DC RELAUNCHING entire Universe in September

[The Mike]

DC owns: Superman’s ability to fly, the term kryptonite, the Lex Luthor, Jimmy Olsen and Perry White characters, Superman’s vision powers and expanded origins, they own the modern interpretation of the "S" Shield.

The Families will own: Superman’s origins from the planet Krypton, his parents Jor-EL and Lora, Superman as the infant Kal-EL, the launching of the infant Superman into space by his parents as Krypton explodes and his landing on Earth in a fiery crash, the basis of the Superman character, including his costume, his alter-ego as reporter Clark Kent, the feisty reporter Lois Lane, their jobs at the Daily Planet newspaper working for a gruff editor, and the love triangle among Clark/Superman and Lois.

They are already working Lois out, losing Clark wouldn't be difficult, it looks like they are trying with Supergirl already, one of the covers shows the Daily Planet destroyed so it wouldn't be difficult to get that out. They already created Daxam to be a 2nd type of Krypton planet so realistically if DC could get the award of keeping the name Superman, they could tell the families to go ____ themselves and really continue as business as usual especially with a reboot. That is of course not ideal.

 

[Jair]

I thought post 2012, DC only owns the rights to the boots, his ability to fly, villains, etc. The blue suit, red cape, S-shield, the name (Superman, Kal-El, Clark) and origin all go back to the Siegel and Shuster estates?

DC/Warners own's the trademarks to Superman, which are not covered in the Siegal lawsuit, also the lawsuit just covers published works in the US, DC could theoritcally publish Superman stories outside the US like nothing happened. Shuster's legal proceedings can open up in 2013.

Mike is correct, DC will lose some of the original parts of Superman, anything that pertains the Action #1-4 (though anything after #1 is in dispute) and the original newspaper strip.

Again though I think a settlement will come about sooner or later, Warner's can drag this out for years to come, the lawyer for the Siegals and soon the Shusters, had a setback recently when his deal with the familes was opened to the proceedings and Warner's is working to have him removed as the council for the Siegals. It's a back and forth game.


Evan

 

[thenammagazine]

I've got mixed feelings over the whole thing. While I really don't want to see Superman change, I think the families should get their just dues given DC/WB/TW's raped them over the decades they've owned the character.

 

[The Mike]

It's not that clear cut and dry. There are sweetheart deals that were signed by the families that didn't produce as much revenue as they could and they want more. Full ownership of Superman goes back to the families in 2013. That will give them the chance to set up Superman pics, TV shows and other projects at another studio. The families apparently have documents sealed that deal with their plan to divide royalties and how to handle movement to other entities. The Siegel families are pissed and want to rip the rights from WB whereas the Schuster family wants royalty payments back from 1999 onward. Come 2013 it is going to get amazingly rough but analysts believe that if the new Snyder film is a blockbuster that it'll be too tempting for the family not to continue forward.

 

[The Batman Professor]

You can bash Bob Kane all you want, but in having things sorted from the get-go, everybody gets to keep smiling today.

Except Bill Finger's family.

 

[thenammagazine]

You can bash Bob Kane all you want, but in having things sorted from the get-go, everybody gets to keep smiling today.

Who's bashing Bob? IMO, he's the creator of one of the greatest superheros of all time. And he's damn lucky his dad got a contract drawn up otherwise he'd be in the same situation.

 

[Jill Sandwitch]

I thought post 2012, DC only owns the rights to the boots, his ability to fly, villains, etc. The blue suit, red cape, S-shield, the name (Superman, Kal-El, Clark) and origin all go back to the Siegel and Shuster estates?

How does Super Girl fit into this if I may ask?

 

[thenammagazine]

How does Super Girl fit into this if I may ask?

I would just imagine likeness to Superman, logo, suit, cape, etc. I believe she was entirely DC's creation. But looking at her current look, from the pics Mike posted, with this "reboot," they're well on their way to taking care of that:

 

[Jair]

It's not that clear cut and dry. There are sweetheart deals that were signed by the families that didn't produce as much revenue as they could and they want more. Full ownership of Superman goes back to the families in 2013. That will give them the chance to set up Superman pics, TV shows and other projects at another studio. The families apparently have documents sealed that deal with their plan to divide royalties and how to handle movement to other entities. The Siegel families are pissed and want to rip the rights from WB whereas the Schuster family wants royalty payments back from 1999 onward. Come 2013 it is going to get amazingly rough but analysts believe that if the new Snyder film is a blockbuster that it'll be too tempting for the family not to continue forward.

