African-American Laurence Fishburne is playing the typically Caucasian Perry White, but both are great actors with sterling resumes–complete with award nominations–and will bring a lot to the part (but, seriously, Amy, you couldn’t pick up a bottle of Lady Clairol for just this film?). The same really can’t be said for Buller, whose only other credit on her remarkably sparse IMDB page is one episode of The Playboy Club.

And while Pa Kent’s recommendation to Clark that he should have left the school bus full of kids die is extremely out of character, the quote very well could have been taken out of context or simply been Pa thinking aloud. There’s no mistaking the break from the original characterization that is Jenny Olsen. Making the character a female changes whatever dynamic existed between the character and Superman. Instead of the goofy little brother, you have a little sister. Think about how your relationship with your male friends differs from your female friends and you’ll get the idea. Granted, as I mentioned above, the character might not be in the film long enough where this dynamic comes into play, but if it does, it will not be the dynamic comic book fans expect or want to see.

And the change is completely arbitrary. If you wanted a goofy female character to work at the Daily Planet, you could have named her Jenny Coulson, Jenny Dogin, or Jenny Hogan. It would work just as well for the filmmakers and Jimmy Olsen fans would be a lot less ticked off.

Yes, this on the surface seems like much ado about nothing. But in the larger sense it is indicative of the problems Warner Brothers has adapting its DC Comics properties to the big screen. The Marvel films all have changes from the original source material, but no change is arbitrary, no change completely contradicts what makes the original text so popular, and more often than not the changes are an improvement. Changing Jimmy Olsen to a woman just for the sake of making the character a woman is an example that Warner Brothers really doesn’t have the same respect and understanding about its comic book properties that Marvel does. And until they can overcome this mental block in this area, they are never going to have the success that Marvel has.

With most of the attention given to the series of lawsuits between the heirs of Jerry Siegel and DC Comics, it would be easy to forget that there was another creator of Superman–Joe Shuster–and his estate was also suing DC to terminate the copyright for the character. Unfortunately, while the courts ruled in favor of the Siegel’s case in 2008, the Shuster’s attempt to take back their share of Superman ended today in failure.

The Hollywood Reporter tells us that Judge Otis D. Wright (sounds almost like a role Groucho Marx might have played, doesn’t it?) has ruled the Shuster family does not have the right to terminate their copyright with DC Comics due to a 1992 agreement the family made with the corporation.

When Joe Shuster died in 1992, his sister, Jean Peavy, filed an affidavit stating she was Joe Shuster’s successor and sole heir. She then requested money from DC to pay the debts Shuster left behind with his passing. DC made good on Shuster’s debts, but told Peavy that it would be the final time they would do such a thing, and that from that point forward, the Shuster family would forego any rights to the character, a condition Jean Peavy readily accepted.

In 2004, Jean’s son Mark Peavy, represented as the Siegel’s are by Marc Toberoff, filed a notice of termination for the Superman copyright as per the Copyright Act of 1976, which went into effect in 1978. Since Jean Peavy’s agreement with DC was made after 1978 and essentially was her waiving the family’s right to terminate the copyright, Judge Wright denied Mark Peavy’s  copyright termination.

Where does the case go from here? Through a lengthy appeals process. But if Wright’s decision holds up under appeal, DC will hold on to half of Superman, no matter what, forever. This weakens the Siegel families’ position in their ongoing legal battles with DC/Time Warner and any settlement negotiations they’d undergo with DC in the future. The fact that DC will hold half the copyright and is backed by a multimillion dollar corporation that can afford the high-priced lawyers to litigate any situation endlessly gives them the upper hand.

For a run down of the history of Superman’s rights issues, read the feature article I wrote about it here.

On Friday, Laura Siegel Larson, daughter of Superman co-creator Jerry Siegel issued a letter to Superman fans to give them her feeling on her family’s 15 year struggle to wrestle their half of the rights to Superman from Warner Brothers/DC Comics. Here is that letter:

LSL Open Letter 10.11.2012-1

Some might read this and feel sympathetic to Siegel Larson and her plight, and perhaps just a bit angry at Warner Brothers at their callous treatment of the Siegel family over the years. Others might read the letter and also get angry–at Siegel Larson, for playing to people’s emotions and twisting facts so her side of the matter appears in a more positive light. Others might read her defense of Marc Toberoff and wince, feeling sad that she would defend someone who might not exactly be working in her best interests.

Or, if you are like me, you have a mixture of all the above feelings after reading that letter. See, for as much as each side wishes to present the issue as a case of black and white, it’s not. The lawsuit to the rights for Superman, a struggle that will get more and more press as we come closer to The Man of Steel’s June 14, 2013 release date, is a sickening blend of grays. And the reason why there is so much debate and discussion over the issue is because there are valid talking points for each side. The purpose of this post is to present these talking points to you and explain why there are no easy answers in this conflict.

