Man Of Steel Free To Fly Again

An interesting thing happened this past week. Superman was saved. No, there wasn’t another Superman movie made, rather a court decision was ruled that places the copyrights and all decisions surrounding the Man of Steel into the hands of its original creator. Well, his children at least.

The court ruled that the family of Jerome Seigel will take over proprietorship of Superman after several decades of being under the DC Comics and Warner Brothers thumb. Basically, when Action Comics premiered in 1938, Seigel signed his rights away to make a little money. Those rights were then shared by Warner Brothers and DC Comics. I’m sure he (and subsequently DC Comics) had no idea how huge Superman was going to get in the future. Now, the judge has said the Seigel’s deserve to have more say-so about Superman since the character itself is an American icon.

There are several schools of thought running through my mind when I hear this. First and foremost I did cartwheels because it seems this time the small guy won over the mighty corporation. However, was it the right decision?

I look at it this way. Our country was founded on the belief you can do anything if you put your mind to it. Seigel put his mind to a character and sold it to feed his family. Then, the character became bigger and bigger. While I’m plenty sure Seigel got a kick out of watching his creation take over the comic book industry, he must’ve felt a bit slighted not getting a bigger piece of the pie. Here in lies the actual debate.

Personally, I don’t see the harm in giving his family a bigger take. Lord knows DC and Warner Brothers have made millions of dollars off of Seigel’s idea. Giving up the rights to it still allows them to make money, just not as much. Besides, does anyone ever feel sorry for a corporation having to give up money?

Leaving politics aside, I say DC and Warner Brothers deserved this for another reason: a severe lack of creativity with Superman in the last 12 or so years. I mean they actually tried to kill him in the comic book to boost sales and the last movie they made was a dismal failure. On those merits alone I’m thrilled to see Clark Kent and company get new owners. They can’t do much worse.

The down side to this is DC is about to lose control of one of their favorite characters. The transfer of power won’t take place until 2013. This means they will gear up for another Superman movie by 2011 and rake in whatever they can between that time. Again, it’s hard to feel sorry for a company who cries at the loss and turns around and makes millions more before they have to give up the rights. Oh, the corporate world. Isn’t it grand?

I always assume I don’t know everything about any court case I read about. For all I know there might have been a clause in Seigel’s original agreement to share more profits if the character made X amount of money. I find it difficult to believe a judge decided out of the blue to reward the family out of the kindness of his heart and not on a legal basis. Be that as it may, it looks as though another Superman movie is on the horizon and, since Warner Brothers and DC are still in charge, I have one serious question for them. Can you PLEASE make a Superman movie that doesn’t suck?