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Major guilds support Kirby vs. Marvel's rights to properties (Up: Settlment Reached)

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Slayven

Member
wait didnt he do another huge saga after infinity war? then started infinity watch and tied up all the other chars from his runs then disappeared lol. Guy is awesome.
Infinity Abyss and Marvel The End is all I know

What is going on with Milestone does his wife have the rights to that imprint now that Mc Duffie passed away or something? Dwayne was that dude, and he saved that Smedium good JL show with the impressive JLU show and come on, Damage Inc. Nothing else is needed.
I guess she is just fine with DC licensing the characters.
I've never understood why Rob Liefeld likes to draw archers when he quite obviously doesn't know how.
Shaft's bow is magnetic.
 

C4Lukins

Junior Member
Even if the family is in the right, I cannot see them wanting to go through this for some prolonged period considering the giant they are battling. A settlement where they agree to a small percentage of the gross of the comic characters involved would probably be in the best interest of everyone. Say it was only one percent you are looking at 100's of millions of dollars in the longterm for the Kirby heirs.
 
Just curious, why are so many people convinced that Kirby's family is "in the right?" It all boils down to what contracts were signed, have any of those been published?

Has anyone ever won one of these cases?

I think the closest was Jerry Siegel with Superman, his family won some judgements, but I believe those got thrown out based on some contracts that were signed.
 

Dead Man

Member
If it was Kirby himself I would be all for it, but I am philosophically opposed to heirs having any greater right to controlling things they did not create than anyone else. I have no knowledge on the legal standing of either party, this is just my opinion in general.
 
If it was Kirby himself I would be all for it, but I am philosophically opposed to heirs having any greater right to controlling things they did not create than anyone else. I have no knowledge on the legal standing of either party, this is just my opinion in general.

But he was fighting it before his death, his kids are just continuing the fight.
 

rakhir

Member
I remember an interview with Dennis O'Neil (probably the Kevin Smith podcasts about Batman) where he told a story about his character from the first Iron Man movie. He created Obadiah Stane during his work on Iron Man comic and when O'Neil saw that Marvel used that character he called Marvel heads, apparently jokingly, about this and later got a royalty check from them.

It pains me that Kirby and his family doesn't have much money from his creations, but he knew really well at the time of his marvel work that he won't have the rights to any of his creations.

The worst part of this whole problem for me is that later in his life he claimed to be the creator of characters that he most likely wasn't (like Spider-Man), and that complicates everything a bit.
 

Eusis

Member
It includes Fantastic Four as well. As I understand it (and I could be WAY, WAY off base), Kirby's heirs could potentially deny Marvel the use of any of the characters. So yeah, they could force Marvel, Sony or Fox to pay them a substantial amount every time they want to make a film using those same characters.

And as I understand it, Kirby's heirs are in the right, basically continuing Kirby's old case up until he died. So this isn't just some money-grab sprung after-the-fact of Marvel's success by some wanting kids. This is the same case Kirby had been fighting Marvel on all along where he basically got fucked by them.
Huh, yeah, would be for the best Kirby's heirs won then, plus it'd be morbidly fascinating to see this sudden X factor (heh) spring up and royally mess with Fox's current arrangements.
 

Mistouze

user-friendly man-cashews
I hope they win if only for a greater recognition of the genius that Jack Kirby was.

Dude was the king, still is.
 
Agent%2BAmerica%2BPromo.jpeg

FA2%2B-%2BSMASH.jpg

I think he said he intentionally ripped of those designs as a F-U to Marvel over some contract negotiations or something.
 

Dead Man

Member
But he was fighting it before his death, his kids are just continuing the fight.

Yeah, but if the person that did the work can't benefit I am not so concerned. I would be happy with a decision for the family in this instance, since as you say he was already fighting it. But in actions started by heirs it just doesn't matter to me morally if person A or company B who both had very little to do with a property then control it.