$130

The world of comic book collecting is ruled by the law of buy low and sell high. You buy a comic book for $3.99, and you hope that there is something about it–a variant cover, a new character being introduced, a popular storyline taking place–that causes people to want it. If it works out, you can triple your investment overnight, and, in rare cases, you can have a book worth hundreds of dollars in a matter of years.

This is the actual check used to buy the right to Superman from Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster. It recently sold at auction for $160,000.

This adds a bitter sense of irony to the Superman situation. Because, you see, DC Comics bought the rights to Superman from Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster in 1938 for $130. To put that into perspective, if you factor in inflation, that would be around $2,048 dollars in today’s money. One of the most iconic, most recognizable characters in  pop culture across the entire world, and he was bought for less that what you’d pay for a top of the line high-definition television set today.

Why such a low price? Well, we must consider that the sale took place at the tail-end of the Great Depression. It was hard for two 23-year-old young men to haggle over money when unemployment was at 19% throughout the country.

And comic books at the time were a bit of a seedy enterprise. The medium got its start as publishers simply folded popular Sunday newspaper comics sections into a book form and sold it at newsstands. When the comic book format grew in popularity, publishers supplemented the reprint material with original material similar to the most popular comic strips of the day–hard-boiled detective stories in the mold of Dick Tracy, gag strips that resembled Mutt and Jeff, space epics akin to Flash Gordon or Buck Rogers and so on. Experience and quality of work weren’t important to the publishers, only speed and productivity. To keep costs low, they hired kids who would work cheap and be able to keep up with demand. Many comic legends such as Jack Kirby, Joe Kubert and Will Eisner started working in comics when they were in their teens. Others such as Bob Kane, Joe Simon and, yes Siegel and Shuster, were in their early twenties. Even though the publishers most likely weren’t paying these kids what they deserve, whatever they brought in help put food on their family’s table.

And, hard though it may be to believe today, at the time, Superman was a risky concept. It was quite unlike anything else on the market in the 1930s. Siegel and Shuster intended the concept to be sold to the more respectable newspaper comic strip syndicate but were turned down by at least two syndicates. DC Comics was at best a “safety school” for Superman. This could be another reason why the pair didn’t squabble over the price–they didn’t know if there would ever be any other takers.

Superman went on to revolutionize comic books, making the superhero popular, and becoming an indelible piece of our modern-day cultural landscape. But from the very beginning, you can say the poor treatment of Siegel and Shuster began. However, the company did not always treat the pair quite as bad.

Paupers to Princes to Paupers

Much is made of how much Siegel and Shuster were paid for the rights to Superman, and the many articles note that the pair were destitute during the later periods of their life, but what I find interesting is how much they paid while doing Superman. In 1940, the Saturday Evening Post reported that the pair were making $75,000 per year from Superman comics and merchandise, which would be the equivalent of just about $1.2 million dollars today. According to Larry Tye’s book, Superman: The High-Flying History of America’s Most Enduring Hero, Siegel claims the duo were making half that. Even still, that would be close to $38,000 a year for both, $19,000 for each. It was probably a pittance compared to what DC was making off their works, but it was ten times the average yearly salary in 1940 of $1,900 .

The duo bought fancy houses with modern luxuries such as paneled bars and air conditioning. They would by fancy cars, mink coats and jewelry. Technically, they weren’t living above their means, but they weren’t truly prepared for their means to change. When the Saturday Evening Post article hit, Shuster’s eyesight was bad and getting worse–half of his cut of the contract was going to ghost artists who would trace over his loose outlines for the art. Unfortunately,  actions taken by the pair would jeopardize their employment as well.

Lawsuits

From the start, Siegel and Shuster were trying to sell DC Comics on the idea of stories based on Superman as a child. However, every proposal they offered was shot down. Imagine Jerry Siegel’s surprise when, after returning from service during World War II, that DC had started a Superboy feature based on his ideas with no input or involvement from either himself or Shuster.

Naturally, Siegel and Shuster were incensed. They sued DC Comics in 1947 not only for using their ideas for Superboy without their permission, but also to terminate their contracts with the company and get back the rights to Superman as well.

The courts were only partially in their favor. The courts disavowed their claims for Superman, but agreed that the had a right for compensation for Superboy. DC Comics settled with the pair for $94,000 in exchange for the agreement that Shuster and Siegel would give up all rights to Superman, Superboy and any auxiliary characters they created for the company. After legal fees, the pair took home about a third of that.

Siegel believed that after the lawsuit, he and Shuster were blacklisted in the industry. Shuster’s eyesight would make him leave the industry within ten years time. Siegel would work sporadically in comics for years afterwards, typically under pen names. The team would reunite only once after their tenure at DC was over, creating a forgettable character called Funnyman for Magazine Enterprises in 1948.

Joe Shuster, Neal Adams, Jerry Siegel and Jerry Robinson in 1975.