We'll its even more murky that that, rumors are they Joann Siegal was willing to settle a few years back for a large sum of money but Toberoff (Siegals attorney) talked her out of it at the last moment. One of the issues WB currently has is that since the case is held in California (which has some of the worst legal statutes on the books), Toberoff has secured a deal that instead of the normal % that he would get from a settlement, he would actually become the primary shareholder of the Siegals portion of the Superman rights and thus has become the plantiff in the case as opposed the the council. It's some crazy stuff, California is the only state where this is possible. I forgot to add the legal documents that had the deal between Toberoff and the Siegals had been stolen at one point by a lawyer working for Toberoff, who grew disechanted with him and gave the docuements over to WB. Toberoff filed a petition to not allow WB to use those documents, at first the judge's agreed but then Toberoff accidently waived his rights to the documents for another legal proceeding, opening the door for the judges to rule that the documents can now be used in the legal battle for Warners to remove Toberoff as council. It's got all the makings of a good book or movie.

I had hoped WB would have settled this about 5 years ago when it was sooo close, the number's the Siegals would have gotten were more than fair, pretty close to market value at the time. But again Warner's owns all the trademarks so even if they "lose" Superman, it's not like there is much left the Siegals and Shusters really could do, it would be in the best interests of both parties to settle.

Supergirl isn't mentioned at all in the court documents other than the fact she wears the S on her costume. Superboy is another matter all together.

Evan

 

[fanger54]

DC owns: Superman’s ability to fly, the term kryptonite, the Lex Luthor, Jimmy Olsen and Perry White characters, Superman’s vision powers and expanded origins, they own the modern interpretation of the "S" Shield.

The Families will own: Superman’s origins from the planet Krypton, his parents Jor-EL and Lora, Superman as the infant Kal-EL, the launching of the infant Superman into space by his parents as Krypton explodes and his landing on Earth in a fiery crash, the basis of the Superman character, including his costume, his alter-ego as reporter Clark Kent, the feisty reporter Lois Lane, their jobs at the Daily Planet newspaper working for a gruff editor, and the love triangle among Clark/Superman and Lois.

They are already working Lois out, losing Clark wouldn't be difficult, it looks like they are trying with Supergirl already, one of the covers shows the Daily Planet destroyed so it wouldn't be difficult to get that out. They already created Daxam to be a 2nd type of Krypton planet so realistically if DC could get the award of keeping the name Superman, they could tell the families to go ____ themselves and really continue as business as usual especially with a reboot. That is of course not ideal.

Dc actually created the daily planet , it was first called the daily star, so the planet stays and the siegel gets the daily star, why is the daily star part of the lawsuit, well it was use a while back when they touched on superman from earth 2 as he was working at the daily star and eventually became its editor in chief, (if i am not mistaken) bottom line it was use in the past for characters that were brought back, such as in crisis .

gotta love the small details.
and before i just made mention of the shield since it was the subject at hand but yes DC will keep tons more relating to supes, including probably the name kal el, since its original version was kal l.
but yeah the blue suit we know is going to the family, mind you like i said before its probably why they went for a reboot in the comics, they did so before when dc was going out of control with all the super titled characters and wanted to make the DCU tighter in terms of stories and characters in the supes family, and similar to whats going on with the reboot, they needed to change things up to keep supes in the comics, so they took early steps with making sure that the lawsuit wont come back biting them in the ass mid series , seriously do we need another conner kent type problem were calling him superboy was a big NO NO so they went and killed him off along with anything superboy related and then call superboy prime, superman prime and have conner well be called conner for a time , even so he had the shield .
can you imagine if supes lot his name , dear god just think about it, we might end up with a comic book version of the blur.

also , yes the family might end up with the name clark kent,... so supes might end up with a brand new first and last name, but something tells me that the will have something all ready set up comes reboot time just in case this will happen.... again if this is a reason for the reboot, then you cant blame them to try and keep the first super hero going in their comics.

also with the upcoming reboot they are going to make superman and wonder woman lovers at some point if not from the start, and that can very be due to the fact that lois rights are reverting back to the family, and even so its not perfect ,its still good for them to have superman have a woman in his live , and with wonder woman being that lady, we can now have a superman who does not fear that his lady will get hurt if someone ever finds out that they are together, meaning a superman thats not off to save hid lady every time she gets in trouble due to a news report that she is doing, instead we might get a superman thats fighting with his lady and kicking ass with her instead.

 

[The Mike]

It was also mentioned in one of the articles about the lawsuit that the families are also not happy about the Big Blue Boy Scout image that DC has upheld for Superman, citing that it stops progression and it makes the character difficult to market given the thirst for more reality and gritty heroes, now remember that is from 5 years ago and it sounds like more lawyer posturing but if there is even an ounce of truth to that if they take Superman elsewhere he may not even resemble Superman at all.

