Comic Book Resources

I'm amazed and in awe that you'd have time to practice law with all the blogging you do over here at CBR as well as promoting your book.

I hear that Warner bros has to get another Superman movie in production by 2011 if they want to keep that in the business.
I wonder who's directing it, and who's starring in it. (please not Kate Bosworth).

Tom. the judgment, at least if I understood Brian, is that if WB doesn't get a movie into production by 2011 , then the Siegles might have the right to sue about it.

I know that National Periodicals treated Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster shabbily, but the conduct of the estate is hard to feel any sympathy for. Warner Brothers had nothing to do with the harm done to Siegel and Shuster. DC Comics as it currently exists had almost nothing to do with it. In fact, Warner stepped in a paid a pension to Siegel and Shuster that they had no legal obligation to pay as P.R. for the first Superman film.

Siegel and Shuster are both dead, so there is nothing that can be done to compensate them or mitigate the harm done to them all those years ago. Were it not for the lobbying of giant media companies, the rights for a property like Superman would have gone into the public domain long ago. The monies they are receiving from "Superman Returns" and "Smallville" are a windfall.

It is absurd that they are constantly in court over it.

You're correct, Scavenger.

There is no right to revert, which is often useful (SO useful that it's practically considered standard now) to push a movie into production (which, of course, results in more money to the people who are licensing the book/character for the movie) by saying "if you don't start filming by 20XX, then we get to sell the rights to another studio."

So the Siegels wanted to be able to sue for the money they lost over DC failing to get a reversion right. The judge, though, decided that not enough time has passed for him to reasonably say that any opportunity had been lost. If they don't get a movie begun by 2011, however, he'd be a lot more willing to say "Yeah, the lack of a right to revert has clearly caused them to lose some money by now," so the Siegels could then sue DC for X amount of damages over the failure to get a right of reversion.

I know that National Periodicals treated Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster shabbily, but the conduct of the estate is hard to feel any sympathy for. Warner Brothers had nothing to do with the harm done to Siegel and Shuster. DC Comics as it currently exists had almost nothing to do with it. In fact, Warner stepped in a paid a pension to Siegel and Shuster that they had no legal obligation to pay as P.R. for the first Superman film.

Siegel and Shuster are both dead, so there is nothing that can be done to compensate them or mitigate the harm done to them all those years ago. Were it not for the lobbying of giant media companies, the rights for a property like Superman would have gone into the public domain long ago. The monies they are receiving from “Superman Returns” and “Smallville” are a windfall.

It is absurd that they are constantly in court over it.

Look at it this way, let's say you owned a house with somebody, 50/50 split.

Then you say, "Okay, so sell the house and we'll split the money evenly" and then the guy sells it to his sister for $5,000 and says, "Here's your share, $2,500!"

Obviously that's not going to please you, right? Even if the $2,500 was a "windfall" for you.

That's what the Siegels felt that DC Comics was doing with its corporate "sister" Warner Bros. Entertainment. The court disagreed. It's all pretty normal stuff, the Siegels are half-owners on Superman and want to make sure they're getting all the money they are rightfully owed.

Someone once described to me that the Gaiman/McFarlane lawsuit over Miracleman ownership rights was the gold standard of all legal suits.

I'm guessing that you're still following up on that matter, Mr. Cronin, how does that case stand now, and basically, is Gaiman any closer to getting Miracleman back?

Were it not for the lobbying of giant media companies, the rights for a property like Superman would have gone into the public domain long ago.

Though I am sympathetic to Siegel's family, it's also worth mentioning that if a media company like DC didn't start publishing Superman in the first place, there would not be any financially successful property to argue over today (and presumably years from now, too). Superman would be as valuable of a property as the Green Llama if not for DC's 70 years of marketing.

It's pretty obvious to me that it was DC (and to a lesser extent, Warner Brothers) who made Superman into a worldwide icon -- not Siegel. But copyright laws are copyright laws, and I do hope that at the end of the day Siegel's heirs get compensated fairly in a way that Jerry Siegel never was. I don't know enough about copyright law to know what "fair" means, though.

The next few years will really be interesting when it comes to Superman. Anyone know how the EU public domain Popeye situation has gone?

I wonder, would a "Justice League" or "Batman vs. Superman" movie count, or would it have to be a solo Superman movie?

Dude, thanks, I start law school in a month and I was really worried that I would never have time for comics again for the rest of my life, plus I really hunt for explanations of the IP disputes.