By 1975, Siegel and Shuster were in bad shape. They had once again sued DC for the right to the Superman copyright in 1967 and by 1973, they had lost their appeal. Their lawyers advise them not to go to the Supreme Court because the would not be able to afford the expense and that DC was likely to settle the case. Both were practically destitute (Siegel was complaining of money troubles as early as 1953). When no settlement came, the pair used the recent news that Warner Brothers bought the rights to Superman with the intention make a feature film to start a publicity campaign of their own.

Aided by Neal Adams, at the time DC’s hottest artist, and Jerry Robinson, who worked for DC by proxy in the employ of Batman creator Bob Kane, creating Robin and the Joker for Kane and who was a successful commercial artist and editorial cartoonist, the creators launched a media blitz, playing off the fact that Superman earned DC Comics millions yet his creators were living in poverty. The New York Times wrote a story on the situation that was picked up by papers across the country. Siegel and Shuster appeared on many popular news programs of the day. It became a public relations fiasco for DC Comics.

Throwing themselves on the sympathy of the American public worked for the creators, as DC Comics would settle with Siegel and Shuster once more. The company would give them a yearly pension of $20,000 a year for the rest of their lives, adjusted accordingly in regards to inflation (by 1988, the yearly total was up to $80,000). Their caretakers (wife Joanne for Jerry, brother Frank for Joe)  would get the pension if they died before them at a rate of $20,000 a year until 1985, then $10,000 a year until their death. The team would get health care coverage and would be credited as the creators of Superman in whatever medium he would appear from then on. But Siegel and Shuster were once again asked to state that they had no rights to the Superman family of characters.

It seem that the issue would be settled. And for all intents and purposes it was–for over twenty years. However, a new law passed just a year later would open the discussion again in the future.

The Copyright Act of 1976

The Copyright Act of 1976 was intended to protect corporate interests. The act was designed to extend the life of copyrights and delay copyrighted works from entering into the public domain. Before 1976, a corporation could hold a copyright for only 56 years (two, 28 year terms). The 1976 act extended the copyright protection for works created after 1978 to 50 years after the death of the author in case where the author owned the copyright, 95 years for anonymous works or works for hire. It extended the total copyright protection on works before 1978 from 56 years to 75 years.

However, that extension act allowed creators or their direct heirs who transferred the copyrights over to a corporation the opportunity to terminate, within a five year window,  that transfer after 56 years. The copyright for Superman turned 56 in 1994, which meant the Siegels had until 1999 to terminate the copyright. Joanne and Laura Siegel filed the termination in 1997 (Jerry Siegel passed away the year before). They would file a similar termination notice for Superboy in 2004.

The Shuster family missed out on this filing. However, the Copyright Extension Act of 1998 (also known as the Mickey Mouse Protection Act (due to Disney’s lobbying for a change to copyright law) or the Sonny Bono Act (after the ex-pop star, then Senator who proposed the act)) extended the length of copyrights once again, but also extended the time creators can terminate their copyrights to 75 years and allowed executors the power to do so. This gave Mark Peary, Joe Shuster’s nephew and executor of his estate (Shuster passed away in 1992), another chance to file his termination paper work, which he did in January of 2004, with an effective termination date in 2013. If DC Comics did nothing, the Siegel and Shuster families would own 100% of the the Superman copyright by 2013. But, of course, DC Comics did not intend to go down without a fight.

The “Peanuts” Settlement

Even though DC Comics/Time Warner were publicly stating that Siegel and Shuster’s work on Superman was work for hire (a dubious claim because DC itself had made the fact that the pair brought Superman to DC part of the legend of the character’s creation), the corporation began settlement talks with the Siegel family.

Joanne (left) and Laura Siegel

According to documents found by Danny Best, as of 2001, a potential settlement was drawn up by DC, one which the Siegel’s lawyers at the time recommended they take, one Laura Siegel Larson referred to as “peanuts.”

What were the terms of this settlement? $3,000,000 immediately, at least $500,000 per year, 6% of all media and merchandise exclusively  featuring Superman or the Spectre (another Siegel creation owned by DC), 3% of any media or merchandise where Superman and Spectre shared a starring role with another DC character, and 1.5% of any media or merchandise where the Spectre and Superman were part of an ensemble cast. And DC would continue to honor the terms of the 1976 agreement, which were by this point up to $135,000 a year. DC did require the Siegels to transfer the full rights to Superman to DC in response to this agreement.

Once again, this would seem like peanuts in comparison to the billions DC rakes in with the Superman property. But I’d think even people who were highly allergic to peanuts would be willing to jump at the opportunity to be millionaires overnight.

But not the Siegels. They rejected the settlement that was all but approved and less than two years later they had new representation–Marc Toberoff.

DC tried a similar settlement with the Shuster family in 2005. The settlement had nothing to do with the Spectre, as Shuster did not have a hand in creating the character, and the per year payment would be $1 million, but the Shuster family would also get royalties like the Siegels. The Shusters also refused the settlement and, perhaps not quite a coincidence, signed on with Marc Toberoff as a representative.

