[PREV - AMAZING_AUGUST_1928]    [TOP]

ACT_OF_CREATION


                                              September 30, 2008
                                              October   12, 2008


The general slant of "Men of Tomorrow" is           MEN_OF_TOMORROW
that Siegel and Schuster were creative
geniuses who were cheated of their just                    Other creators, when
rewards -- but even just using the                         trapped into a bad
evidence presented in the book, it looks                   deal they cut when
like Siegel was a one hit wonder, and his                  they were young,
one hit was just not that brilliant a job:                 have shown a pattern
                                                           of quitting and
Superman was born of:                                      striking out again
  o  a name from an advertisement for Doc Savage           with a new creation
  o  a Philip Wylie novel with heavy ideas removed         that they own
  o  the secret identity of Zorro and Pimpernel            unambiguously.
  o  the visual form of the comic strips: "Tarzan",
     "Buck Rodgers", "The Phantom"...                      Siegel tried this,
                                                           but could never
          There isn't much you             TIGHTS          get a follow-up
          can point to about                               to work.
          "Superman" that seems       SUPER_CAMP
          fabulously new.                                      Maybe that
                                      GLADIATOR                says something?

                                      DOC_SAVAGE
The hugely popular "Captain Marvel"
comic was shot down legally as a
mere imitator of Superman, but             Philip Wylie, though, was unable
Superman then lifted ideas from            to succeed with his lawsuit --
"Captain Marvel": the original
Superman jumped, ala the Hulk,                  Why are we supposed to
"Captain Marvel" was first in flight.           consider Siegel the
                                                ultimate source, the true
   And notably, by today's                      creator and not Wylie?
   standards, "Captain Marvel"
   would just seem like another
   superhero comic, hardly
   close enough to Superman for
   a law suit.

                           Who does it second is what matters
                           for the foundation of a genre,
                           but only after the genre is established
                           does it become hard to claim priority.



   It's hard to feel there's any
   justice behind this American
   Way of suing everyone.

   It's the ultimate triumph of
   Superman: he defeated the
   Gladiator, he defeated Captain
   Marvel, he even defeated his
   creators (for a time)...             It occurs to me that I don't even know
                                        what possible basis there could be for
                                        any of these suits: certainly not
                                        "copyright" infringement, we're talking
                                        about ideas here, not words.  Trademark,
                                        perhaps?

                                        I suppose I need to learn more about
                                        this:  if you want to understand the
                                        art, you need to understand the biz,
                                        and hence the law.


Just for the hell of it:
   
Consider the possibility that    
Superman was just a fluke,    
Siegel and Schuster were               And also consider the contrary:
anointed by a lighting strike    
that might easily have chosen          Siegel's contribution may indeed have
someone or something else.             been tiny, but it may also have been
                                       critical -- the sort of thing that
                                       may seem obvious in retrospect, but
                                       only in retrospect.
            What alternate
            realities might
            exist?



--------
[NEXT - THE_SOURCE]