This is a remarkable rundown of the legalities surrounding ownership of Miracleman/Marvelman, with a special focus (as you might expect) on the Todd McFarlane/Neil Gaiman legal battle over the character. Pádraig Ó Méalóid has been particularly thorough, and (accidentally?) makes a good case for Marvel actually not owning any part of the classic Alan Moore/Garry Leach/Alan Davis/Neil Gaiman/Mark Buckingham/etc. run, and it all being Neil Gaiman’s (with a little bit belonging to Mark Buckingham, too), unless I’m completely misunderstanding. Which, with this character, is entirely possible.
The question is, I guess, whether Marvelman is legally the same character and property as Miracleman at this point…? I mean, obviously, the former is based on the latter to such a degree that they are (and any legal battle trying to prove it would easily succeed, I suspect), but Marvel bought Mick Anglo’s ownership of his character, and the Moore/Gaiman/Eclipse run was always published/copyrighted in the U.S. under a different name, and I genuinely wonder whether that makes a difference. Lawyers in the audience, help me out here.
March 22nd, 2012 at 8:52 am
It doesn’t matter.
Marvel never does anything worthwhile with non-Marvel created characters. They may throw the occasional bone like what they did with those Crossgen minis, but hey look, they decided not to publish anymore of those. Miracleman/Marvelman should have been acquired by DC, along with Crossgen.
Miracleman is gone. Fans should let it fade, already.
March 22nd, 2012 at 9:19 am
@M – I thought Disney bought Crossgen before they bought Marvel…
@Graeme – do you have a link to the story you reference? This is the second blog post this week that I don’t find the link to the original story being discussed.
March 22nd, 2012 at 9:27 am
This is the article:
http://slovobooks.blogspot.co.uk/2012/03/neil-gaiman-and-todd-mcfarlane-story-so.html
March 22nd, 2012 at 10:29 am
Does it matter?
Who cares about yet another Superman inspired character?
March 22nd, 2012 at 11:58 am
Alas, another notch in the legal world for who owns the rights to what! Seems like there HAS to be a better way of keeping track of this, and determining how to resolve these things.
I don’t have the answer to this one, but it’s an age old problem…
March 22nd, 2012 at 1:53 pm
sure it matters jane a. the alan moore issues are actually fairly important and influential in the evolution of super-hero fiction. and for alan moore fans it’s actually a fairly large piece of the puzzle in his own work. with gaiman’s not so much. as far as the character in and of itself, no it’s not that important. he’s animal man without morrison writing him. like you say, who cares. and you can always create an analogue character to stand in for whoever it is you want. i mean, way back in the day, frank miller’s dd was just him doing batman, since he was precluded from actually writing batman.
March 22nd, 2012 at 4:37 pm
@Chuck Jones
Yeah, House of Mouse did acquire Crossgen before Marvel. My point was Crossgen may have been in better hands under DC.
Anyhow, Miracleman written by Moore was fantastic. It was a crazy and incredible re-imagining of Captain Marvel (DC/Fawcett version) and the Marvel family, and sort of helped open the doors of acceptability for works like Dark Knight Returns and Moore’s later seminal work in Watchmen.
To this day, I’m thankful I was able to grab most of his run on Miracleman because I know I’ll never see it reprinted as long as I live.
SHAZAM! Uh, I mean … KIMOTA!
March 22nd, 2012 at 11:49 pm
Who owns Miraclewoman?
March 23rd, 2012 at 1:29 am
At the rate it’s going, Marvelman will be in public domain before they figure out who owns it. Torrent the damn thing if you want it and move on.
March 23rd, 2012 at 7:08 pm
I do admit that I still have those Alan Moore Miracleman comics as well as the Neil Gaiman issues. I was just looking at them the other week as I’ve been reorganizing my collection (yet again if you listen to my wife).
I would be very nice to have an Omnibus or two of those issues on much better paper of course. I haven’t pulled them out of their Mylars in awhile and now I feel like reading them again. Actually it would be ideal to have many of the First, Eclipse and Comico series in a Archive/Omnibus format.
March 24th, 2012 at 3:35 am
@M
really?well,tell that to Red Circle,Milestone,etc
are their condition better with DC?where are they now?
March 24th, 2012 at 1:06 pm
@MarcJ
Red Circle isn’t owned by DC, they were licenced from Archie comics. Milestone is also licensed to DC and are not owned by them either. So do some research first.
DC at least have done something to promote acquired properties over the years, and it’s up to the readers to decide whether those properties continue. DC will be reintroducing Captain Marvel (Shazam) soon, they’ve had a bit of success with the Spirit, Doc Savage, and the Charleton and Wildstorm heroes are still active in the main DC Universe.
Shift the lens over to Marvel and they’ve barely spent an iota of interest in those old Malibu properties ever since they were acquired sixteen years ago. Name one Malibu character that is active and has been integrated into the Marvel or Ultimate Universe. The only thing that they have done worth noting is Men in Black which is getting a new movie, and Exiles which has completely disappeared.
So yeah, the ratio of usage with acquired properties between DC and Marvel is huge. DC takes an interest; Marvel of today does not.
Marvel of the ’70s and ’80s on the other hand, now that was a comic book company. Quesada, you suck!
March 24th, 2012 at 10:51 pm
@M
neither does Crossgen,its still Disney property,its only licenced from their own parent company,its up to them not Marvel to do what they like with it.
and really what will DC gona do with it?let me guess,they will intergrated them into regular DCU world?
no thanks,i prefer they have their own world.
also their current stance to Shazam doesn’t give me any confidence with DC anymore
March 25th, 2012 at 1:47 am
If I recall it was Marvel that put the SNAFU on future Crossgen minis, not Disney. Well, no that’s not true. It was lack of sales, but Marvel were the ones to make the decision to stop publishing future projects for the short and possibly long term.
If DC had bought Crossgen, more likely they would have been mined for possible Vertigo projects which I think would have upped the quality from what they originally were.
Personally, I think Shazam is going to be great although I dislike the renaming from Captain Marvel. The hood he now sports is perfect, and if the character is written the way DC has reinvigorated Aquaman, Swamp Thing and Wonder Woman, it should theoretically be what Captain Whitebread has needed to muster some new fans. Plus, if Mary Marvel is back to her good old wholesome self and not Morrison’s dominatrix, I’ll be a happy camper.