Marc Toberoff: A Sheep in Wolf’s Clothing, or a Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing?

…or a wolf pretending to be a sheep in wolf’s clothing?

Prior to his involvement with the Siegels and the Shusters, Marc Toberoff was viewed as a staunch defender of artist rights. He was the lawyer who would represent Davids like the Siegels and Shusters against Goliaths such as the Time Warner/DC Comics conglomerate–and win. He won important decisions in the original creators behind the Dukes of Hazzard and Lassie franchises.

It was under his watch that the Siegel and Shuster families won an important victory in a court of law. He got a judgement that states that since Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster reworked a series of trial comic strips into the story that became the Superman stories in Action Comics #1 and #2, they own the copyright to whatever part of the Superman mythos that appeared in those two issues. This includes, but is not limited to, Superman’s origin, his secret identity of Clark Kent, Lois Lane being a love interest, and elements of the Superman costume that made its debut in those issues. Everything that came after, the ruling states, was done as work for hire for DC comics.

It appeared that the Siegels and Shusters were well on their way to becoming part owners of the characters Jerry and Joe created, and that DC would be losing a large chunk of their most iconic characters. However, there was a startling twist in the offing.

One morning, top executives at Warner Brothers and DC came into work and were greeted by a package. The package contained a number of documents stolen from Toberoff in 2006 by an anonymous culprit. The documents were covered by a letter that contained a timeline telling an interesting story about what supposedly were Toberoff’s true intentions.

The timeline and supporting documents, which can be found here, paint Toberoff not as a valiant defender of an artist’s rights, but a sneaky manipulator who was out to make the most money at the expense of the Siegel and Shuster families. The timeline indicates that Toberoff wooed the families with false promises of a billionaire willing to support families’ in making a Superman film that would go into competition with any Warners’ Superman film, but ended up negotiating a himself a 47% cut of the Superman copyright as part of the “contingency” agreement Siegel Larson spoke of in her letter. The timeline also indicates that Toberoff has no intention of letting the families assume total ownership of Superman. It states that Toberoff is simply holding off negotiations for as long as possible so the settlement, and his enormous cut of it, will be even larger.

DC Comics immediately tried to gain the documents in the illegal package through legal means only to be refused by Toberoff on attorney/client privilege. Unfortunately for Toberoff, he tried to work with Federal authorities to investigate the theft. In the process, he releases some of the documents in question to the Feds to aid in their investigation, thinking that he could waive the attorney/client privilege for only that one time and only to that specific party. DC and, more importantly, the courts disagreed. They stated that once the documents were released to the feds, they should be released to everyone. DC then was able to get their hands on the timeline legally, and used it as the basis of a suit to get Toberoff removed case and/or the Siegel suit dismissed entirely due to his putting his own interest above his clients.

The Court of Public Opinion

Joanne Siegel and the character who was based on her, Lois Lane.

Laura Siegel Larson’s letter calls to mind a letter her mother Joanne meant to send to Warner Brother executives before her death that somehow was “leaked” to news organizations after her passing. There are a number of parallels–painting Warners/DC as bullies picking on sick women (with a list of medical maladies included in the text), a chastising of DC’s for going after Toberoff, and, most importantly, words about how DC looks to the general public.

In my opinion, both letters are attempts to garner sympathy and support among the general public, much akin to the public support in 1975 that helped Siegel and Shuster get their pensions and health benefits.  But there is one main difference, Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster created Superman through their own talent, creativity and imagination. While they were living in poverty, dealing with deteriorating health, their greatest creation was earning millions for their former employers. They were victims of the great machine, two men who deserved better and a sympathetic public viewed them as such.

Meanwhile, in the comic book community, there are a lot of people who view the Siegel heirs lawsuit negatively. Whether it be the irrational “They’re trying to steal my Superman from me” internet trolls or the people who have serious issues with people who had little or nothing to do with creating the character reaping any sort of benefits, regardless if they were legally entitled to them or not (Joanne Siegel was the model for Lois Lane, but didn’t marry Jerry until 1948, a year after the writer stopped working on Superman full time. She was the only person in the lawsuit who could claim on having any influence on the final product). While there are many who support Laura Siegel Larson’s claims, there will never be a consensus of anger among fans  over the issue like the one that cause the PR nightmare for DC in the 1970s.

And as for the mainstream media picking up the issue as a cause celebre like they did in the 70s, well, in today’s 24-hour news cycle it’s hard for a story like Laura Siegel Larson’s to gain any traction. It simply isn’t sensational enough. Heck, it wasn’t even pressing news among the comic book blogosphere. The letter was released on Friday while a massively popular comic book convention, New York Comic Con, was going on. The Beat and Robot 6 wrote a blurb on it on Saturday, Siegel Larson had to e-mail Bleeding Cool  on Monday to get coverage, and, as of last night, Blog@Newsarama hasn’t covered it at all.