I wonder if we are going to see WB pull a Fantastic Four in order to have made that movie by 2011, or is that so transparent now that it'll never be done again?

Though I am sympathetic to Siegel’s family, it’s also worth mentioning that if a media company like DC didn’t start publishing Superman in the first place, there would not be any financially successful property to argue over today (and presumably years from now, too). Superman would be as valuable of a property as the Green Llama if not for DC’s 70 years of marketing.

Except that Superman was an original creation - and I mean that also in the sense that there wasn't anything else like it as well as a new character - and he sold gangbusters from the get-go.
The other media started coming about because he was selling millions of issues from the stories.
It's not like he was doing alright until the creators left the book, he was big - massive big - from the get-go.

Siegel and Shuster needed National to publish their creation, National needed Siegel and Shuster to have something to publish. If they didn't have each other then likely neither of them would be remembered today. I hardly think we can say one owes more than the other.

If they didn’t have each other then likely neither of them would be remembered today. I hardly think we can say one owes more than the other.

Except, one party made vastly more than the other. Siegel and Shuster were very bad deal to get Superman published. Once he was a hit, National made a fortune with Siegel-Shuster earning a relative pittance. They lost creative control very early on. Shuster was summarily dismissed and lived in poverty.

All of those things were wrong. National should have re-done the deal once Superman was a hit. It would have been the right thing morally to cut them in on a share of the profits. Siegel and Shuster had a legitimate complaint. What happened to them was wrong and it is a shame that they got so little from a creation that gave so many people so much.

That said, Siegel and Shuster are both dead. There is nothing anyone can do to right the wrong done to them. Warners did not cut the original deal. In fact, they did some small things to correct the wrong done them. To the extent that folks have affection for the property today, a lot of it derives from material Warner created (or rather hired people to create).

The heirs just seem vindictive to me.

Except, one party made vastly more than the other.

That was my point. People seem to be saying "Siegel and Shuster would be nowhere without National , they should have just shut up and been grateful". I'm saying that they BOTH needed each other so they BOTH should have shared in the reward.

The heirs just seem vindictive to me.

That seems ridiculous. Who are the parties here: 1. Siegel and Shuster's heirs, who want money and 2. Time Warner shareholders, who want money. Neither of them have much to do with what occurred between Siegel, Shuster and National. You seem to be saying (correct me if I'm wrong) "The heirs are just in court for revenge". Bullshit, they want money that they think they can get. And I'm not going to criticise them for that, you may say they don't deserve it, but I think they have just as much claim as Time Warner shareholders.

People get what money they can, that's what capitalism's about.

Bullshit, they want money that they think they can get. And I’m not going to criticise them for that, you may say they don’t deserve it, but I think they have just as much claim as Time Warner shareholders.

Yeah, the hypocrisy of people on the Internet who say this is staggering. Anyone who claims they wouldn't go for millions of dollars because his/her grandfather was screwed on a business deal which could very likely be amended so you can receive immense compensation is lying. I've seen this with Tolkien fans who argue that Tolkien's son (and literary executor) Christopher is "greedy" because he's suing to get the proper compensation that he believes his family is entitled to for the Lord of the Rings films. Why are Tolkien fans so angry, considering this man is the son of the man who created this fictional word entirely? Well, the lawsuit is delaying any progress toward a Hobbit movie, so HOW DARE THEY DELAY A MOVIE I WANT TO SEE! Just as sickening as the fans who say that the heirs of Siegel are evil, evil people because it might mean they won't get to read their Superman comics. It's very sad, pathetic, and selfish in all of the worst ways.

Except that Superman was an original creation – and I mean that also in the sense that there wasn’t anything else like it as well as a new character – and he sold gangbusters from the get-go.
The other media started coming about because he was selling millions of issues from the stories.
It’s not like he was doing alright until the creators left the book, he was big – massive big – from the get-go.

Neither National nor S&S probably had any idea that Superman would've become such the sensation he has since become. As you said, he was an original, brand new creation -- with only possibly Popeye serving as "insanely popular comic character" as a precedent. S&S made a terrible deal -- but who can blame them? They were poor, had little choice, and had no idea how valuable their character would be -- that unfortunately went very sour. I could create the next best thing on my own, but if I have no way to market or produce it (of course, it's easier with the Internet these days), the property is only "potentially valuable." My argument is that National/DC was responsible for the marketing of the character, turning Superman's "potential" value into "holy crap we're making millions of dollars" value. But yes, it's unfair that the terms of the bad deal excluded S&S from the profits -- one can say National certainly had a moral obligation to offer them a much better deal later on, but that's not exactly how big media companies tend to operate. Perhaps the judges will see it differently.

