Who’s Cheating Who?

Published 6:00 am Sunday, February 19, 2012

For many of us comic book fans, every summer brings the anticipation that another one of our beloved super hero icons will be prominently displayed on the big screen. Making no exception, this year we have Batman, The Avengers, and Spider-Man set to honor the stories and characters from the imaginations of the creators who made them (and rake in some big bucks along the way).

    This brings us to a film that was released this past week, Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance. Despite shaky reviews and an almost unanimous panning, its predecessor, simply titled Ghost Rider, somehow managed to gross over $230 million worldwide at the box office. As someone with a vested interest in the success of the film, Gary Friedrich (co-creator and initial writer of Marvel’s flame-headed, motorcycle riding Ghost Rider, as well as its Western counterpart, also called The Ghost Rider) sued Marvel Comics and many other companies associated with the 2007 film while it was still in production. His claim was that Marvel never registered Ghost Rider with the Copyright Office and because of this; Friedrich would have retained the rights to the character after 30 years.

    In 2011, U.S. District Judge Katherine Forrest tossed out the suit by Friedrich and stated that he signed an agreement with Marvel in 1978 relinquishing his rights in exchange for the possibility of additional freelance work in the future. According to Friedrich, he thought he had only given Marvel the rights to use Ghost Rider in comic books, but retained the film rights and anything else other than comics. Unfortunately, when questioned by Marvel attorneys, it was revealed that there wasn’t anything in writing to this effect. Marvel countersued for the sum of $17,000, a rough estimate of the earnings Friedrich made attending conventions and signing unlicensed Ghost Rider merchandise. Marvel has agreed to drop the countersuit if Friedrich not only pays the $17,000, but also neither claims his status of Ghost Rider creator nor profits from unlicensed merchandise – effectively cutting out his income potential. Fellow creators Neal Adams and Steve Niles have started an online campaign to help Mr. Friedrich, but the sentiment and ramifications of Marvel’s decision has put many on the fence.

    Unfortunately, this isn’t an isolated instance of questioning a creator’s stake in the profitability of an intellectual property. Jack Kirby, who died in 1994, is still fighting for compensation (through his estate) for the characters Captain America and The Hulk, both appearing in this summer’s The Avengers as well as previously in films of their own. Jerome Siegel and Joseph Shuster, co-creators of Superman, have been in a long standing legal battle with Warner Bros. through their estates over the Man of Steel’s copyright. Right now, Siegel’s heirs own a portion of the copyright and in 2013; the heirs of Shuster will receive their portion, changing the landscape of Superman’s future for all venues.

    It seems as if the morality and upstanding personas that we see in comic books aren’t exactly carried over by the companies profiting from these characters in the real world. As simply stated in the first Spider-Man story, published in Amazing Fantasy #15 in August of 1962, “With great power, there must also come — great responsibility”. Maybe we need to get the estate of Voltaire on the phone for copyright infringement.