Personally, I think the Siegel and Shuster families should be sharing in the Superman wealth not only because they are legally entitled to but because Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster should have been sharing in the wealth when they were alive and it should have been a simple matter of the families inheriting their fortune. But the allegations about Toberoff concern me deeply. And the fact that Siegel Larson spends more time playing the victim card (while also playing the “David in the face of Goliath” card) than addressing the valid issues with her lawyer doesn’t sit well with me. It’s hard to feel sympathy for someone who is angry at a corporation that is cheating her out of money she deserves when she is defending a man who also is allegedly cheating her out of money she deserves.

There is a clock ticking on this issue, as the 2013 deadline is quickly approaching. Hopefully, there will be some kind of agreement, some kind of legal decision, that will benefit all parties. But judging on Laura Siegel Larson’s letter, we could be in for even more contentious legal wrangling for years to come.

Dear Warner Brothers,

Hi. How are you doing? Good I hope.

My name is Bill. I’m a comic book fan and have been for thirty years. I have been a film buff for almost as long. And I’ve been writing about both worlds for about as long as the Internet has been around, give or take a year or two.

I say this just to provide a little background to you. Because I have been meaning to speak with you in regards to your philosophy towards comic book films. And an article I read today compelled me to not wait any longer.

Over at Bleeding Cool, Rich Johnston relayed an experience from an anonymous comic store employee whose shop was visited by a “fan” who had a pronounced lack of knowledge of comic books, but an overwhelmingly odd knowledge of DC Comics films. This fan, no, wait, let’s call him what he likely was–a badly disguised marketing researcher, asked questions such as “what superhero films have had good Facebook pages?”, “Do you think comic fans would accept a superhero film without Nolan’s involvement, would him serving as a producer suffice?” “What do fans think of Aquaman? He’s lame isn’t he?”, “What is regarded as the strongest lineup of the Justice League and would work as a film?” The marketer closed his survey with an intriguing question: “What would fan reaction be to a Justice League movie with Frank Miller’s name attached?”

I don’t pretend to speak all fans or comics, films, or comic book films. I speak for myself and hopefully other fans agree with my opinion. And my reaction to this news is that it could quite possibly be the worst in a long line of bad decisions your studio has made in regards to its comic book properties.

Now, I understand that you’re in a difficult position. You once had the superhero film market all to yourself with first the Superman films then the Batman films. Then Marvel went from being a laughing stock to becoming the dominant producers of comic book films and you ended up playing catch up. Marvel has just had their most successful film to date with The Avengers and the DC Comics film slate is in a state of chaos. You are rebooting the Superman franchise for the second time in ten years. The Batman franchise is coming off a successful reboot by Christopher Nolan and is in a state of flux. Sure fire franchise starters such as Jonah Hex and Green Lantern ended up D.O.A. at the box office. Suddenly, playing catch up became being so far behind that there is a danger that it isn’t even a race anymore.

And, to be brutally honest, it’s all your fault. The list of failed attempts at rebooting the Superman franchise before you settled on Superman Returns is legendary for how bad the attempts were. I read the original script for Jonah Hex and while it might not have been a hit, it would have been closer to source material. But reading that script, it was easy to see what the studio mandated reshoots got us–Hex’s superpowers and the campy “weapons of mass destruction” plot line. I also read the Green Lantern script and thought it had the potential to be a fun film. Unfortunately, what we got was a film lacking a sense of awe and wonder.

Listen, I can see why you think Frank Miller might be an exciting choice for the Justice League movie, a film that needs some excitement because it meant to act as The Avengers in reverse (Instead of individual superhero films leading up to one big team up movie, you’re having one big team up movie that will hopefully lead to individual superhero films). Miller is a legendary comic book creator and has become a filmmaker as well. He even works with green screen techniques in his directing, which is quick, cheap and one of the reasons why you hired Zack Snyder to do Man of Steel.

But there is one flaw in the idea. the present day Frank Miller is just terrible at what he does. He just is. Now, I have nothing personal against Miller, despite how Wikipedia might make it look. I came in a bit after his storied run on Daredevil, but I was right on time for his Batman:The Dark Knight Returns. I consider that series to be the second best comic book story of all time. But since 2000, Frank Miller has become a case of diminishing returns. I don’t know if it’s because of the auteur syndrome (where creative individuals have been told that they were genius enough times that they figure anything they create is automatically genius so they stop trying) or something else, but Miller’s output in the new millennium–Dark Knight Strikes Back, All-Star Batman and Robin, the Boy Wonder, Holy Terror–has been awful.