I am not really in favour of unrestricted inheritance though, so I know this makes mine a minority opinion :)
 

IrishNinja

Member
everyone understands work-for-hire for the most part, but it's still bullshit seeing creators of these empires gypped out of so very much. there's a metaphor in my mind for blues artists & comic creators here.

that said, love to MHWilliams for his posts - never did see the details on Kirby's resolution with Marvel on the art before.

And dude came back to kill Thanos and have Thanos fix the universe so no one could be resurrected so no one could use Thanos again.

1 month later Marvel promptly ignores that shit by resurrecting Wonder Man I think of all people.

do you have a twitter? we need an unberfacts of crazy retconned shit one day. id open with that jemas era book where a young aunt may got knocked up with peter.

They should have a class in law school just for comic book legal mess. They could do a whole Semester just on Captain Marvel.

see i'dve opened up with Miracle/Marvel Man but that's good too
 

Slayven

Member
everyone understands work-for-hire for the most part, but it's still bullshit seeing creators of these empires gypped out of so very much. there's a metaphor in my mind for blues artists & comic creators here.

that said, love to MHWilliams for his posts - never did see the details on Kirby's resolution with Marvel on the art before.



do you have a twitter? we need an unberfacts of crazy retconned shit one day. id open with that jemas era book where a young aunt may got knocked up with peter.



see i'dve opened up with Miracle/Marvel Man but that's good too
You talking about Trouble? Can't talk about Trouble without getting some fans spitting mad.
 

NimbusD

Member
This would essentially ruin the profitability of the MCU if Marvel lost rights.

On the other hand, we could possibly get Spider-Man in Avengers...

How so? Why would Kirby's estate want to cripple the MCU and the profit coming from all of the movies? They're not out to destroy what's being done with it, just claim profits as part of the copyright for Kirby's creations. If they started fucking with movies or comics out of spite, they wouldn't really make any money out of that.
 

Showaddy

Member
Jim Starlin , what else you expect? Then after he was done at marvel he came back and did Thanos Quest /Infinity Gauntlet just to block another dude from using his cosmic chars. Baws.

Funny thing is he's at it again. They let him come back to do his new Thanos stories but they put out a company wide ban on Adam Warlock for some reason, anyway Starlin brewed up a shitstorm again until they let him use Adam.
 
Main reason is they got paid pennies back in the day to make this stuff but the publishers are still raking in millions to this day so people like Siegel and Shuster and Kirby feel it's a little unfair that so much is being made off something they got paid a hundred bucks for.

I believe the contracts are pretty explicit but the argument is that they got taken advantage of because they were young and broke.

It's a little more nuanced than that.

In the case of Superman's creators, they were smart enough to get a contract that allowed them a cut of all profits as well. However, National (now DC) got around that by charging every business expense to Superman accounts, so it appeared to make no money. Same BS is still done by movie studios to bilk people out of money made by movies.

In the case of Marvel, they wrote the conditions on the backs of checks, so that if you signed the check, you signed the contract. I don't think they were in place initially.
 
[IG]http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-DW2Pj-d9pdg/ToLmTF4GaDI/AAAAAAAAB_E/vv9Eomojng8/s1600/Agent%2BAmerica%2BPromo.jpeg[/IMG]
[IG]http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-olTuwzsTnLw/ToLm83arAeI/AAAAAAAAB_s/4zRWn5RNTpw/s400/FA2%2B-%2BSMASH.jpg[/IMG]

Rip off so hard you would have thought he made them at image

Ellis rips off FF in Planetary and that seems to be OK. Liefeld takes a little bit of inspiration to create this and you all pile on him. tsk tsk.
 
Ellis rips off FF in Planetary and that seems to be OK. Liefeld takes a little bit of inspiration to create this and you all pile on him. tsk tsk.

So much wrong is this comparison it's not funny.

Just for starters, Planetary is in part a critique *of* Marvel Comics, with The Four as proxies of Marvel itself.
 