Somewhere I read that Supergirl and Superboy were both created while the folks involved were employed by DC Comics but Superman, the title was before when the Siegel and Shuster team were freelancers. I can't be sure because I can't find that article yet but I think that Kara Zor-El and Conner will be fine especially as radically different as the reboot will make them anyway. Although I wonder how this will effect the Legion of Superheroes which people often forget is built on the Superboy/Superman legacy... DC and WB own the modern interpretation of the S Shield, that was proven in court:

This is what the families own:

As you can see by the reboot, that look is almost gone and if things get murky it's easily fixed. If the families take the rights away from DC, they would just have to stop using it, which means they'd have already two to three months of monthlies already in the can, so it'd be a mid 2013 change anyway and like was posted about Kal-L was the original, most of Earth-2 Superman was a homage to the original incarnation, so Kal-El would be debatable as being usable as it's a name that is different enough to warrant use and if Clark Kent is gone, I could see them easily just having him stop using that name as a homage to his alien roots. It would be interesting for them to get around Krypton though in midstream.

It's going to be a mess either way if the lawyers have their way.

 

[thenammagazine]

 

[fanger54]

ctually this is what the siegel would own in terms of supes look

its even farther then what we are getting in the reboot, and yes thats the original shield used in print, the one posted by Mike is actually still a DC created version and could still be used, also the shield used by earth 2 superman is also a DC owned version of the shield.

also notice the lack of the belt ...
also that image posted by mike is from superman no1 , probably the reissued cover.
anyway with or without the reboot, supes was headed toward some major changes like mentioned by mike.

so lets be happy that some control over those decisions were made with somewhat planning . or we could have gotten another electric blue supes like posted above, now that story was just wacky... fun to read but wacky....

 

[fanger54]

also if DC is working this hard to keep superman in play, come due court date and judgement on the rights, either way it goes, DC will still have the right to publish a comic with a Superman named character.
at this point the court mess is just to see if DC can retake everything and not lose lois, krypton, supes origins( clark kent as a name, along with his whole coming to earth on a ship, and being adopted by the kents and krypton is somewhat at play and lois).

its just a very costly game of tuck and pull to see who will end with what, but like i said, at this point DC comes reboot time is ready for the worst with them apparently creating a new origin in action comic no 1 and within the superman comics and JL comics, he will have a relationship with wonder woman, replacing the lois and supes one of past stories, so who knows what they have planned to go around all of those in court problems but it seems that its not going to even dent supes come decision time.

also something else i noticed about a lot of the no 1 issues is that they are very centered around supes, batman, and GL, i am not saying all are but tons are and its interesting to see a clear image at who DC is trying to make into bigger franchises , wonder if the movies had anything to do with those decisions (said with sarcasm) we all know they did.... hope for them that the GL film is not going to bomb come next friday...

Also i have to wonder, since they are re writing a lot of the DCU, will talia still be damians mom this time around or will someone else be.

think about it, we start things up with damian being bats son and sidekick , also will damian be trained by bruce this time around and could you imagine if damian was lets say catwoman and bats son, how messed up of a family reunion would that be, or how that would play out at the dinner table, : hey mom, i caught the joker last night with dad, catwoman: good for you son now get your elbows off that pile of money mommy stole from gotham bank... Bruce: do what your mother tells you ,or you wont go out tonight with me and batgirl and kick some thugs ass, damiank dad man i sure hope batgirl wears that tight shirt , she has great ti...Catwoman: damiaaan..... bruce: that a boy( winks at him

 

[Sweet Rabbit]

this whole reboot will end badly for DC

 

[The Batman Professor]

Who's bashing Bob? IMO, he's the creator of one of the greatest superheros of all time. And he's damn lucky his dad got a contract drawn up otherwise he'd be in the same situation.

A lot of people in the industry like to bash Kane. If it's not the usual "Bill Finger got screwed" moaning, it's over Kane's use of swipe or the Jerry Robinson Joker nonsense. I love Robinson's art, but his version of the Joker's creation does't hold water.

 

[Silent December]

Red Lanterns #1

 

[The Mike]

I love the Red Lanterns but they are one-dimensional. Outside of Atrocitus there is no way they can hold a monthly title. Mini-series maybe.

 

[The Mike]

Green Lantern Corps #1

 

[The Mike]

Green Lantern: New Guardians

Looks like:

Kyle - Green
Saint Walker - Blue
Bleez - Red
Glomulus - Orange
Arkillo - Yellow
Monk - Indigo
Carol - Violet

Wasn't there a tease of Black in there too originally?