I mean, have you seen The Spirit? Obviously not, because if you did, we wouldn’t be having this conversation. Watch it. Okay, that might be asking too much. How about you just go on Rotten Tomatoes and read some the reviews for the film? No, that probably won’t work either. How about you take a look at the earnings for the film?  Money, you’ll pay attention to that. I’ll give you a hint: the reviews were as bad as the grosses–completely horrible.

The Spirit shows what happens when Miller is given free hand to write and direct a comic book film adaptation. He took one of the most quirky and iconic comic book characters in history, paid no respect to the original version, and married traces of the character to his fetishes (namely, film noir and hyper-sexualized femme fatales), a Calvin Klein ad, and force fed the concoction through a MacBook. The result is something the was as awful as you would expect it to be.

And this was a character created by his friend and mentor, Will Eisner! What would he do to the Justice League, a concept he has no emotional attachment to? Well, we do have some idea based on how Miller portrayed the team in All-Star Batman, The Dark Knight Returns and Dark Knight Strikes Again.  Superman will be an ineffectual wimp incapable of independent thought, preferring to be led around by weaker men. Green Arrow will be a raving lunatic hippie. Wonder Woman will be a man-hating harridan. Batman will be a psychotic bastard. And the rest of the League will be made up of either sociopaths or feeble weaklings. In other words, nothing like the casual fan remembers them as being and not the type of characters that would be appealing to everyday moviegoers.

What’s that you say? You’ll never let that happen? Gosh, the only worse thing I can think of other than a Frank Miller Justice League film is a Frank Miller Justice League film after heavy studio meddling.

That fact that you might be considering Miller for this job tells me something I’ve always suspected–you think there’s some hidden secret to doing a successful superhero movie, and, by gum, you’ll try everything until you find it. Jonah Hex doesn’t have powers? All Marvel’s film characters have powers. Let’s give him some. Iron Man was a cocky and arrogant who is unfazed by whatever life throws and wields a powerful weapon. That characterization would work exactly as well for Green Lantern! The Nolan Batman films were dark and gritty. So, making the Superman film dark and gritty would mean that it will be just as successful! Joss Whedon, a Hollywood director who wrote comic books, leads The Avengers to over a billion dollars in box office receipts? Man, then fans would really flip if we got Frank Miller, a comic writer who is a Hollywood director, to do Justice League!

You are right though. There is a proven method of doing a comic book movie right, but it’s no secret. You get a talented and proven director. You get a great cast of actors. You get a great story that respects the source material while standing on its own as a film. You work with the comic book company to make sure the films stay on point. You don’t interfere unless it is to make any of the four prior things happen.  It’s rather simple, but it’s not easy. You need to invest the time, do the due diligence, and trust the people you’ve hired when your only instinct is to overrule them and make unnecessary changes. But if you do that, your films might just be the quality of Marvel’s or Nolan’s.

Thanks for listening to me, Warners. I know I might have come on a bit too strong. After all, you were just pooling opinions. But I just think hiring Frank Miller for Justice League would annihilate any chance you have of ever competing with Marvel’s film output. I felt I had to say something, as a friend, before it was too late.

Stay in touch!

Bill Gatevackes.

Barry Sonnenfeld has been dropping hints about signing on to another comic book adaptation, this one based on a 1960′s comic book. The Vulture thinks it knows what that project is.

The pop culture blog of New York magazine claims that ”their spies” have told them that the Addams Family and Men in Black films will be tackling the kitcshy DC Comics characters the Metal Men for Warner Brothers.

Created in 1962 by Robert Kanigher, Ross Andru and Mike Esposito, the team consists of six robots created by a brilliant robotist named Doctor Will Magnus. Magnus came up a device called a “responsometer” that gave robots the capacity for independent thought and individual personalities. The doctor put these responsometers into robots composed of six metals–Gold, Iron, Lead, Mercury, Tin and Platinum. When the robots came to life, the became shape-shifting heroes whose personalites and powers mimicked the metals of which they were made (Mercury became a viscous humanoid with a mercurial personality, Tin was the weakest of the group and therefore crippled with self-doubt, etc).

The team was a trademark of the goofiness of DC’s Silver Age, where anything goes whether it makes sense or not. Six-foot tall robots made out of Gold and Platinum would have cost billions to create even in 1962, and Lead and Mercury would have had an added “super power” of causing kidney failure. Their main archenemy was a vat of toxic chemicals in a giant, human shaped shell called Chemo that could come to life, walk around, and spit a chemical concotion at the team. Platinum was a female robot whose main character trait was wanton lust for her creator, Will Magnus.

But all of this gave the Metal Men a goofy kind of charm, one which Sonnenfeld would be best at translating to the screen. Of course, that is if they do make it to the screen. The Metal Men are completely unknown by the general public, which would make a film a risky venture. Top that off with Sonnenfeld, who doesn’t work for free, and six characters that will have to completely CGI to be effective, you are facing an expensive film. And to be done right, the script has to be a bit silly and a little goofy, a light-hearted picture that doesn’t jibe with Jeff Robinov’s idea that darker is better when it comes to superhero films. These are big hurdles to overcome before the concept makes it to the big screen.