All I know is, it is a twisted world when S&S received a tiny fraction of Superman's profits and no recognition for his creation until the late 70s, while Bob Kane received substantial compensation for Batman and constant credit even on the stories he had nothing to do with and he didn't even create the lion's share of the character.

Yeah, the hypocrisy of people on the Internet who say this is staggering. Anyone who claims they wouldn’t go for millions of dollars because his/her grandfather was screwed on a business deal which could very likely be amended so you can receive immense compensation is lying. I’ve seen this with Tolkien fans who argue that Tolkien’s son (and literary executor) Christopher is “greedy” because he’s suing to get the proper compensation that he believes his family is entitled to for the Lord of the Rings films.

For better or worse, you have no idea who you are arguing with on the Internet. Lots of people have parents and grandparents who bilked out of millions of dollars and get on with their lives. As far as I can tell, nearly every creator of Gold and Silver Age was grossly underpaid relative to the revenue their creations generated. However, we aren't hearing about the estates of Gardner Fox and John Broome.

To me, that implies the motives are about something other than just money. I don't know the people, so I cannot speak to what that something else is. It just seems a little misguided. DC Comics and Warners has been a very good steward of the Superman property. Every generation has gotten a refreshed take on the character that it has taken to heart. You can name dozens of equally popular figures from the early twentieth century who are nearly forgotten, but not Superman. A huge amount of the credit for that has to go to the corporation that has managed the property.

All I am saying is that it is not a black and white issue to me.

DC and Time Warner have NOT been good stewards of Superman. Read the Superman comics from 38 to 40.

THAT Superman was an interesting character-- a rebel, a rogue, a social crusader -- a Robin Hood who could bend steel in his bare hands, a powerful and invulnerable guy who stood up to the powerful on behalf of the weak and vulnerable.

DC replaced him with Captain Vanilla, a toothless character fighting imaginary foes, totally divorced from the real problems of the world, basically a jerk who had the power to end poverty, disease, homeless, hunger, war, and other soclal ills by standing up to the greedy and powerful interests-- but chose not to. Basically a character that a greedy corporation could feel comfortable publishing comics about. THAT's why Superman has for decades been far more boring a character than Batman-- because this watered down version of the character stands for nothing. I'll admit-- I liked the Bronze Age Superman because Elliot Maggin and others scetched a fully realized and very human personality - a Superman touched with tragedy, a sardonic wit, and just the right balance of confidence and humility. I liked Byrne's Superman, but I never felt he had as rich or complex a personality, and the character has gotten less and less interesting as a person ever since.

THAT Superman was an interesting character– a rebel, a rogue, a social crusader — a Robin Hood who could bend steel in his bare hands, a powerful and invulnerable guy who stood up to the powerful on behalf of the weak and vulnerable.

@ Adam Weissman:

From a personal taste perspective, I agree with you. The material when Siegel-Shuster were in control was much better than much of what followed. There was an energy that still crackles today. Jerry Siegel remained a great writer of Superman material under Mort Weisinger and a huge percentage of the best output of the Silver Age came from his pen. I wish modern comic writers took more cues from Siegel and Shuster when they approached Superman.

That said, I loved watching the Flash Gordon serials on KTLA as a kid out here, but that property is moribund. The Shadow was utterly massive in its day, but try to find someone under 30 who knows that property. For better or worse, DC has kept Superman alive for several generations. That is not nothing.

"Lots of people have parents and grandparents who bilked out of millions of dollars and get on with their lives."

NO, they don't. A bare handful of people have ancestors that do. Almost everybody doesn't. And the ONLY reason they "get on with their lives" is that there is NOTHING they can do about it.

"we aren’t hearing about the estates of Gardner Fox and John Broome"

Yeah, because they did WORK FOR HIRE. There estates haven't got a leg to stand on. Superman WASN'T work for hire so the S&S estate does. IF Gardner Fox and John Broome's estates COULD make a case then they definitely WOULD.

"To me, that implies the motives are about something other than just money."

Then you've misunderstood what's happening. This is black and white. Don't read into things that aren't there.

It's so depressing to see this Siegel-bashing stuff come up again. Who the hell is ANYONE to say that they shouldn't exercise the rights given to them by the law? Do they say that about YOU?