Eusis

Member
You guys do realise that if the Kirby family win it will be us comics fans that will suffer.
I'd be surprised if they didn't just work out a licensing deal and kept business going as usual. Which leaves me to wonder how it could impact the movies given Marvel themselves signed bum contracts there.
 
So much wrong is this comparison it's not funny.

Just for starters, Planetary is in part a critique *of* Marvel Comics, with The Four as proxies of Marvel itself.

I am sure you also believe that Astro City is a reconstruction of the super hero genre and not just a comic book with store brand Superman, Wonder Woman and Batman.

You all are just jealous of Liefeld's gift of drawing the human anatomy.
 

Measley

Junior Member
I hope the Kirby family gets it, just to see the mega corporations of Disney, Sony, and FOX getting fucked over for once.
 
I am sure you also believe that Astro City is a reconstruction of the super hero genre and not just a comic book with store brand Superman, Wonder Woman and Batman.

You all are just jealous of Liefeld's gift of drawing the human anatomy.

I think you're trolling, but did you read Planetary? The Four have almost no screen time.
 

Parallax

best seen in the classic "Shadow of the Beast"
Ellis rips off FF in Planetary and that seems to be OK. Liefeld takes a little bit of inspiration to create this and you all pile on him. tsk tsk.

....youd get lesser cats with that bait

So much wrong is this comparison it's not funny.

Just for starters, Planetary is in part a critique *of* Marvel Comics, with The Four as proxies of Marvel itself.

you really took that as being serious?
 

bengraven

Member
Excellent.

Looking at the costs, I could see Marvel supporting this actually. they put it in place and the only people who can afford it or would want to pay would be a company with deep pockets like Marvel/Disney. So then Sony and Fox are like "too high, this cost" and properties all end up at Marvel.

Then Marvel knocks off the Kirby family and we get Spider-man/Wolverine vs. The Hulk.
 

Vibranium

Banned
I hope the Kirbys get something worked out, Jack definitely was treated like shit by Goodman and a lot of other people at the company, as told in Marvel Comics The Untold Story (I don't blame Lee, he's natural showman and knew how to play the game). I figure a settlement of some sort will come out of this.

And this might be an interesting tactic for Disney to try to knock Sony and Fox around.
 
I hope the Kirbys get something worked out, Jack definitely was treated like shit by Goodman and a lot of other people at the company, as told in Marvel Comics The Untold Story (I don't blame Lee, he's natural showman and knew how to play the game). I figure a settlement of some sort will come out of this.

And this might be an interesting tactic for Disney to try to knock Sony and Fox around.

None of Kirby's characters on in the hands of Fox & Sony.
They are all in Disney's hands.
 

DarkFlow

Banned
I hope the Kirby family gets it, just to see the mega corporations of Disney, Sony, and FOX getting fucked over for once.

Seeing as they've lost every case so far, I don't have high hopes for them. Plus, you can't really fuck over these corps, they will just move on to something else, and we no longer get comic book movies.

None of Kirby's characters on in the hands of Fox & Sony.
They are all in Disney's hands.
Well umm... Fox has Fantastic Four.
 

sharbhund

Member
I hope the Kirbys get something worked out, Jack definitely was treated like shit by Goodman and a lot of other people at the company, as told in Marvel Comics The Untold Story (I don't blame Lee, he's natural showman and knew how to play the game). I figure a settlement of some sort will come out of this.

And this might be an interesting tactic for Disney to try to knock Sony and Fox around.