In a multi-part series, Comic Book Film Editor William Gatevackes will be tracing the history of comic book movies from the earliest days of the film serials to today’s big blockbusters and beyond. Along with the history lesson, Bill will be covering some of the most prominent comic book films over the years and why they were so special. This time, we’ll cover the end of the serial era.

By 1947, the “Golden Age of Serials” was deemed to be at an end. This corresponded with the start of the period where superheroes were growing increasingly out of favor with comic book publishers, being replaced by war, romance, and horror genres.

Hop Harrigan was an aviator rather than a superhero, but he came into existence way before the fall of the superhero. The character first appeared in 1939 in All-American Comics #1, published by DC/National’s sister company, All-American Publications. The character was adapted into a radio program from 1942 to 1948. In 1946, the character made its way to movies screens in a 15 part Columbia serial of its own, titled, appropriately, Hop Harrigan.

The serial focused on Hop Harrigan facing off against a mad scientist called Dr. Tobor. Much like the comic character himself, the serial faded away into obscurity. No video evidence for the serial can be found.

Another DC Comics character hit screens the next year, but not the one you think. It boggles the mind that a rather obscure character such as the Vigilante could have been made into a serial before Superman, but he was. The Vigilante, like Superman, debuted in Action Comics, issue #42 to be exact. Essentially , he was a modern day cowboy whose secret identity was a Gene Autry-esque singing cowboy who wore a disguise to avenge his murdered father.

The Vigilante serial debuted in 1947 and with a few costume alterations notwithstanding, remained true to the comic. In the Columbia serial, The Vigilante must investigate a case of missing valuable gems smuggled into the country.

In the next year, Superman finally, at long last, came to movie theaters in a serial of his own. While Republic tried to get the rights to Superman as early as 1940, making a deal for the property was complicated by National/DC insisting on creative control and Superman being licensed to Paramount for a series of animated shorts (for more on the Fleisher cartoons, check out Rich’s write up on them here). This delayed Supes making the plunge into the live action film world.

By 1948, those rights had expired, allowing Columbia to finally bring one of the most popular comic book heroes to life on the silver screen with Superman. Kirk Alyn was cast as Clark Kent, Noel Neill as Lois Lane, and, in a marketing ploy certainly aimed at the kids in the audience, Columbia stated that there was no actor who could truly do Superman justice, so the Man of Steel played himself (Not to spoil it for anyone who had been holding onto that belief for 53 years, but, in reality, it was Alyn in the costume).

Due to National/DC’s influence, the Superman serial stayed close to the comics. Kirk Alyn made an excellent Superman/Clark Kent and Noel Neill did such a good job as Lois Lane that she would reprise the role on the small screen in The Adventures of Superman.

The serial’s plot involved Superman fighting the machinations of a villainess called The Spider Queen, played by Carol Foreman. The serial was enormously popular, garnering a sequel two years later with the same cast. But before then, there was one other comic book serial released that is worth mentioning.

Later in 1948, another National/DC character whose home was in Action Comics hit the world of the film serial. Congo Bill was a serial based on the strip that got its start in 1940 in More Fun Comics before moving over to Action Comics for a lengthy run. Congo Bill was a Caucasian explorer who relocated to the wilds of Africa to keep hius adopted home safe.

While Congo Bill getting a serial before other DC mainstays such as Green Arrow or Wonder Woman might make a modern day comic fan start scratching their head, at the time adapting a jungle hero was a no-brainer. Jungle stories were packing them in at the movies at the time, so Columbia must have naturally thought Congo Bill would have been an obvious choice to bring to the screen.

The serial deals with the character searching the African wilderness for a legendary White Priestess.

It’s a shame that the serial didn’t come eleven years later, as DC decided in 1959 to give Congo Bill the ability to swap minds with a golden gorilla named Congorilla. It would have been interesting to see how they would have translated that to the screen.

Atom Man vs. Superman arrived in theaters in 1950 and marked the first appearance of Superman’s arch enemy, Lex Luthor, in live action. Luthor was played by Lyle Talbot, who also gained fame by originating the role of Commissioner Gordon in the 1943 Batman serial, and would later become famous (or is that infamous) for his work with legendary shlockmeister Ed Wood, Jr, most notably in Glen or Glenda and Plan 9 From Outer Space. Kirk Alyn returned as Superman/Clark Kent and Noel Neill as Lois Lane.

In this serial, Superman must fight to keep the world safe from Atom Man (who was really Luthor in disguise) who has developed a “disinegration ray” to hold the world hostage. Atom Man/Luthor also develops a synthetic kryptonite, a plot point that would be revisited over three decades later in Superman III.

