And now for something completely different

[rivkat]

Choice phrases from the opinion I've been reading -- and FYI, these are legal arguments on which millions of dollars turn:

“‘Superboy’ is merely ‘Superman’ in smaller tights.”

“I cannot accept defendants view that Superboy was in reality Superman.... Superboy was a separate and distinct entity.”

Siegel v. Time Warner Inc., 2007 WL 2172822 (C.D.Cal.)

I love my job.

Comments

[giandujakiss.livejournal.com]

Well ... pre or post Crisis? Duh.

[rivkat.livejournal.com]

Pre, because the issue is whether a separate new character was created in 1945, when he first appeared, or whether he was a derivative work of Superman.

I would kind of love to be working on this case and get to call DC for all the early Action Comics.

[giandujakiss.livejournal.com]

Yeah, but, you understood the point of my question, right? The character itself has significantly transformed; he once was a younger Superman but I'm reasonably certain that changed at some point ... I think it changed during the Crisis but maybe it happened at a different time.

[rivkat.livejournal.com]

Oh, absolutely. The current Superboy is not the Superboy in litigation, who was a young Clark Kent from SV, so the litigation doesn't affect Kon-El.

Nonetheless, if plaintiffs do win, there will be a nightmare valuation question; for one thing, the producers stated a bunch of times that SV-Clark was not Superboy, and that's been borne out by some of the developments.

[jocelyncs.livejournal.com]

*pulls opinion for distribution among all the IP and litigation people at my office*

Day. Made. LOLZ

[brownbetty]

I have had to delete my comment three times, because I kept on succumbing to the temptation to go wax eloquent on Superboy's time travels with the Legion of Superheroes and how I felt this supported Time Warner's case.

[rivkat.livejournal.com]

Oh, I wish you would.

[brownbetty]

Well, this is during the era of hypertime, AKA, "yes that year happened in the middle of the weekend, shut up, a wizard did it," although before they were forced to invent the phrase hypertime to explain how the hell this worked, because Superboy for some reason was the Wolverine of his era and guest-starred in every single comic-book ever, regardless of whether it made any sense at all, including books where his older self was already present.

BUT: he also guest-starred quite regularly in the Legion of Superheroes in the (I believe) 30th century, which was outside of the scope of time dilation that they felt people would overlook (apparently) so they 1) invented a time travel device for him which does sort of help if you want to explain why he's not only in two places at once but he's in one place twice at once. er. But also he was 2) recognized as Superman, or at least, the Superman-to-be of the past, by the future citizens.

Looking at it typed out, I admit it doesn't look terribly compelling.

[rivkat.livejournal.com]

How rococo. Or possibly I mean baroque.

Incidentally, I have Kara explain "a wizard did it" in my soon-to-be-finished *crosses fingers* epic, but I wonder whether it's too obvious.