I just read that book. A relevant story in it is this bit on Spider-Man:
But even as things were falling into place for the Spider-Man movie, more battles were under way. After Stan Lee reminisced in Comic Book Marketplace about his inspirations for writing an acclaimed late 1965 issue of Amazing Spider-Man, Steve Ditko broke his long silence. “Stan never knew what was in my plotted stories,” the artist wrote to the magazine’s editors, “until I took in the penciled story, the cover, my script and Sol Brodsky took the material from me and took it all into Stan’s office, so I had to leave without seeing or talking to Stan.” A few months later, after Lee was identified in Time as the creator of Spider-Man, Ditko popped up on that magazine’s letters page, too: “Spider-Man’s existence needed a visual concrete entity,” Ditko wrote. “It was a collaboration of writer-editor Stan Lee and Steve Ditko as co-creators.” This time Lee picked up the phone and called Ditko, for the first time in more than thirty years.

“Steve said, ‘Having an idea is nothing, because until it becomes a physical thing, it’s just an idea,’” Lee recalled. “And he said it took him to draw the strip, and to give it life, so to speak, or to make it actually something tangible. Otherwise, all I had was an idea. So I said to him, ‘Well, I think the person who has the idea is the person who creates it. And he said, ‘No, because I drew it.’ Anyway, Steve definitely felt that he was the co-creator of Spider-Man. And that was really, after he said it, I saw it meant a lot to him that was fine with me. So I said fine, I’ll tell everybody you’re the co-creator. That didn't quite satisfy him. So I sent him a letter.”

But the wording of the open letter that Lee sent out in August 1999 was a stumbling block. “I have always considered Steve Ditko to be Spider-Man’s co-creator,” it read, and Ditko quickly pointed out that “ ‘Considered’ means to ponder, look at closely, examine, etc. and does not admit, or claim, or state that Steve Ditko is Spider-Man’s co-creator.”

“At that point,” Lee said, “I gave up.”
 

Lmo911

Member
Crazy Conspiracy Theory!

Kirby's family wins the case... all the character rights revert to them, making all the current movie studio contracts worthless.

Disney jumps to the head of the line and pays 1 billion dollars for the rights to ALL of Kirby's creations.

Marvel now has full access to their entire cinematic universe.
 

GAMEPROFF

Banned
Crazy Conspiracy Theory!

Kirby's family wins the case... all the character rights revert to them, making all the current movie studio contracts worthless.

Disney jumps to the head of the line and pays 1 billion dollars for the rights to ALL of Kirby's creations.

Marvel now has full access to their entire cinematic universe.

If this is possible, I hope they win.

If not, I hope they lose.
 
With the bullshit Kane pulled Finger's family can't do shit.

Finger can't even get a credit as co-creator. Kane's contract is apparently ironclad.

There are stories over the years of various people at DC saying (internally) about what a shame it was about Bill Finger and that if and when they got in a position to change it they would get him his credit, only for them to find out, when they actually did get in that position and got a look at the contract, that Kane and the Kane estates control is absolute. Likely giving Finger a credit on any publication would be a breach of the contract and put DC in a poor position to have to renegotiate a deal with the Kane estate on even more favorable terms.

The only people who could give Bill Finger his proper credit are the Kane family/estate.
 

Neoxon

Junior Member
If Marvel plays their cards right, this could be the way to get the other character back.

Just give the Kirby family a fair cut, get them on decent terms. Sony doesn't have much money right now & I'm not sure if Fox will pay up. If they don't, that could be used as leverage to legally get the rights back, assuming the specifics allow this to occur. Correct me if I'm wrong.

Worst-case, none of the Guardians characters were made by Jack Kirby. Maybe Ronan was, but that's it to my knowledge.
 
Crazy Conspiracy Theory!

Kirby's family wins the case... all the character rights revert to them, making all the current movie studio contracts worthless.

Disney jumps to the head of the line and pays 1 billion dollars for the rights to ALL of Kirby's creations.

Marvel now has full access to their entire cinematic universe.

I was just thinking about this too. Fox might just give up the F4 rights not finding the idea of paying extra to make the movies worth it.

At the same time the idea of Marvel not being able to use their own characters at all Avengers included seem so ridiculous to me. Seems they're hurting the fans more than anything else. It's bad enough the movie rights are split up like it is.
 
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