Remember how I told you last time that I would tell you who the Ryan Reynolds and James McAvoy of the serial was? That would be Kirk Alyn, because Alyn, like Reynolds and McAvoy, brought comic book characters from two different companies to life on the silver screen. Reynolds starred as Deadpool in X-Men Origins:Wolverine and Green Lantern in Green Lantern, McAvoy starred as Wesley Gibson from Top Cow’s Wanted and as Marvel’s Professor X in X-Men: First Class, and, as we’ve already said, Kirk Alyn was the first person to play DC’s Superman on screen and, in 1952, he brought Quality Comics’ aviator hero Blackhawk to the screen in his own serial, named Blackhawk.

Blackhawk and the Blackhawks first appeared in Quality’s Military Comics #1 in 1941. The Blackhawks were an international paramilitary force of flyers brought together by Blackhawk himself to right wrongs and fight evil. The flyers were from areas such as France, Sweden and China and were portrayed in the most stereotypical ways their nationalities could be portrayed.

The Columbia serial toned down the stereotypes and set up the Blackhawks as fighting the Communists. One of the Communist agents was a woman named Laska, portrayed by Carol Foreman. Foreman, as we read above, faced off against Alyn’s Superman as the Spider Queen in the first Superman serial.

Being that this was at the end of the serial’s life cycle, the production values were way down. Not exactly the best way to end the era of the superhero serial.

Interesting tidbit, DC Comics eventually bought out all the Quality characters and concepts in 1956 much like they would the Fawcett characters decades later. Blackhawk was one of the few Quality titles being published at that time, and DC continued publishing the series without a break in numbering.

Next time, we cover the foray comic books made into the world of television, and how one TV show affected the way superheroes were portrayed on the big screen even decades later.

When I saw that Zach Snyder called on Kurt Johnstad to give the script a quick polish, I knew that The Man of Steel would have trouble reaching its December 2012 release date. It looks like I was right.

The Hollywood Reporter states that Warner Brothers has decided to move the release date of the Superman reboot to June 14, 2013. While this gives Warners a little breathing room between this film and their The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, set for a December 14, 2012 release date, it calls into question how this effects the fact that full rights to certain parts of the Superman mythos are set to revert back to the estates of Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster in 2013 as per 1976 Copyright Act.

The scuttlebutt surrounding the fast track this reboot was that Warners wanted a film in theaters before the right reverted back to Siegel and Shuster. Snyder was hired, rumor has it, because he was fast enough to get the film done by end of year 2012. If the film was released in 2012, it and any sequels directly derived from it would be unaffected by the change of rights. Meaning, that Warner Brothers could put out films featuring the Superman we all know and love without impunity.

However, this move by Warners blows that idea out of the water, because the new release date will likely be after the rights are transferred over, meaning if any elements of the Superman mythos that the Siegel and Shuster estates own make it into the film, they can sue.

So, what is going on here? Why has Warners decided they’re safe moving the release date of The Man of Steel? An optimist could hope that some kind of arrangement was made between the Siegel and Shuster estates, Warner Brothers and Warners’ subsidiary DC Comics where the last two bought the rights or a perpetual license to the rights from the estates.

That is unlikely, because the battle between the estates and Warners/DC has been so contentious (Warners/DC has sued the Siegel’s lawyer Marc Toberoff stating he has poisoned the relationship between them and the Siegel family for his own financial gain, and Toberoff has went through the courts to get a definitive list of Superman assets the Siegel’s [and Shuster's] own) that such an agreement would be bigger news than the release date of the film being moved.

More likely is an idea that Variety proposed in May, that Warners will be building the movie around the aspects of Superman they own, leaving the estates to potentially put out a Superman movie of their own using the aspects they hold.

As it stands now, the courts have dictated that the estates own the contents of Action Comics #1 and #4, along with other early appearances of Superman. DC owns anything that came after. This means the estates own the name Superman, the blue leotard/red cape/red boots uniform, Lois Lane, the Kents, the “rocketed from an exploding planet” aspect of the character’s origin and his ability to leap tall buildings in a single bound. DC owns pretty much all of Superman’s rogues gallery including Lex Luthor, it owns Jimmy Olsen, Perry White, the Daily Planet, Flight, X-Ray Vision, Heat Vision, Kryptonite and the name of his home planet being Krypton, amongst others.

Another thing adding a log to this conspiratorial fire is the fact that the rewrite comes so soon after DC announced that it was rebooting its entire line with 52 #1′s. This is allowing the company to revise and reboot some of their properties, including Superman. The scale of the changes will not be known until the new Action Comics #1 and Superman #1 come out in September. But advance solicitations and preview images show extensive changes to the character’s costume, moving to two alternating looks–one a simple T-Shirt and jeans and they other a blue Kryptonian Battle Armor with red accents. Armor, mind you, not a leotard.

Could the new direction in the comics be designed to move away from the elements the estates will take with them? Could the rewrite be necessary to make The Man of Steel more like the new comic’s direction? We should find out some answers in September.