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Plus leave us a comment below with what your favorite comic book is and while you ponder
that lets jump right into today's list of the Top 10 Comic Book Lawsuits You Wont Believe
#10 Spawn First thing when it comes to lawsuits you
wont believe we have to start with Spawn creator Todd McFarlane suing an ex employee because
he claimed to be the inspiration for the character.
In the early 1990s Todd had hit the jackpot with his creation of the comic book character
Al Simmons whos tragic story would lead to him becoming Spawn.
When the comic book became successful a former employee, who you guessed it, has the name
Al Simmons, wrote a book called The Art of Being Spawn.
In the book Simmons suggests more than once that the character was based on his own life
and was used as the inspiration.
According to a lawsuit filed in an Arizona federal court, Todd sued Simmons for violating
the terms of his employment pact which breached his duty of loyalty.
McFarlane did ask to use the mans name for the character, but his central attributes
had nothing to do with the former employee.
The main reason for this bizarre lawsuit was that Todd did not want someone else mooching
off the comic book that he had created.
#9 Liefeld Gets Robbed Rob Liefeld is best known as the creator of
Deadpool, Cable, Youngblood and X-Force, plus a version of Captain America.
Back in 1990 he had co-founded an independent comic book company with 6 other former comic
book artists who had worked for Marvel.
His former partners at Image Comics incorporated had refused to pay rob the money he was owed
from the sales of his titled distributed through Image.
As a result, he filed a lawsuit for 1 million dollars and this was back in 1996, so man
oh man was that huge.
Now hes found himself in the comic book courtroom yet again calling out Marvel for its shady
practices with his Deadpool character rights.
In a series of strange tweets he even tagged Marvel and Robert Iger the current CEO of
Disney.
In the tweet Rob said - Had a good long talk with my attorney.
Time to hold some feet to the fire for some shady practices over at Marvel.
Good times to come Robert Iger.- Yikes, were guessing that after the success of the Deadpool
movie he did not get a big enough cheque.
#8 Hells Angels Yup you got that right, even the Hells Angels
have sued people in the past.
The ultra famous biker club gang brought Marvel Comics to court in 1992 under intellectual
property theft.
Marvel had just named a comic book after one of their newest additions to the team called
Hells Angel.
Now you may be asking wait how can a biker gang sue people, well that's where their lawyer
Mr. Clapp comes in and its kinda genius.
You see in 1970 Clapp formed the Hell's Angels Motorcycle Corporation which was a non profit
established to protect the clubs intellectual property.
Marvel was accused of using the clubs name to get a free ride due to their highly recognizable
and powerfully evocative name for the female character that debuted in July of 1992.
Marvel not wanting to mess around with the mob they changed the characters name to Dark
Angel and then came to the agreement that they would donate 35,000 dollars to a childrens
charity.
#7 No More Wonder Man During the birth of the character Superman
DC comics wasted almost no time following its release to start handing out lawsuits.
They had seen other comic books blatantly ripping each other off and sought to protect
their greatest asset to date.
That's why in 1939 DC sent an injunction to stop Bruns Publications from ever putting
out its Wonder Man title.
The legend himself Will Eisner had drawn the character and both Eisner and the company
tried to argue that Wonder Man came before Superman.
Although the courts for whatever reason decided to go with DC giving life to Superman and
just like that Wonder Man was suddenly no more.
This was an important win for DC though as it gave them a legally binding case when it
came to protecting their property and encouraged them to file more lawsuits in the future.
#6 Stan for Spider-Man This one is a biggie for sure.
Back in 2002 the first big box office Spider-Man movie was released and destroyed box office
numbers that year grossing more than 400 million dollars in the United States alone.
However at the time Stan Lee said that he hadnt seen a penny of that money.
Knowing that Marvel was planning on using some of his other creations for box office
films, Stan took a preemptive strike suing Marvel for 10 million dollars.
In the lawsuit it said - Despite reaping enormous benefits from Mr. Lees creations, defendants
have refused to honour their commitments to him.
It would take another 3 years before Marvel finally announced that they had settled all
outstanding litigation with Stan.
Hopefully he got every last penny.
#5 Batman and Bill Bill Finger had co-created arguably one of
the most iconic characters of all time.
Batman turned out to not just be a hit with fans, but become one of the most lucrative
comic book characters in the last century.
Another man by the name of Bob Kane was not only taking the credit, but all of the cash
as well.
Kane had essentially come up with the raw outline of what Batman would look like, but
it was the genius of Bill Finger that truly made the Batman into the character we know
him as today.
The two worked collaboratively on the character but never split the profits in the same way.
It would take nearly 75 years of law suits, court battles, artist squabbles and Bills
own family fighting for his recognition well after he had died for this to come to a close.
Were not sure exactly if there would be any payouts to Bills estate, but hes at least
going to be credited now on anything Batman.
#4 The Superman Battle The OG Superman was created by writer Jerome
Siegel and Illustrated by Joseph Shuster.
At the time each of them had been credited with a 50 percent stake in the royalties of
the character.
This was all well and good until the big dog in town DC comics rolled up and conned the
two of them into selling the character for 130 dollars.
The pair would work on and off for DC comics until they company no longer had work for
them.
For the majority of their lives both dealt with health issues but could barely afford
to live off the money they were making.
All while DC was raking in billions with their Superman character.
The pair had attempted to sue the company, but the law at the time always sided with
DC because their contract stated that DC would own the rights to Superman following anything
that they had created.
#3 Ghost Rider This one makes me go crazy.
Legit its one of the silliest lawsuits Ive ever heard of.
After a bitter and depressing five year legal battle regarding a biker with a flaming skull,
Marvel beats Ghost Rider creator Gary Friedrich.
Gary now must stop from ever referring to himself as Ghost Rider creator Gary Friedrich.
In 2007 Gary had filed a lawsuit against Marvel claiming that the rights to Ghost Rider had
been his since 2001 and that by creating a film they were exploiting his creation.
Marvel on the other hand argued that Gary relinquished all rights to the character by
signing his cheques that were made clear all work done by his was a work for hire contract.
Meaning that Marvel owned the rights this entire time.
Although as you know Marvel did not stop there they counter sued Friedrich in 2010 seeking
damages for loss of all income that Gary had received by selling Ghost Rider Prints and
other merchandise while at various conventions.
#2 Shazam In June of 1941 National Comics had sued Fawcett
for copyright infringement when it came down to their character known as Captain Marvel.
Once Fawcetts Captain Marvel began outselling DC’s Superman they raised the argument that
the characters main powers and characteristics were far too similar to Superman's.
Therefore it infringed on its copyright and the two would engage in a legal battle that
lasted well over 12 years.
The judge finally ruled that Captain Marvel was a copy of Superman, but because DC did
not place a copyright logo on their comic strips they could not file under copyright
infringement.
Although DC still fought tooth and nail to reclaim what they believed was there's.
With Fawcetts sales dropping in the early 1950s the appeal to the first trial really
hurt them financially.
They agreed to pay out a settlement of 400,000 dollars which would be nearly 4 million dollars
today.
DC essentially consumed all of Fawcett's characters after this and renamed Captain Marvel as Shazam.
#1 Stan Lee Back in May of 2018 Stan Lee found himself
again battling with a former company of his.
This time it was Pow!
Entertainment.
Stan Lee was going all out as well seeking a one billion dollar lawsuit Lee had accused
the companies CEO Shane Duffy and co-founder Gill Champion of conspiring and I quote - to
fraudulently steal Lees identity, name, image, and likeness as part of a nefarious scheme
to benefit financially at his expense - This all came following Stans devastating decline
in health.
The case however was soon dismissed by the courts as they deemed the lawsuit meritless.
Apparently the company and Stan were able to work out an arrangement behind the scenes
and without a court involved.
And that has been the Top 10 Comic Book Lawsuits You Wont Believe.
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From Top 10 Nerd, I'm Johnny Rogers and until next time, take care.