To go to such lengths as to claim DC deserves "credit" for something they BLOODY WELL GOT THEIR MONEY OUT OF, and then say the Siegels are just being vindictive...like that would even be a bad thing...you know, DC had no trouble leaning on the law when it was in their favour and interests to do so. It's unseemly to suggest they merit our sympathy now that things are going the other way. Because the basic fact here is that it was DC that made the millions, not Jerry Siegel. DC's not out-of-pocket because Superman's an "icon" or whatever, they're massively in profit because of it. And the Siegel family ISN'T. Which means there's only one entity in this discussion that can be reasonably called "mercenary", and it isn't the Siegels.

While my blood's boiling, I think I'd also like to offer fifty bucks to anyone who can actually demonstrate a bit of evidence for the claim that the Siegels are just in it for the bottom line. And if you can show you know what would've happened to Jerry and Joe and Superman if National had passed on them back in the Thirties, I'll make it a hundred.

Damn it but this looks bad on us, people.

It’s so depressing to see this Siegel-bashing stuff come up again. Who the hell is ANYONE to say that they shouldn’t exercise the rights given to them by the law? Do they say that about YOU?

I think that it is unfair to describe this discussion as "bashing" the Siegel heirs. They are probably lovely people. I have no way of knowing.

Nor have I seen any posts from copyright experts. I am certainly not one and it is a notoriously difficult and complex field. So, I have absolutely no idea what their "legal rights" might be, nor I suspect does anyone who has yet posted. The same judge who granted them a share of the copyright just ruled that they were not owed any actual money for the most recent film and TV adaptations, so I suspect the issues involved are not easy for a layperson to understand.

All I have tried to say is that some of the DC/Warners folks are good people as well. Paul Levitz is by all accounts a wonderful human being. They have meant well and often done well by the property. To me, it is just not a black and white issue of some evil, greedy corporation trying to take away the "legal rights" of a widow. There is virtue on both sides of this debate. It is a shame that there hasn't been some sort of settlement reached.

Well, you're being very even-handed about a situation that's pretty cut-and-dried, Dean, and I feel like that subtly undermines the position of the Siegels -- as if to say that there's less justice to their reclaiming of Jerry's copyright than there actually is. And no doubt that isn't what you intend to suggest! But you assign virtue to DC where to my eyes there is none available for them to have, and appear to wonder if the Siegels' motives are pure (as opposed, I'm assuming, to "vindictive"), and talk about there being a debate...

There isn't a debate, though. Paul Levitz is well-known for his support of Jerry Siegel's claims against DC, for example -- in other words, the guy who's part of the ethical credentials you accord DC, is a guy who thought the company acted unjustly all along. DC might have got a nice settlement if they'd been able to make one somewhere over the last seventy years, when (you will note) they didn't have to...and that they didn't probably is a shame, but the shame's not on the Siegels for choosing to take back what's rightfully theirs according to the law. If DC meant well and did well by Superman (a sentiment I don't necessarily agree with, but there you go), that isn't enough reason to call them virtuous. Only if they'd meant well and done well by Superman's creators, would they deserve that name.

But anyway, that's all beside the point now, because the Siegels have reclaimed the copyright. It's a done deal. DC couldn't stop them, because the law was on their side. So what's not black-and-white about that?

I apologize, though, for making it sound just like I thought you were being all "fuck the Siegels, those greedy bastards"...clearly that isn't what you were saying at all! However, the perceived note of "why can't the Siegels think about what's good for Superman, instead of themselves" sets my teeth on edge, because I think it inclines toward the idea that there's a possible excuse for heartlessness: it enables the "fuck the Siegels" thing, and that's bad, because DC is not the affronted party in this story. They're not the good guys. The Siegels are the good guys. As long as we're talking about who's got the virtue, and what's fair, there's no need for us to temporize about that.

But if we're not talking about virtue and fairness, then the situation is much the same anyway: Jerry and Joe made a deal that turned out to be worth millions, but not for them. Later on, Jerry's heirs were entitled to call that deal a dead duck, so they did. Again, no debate intrudes: it's black and white. Jeff Trexler wrote a very interesting series on copyright and superheroes for Blog@Newsarama last year, I'd heartily recommend it if you're interested in that background...I mean, I'm no expert either, and I could probably stand to re-read it myself...

But man, either way, you can't blame them for not trusting DC not to pull any fast ones, can you? Fool me once, and all that...

@ Plok:

Thanks for understanding my position. I will read the pieces from Jeff Trexler.

Another thing occurs to me, the Superman franchise did not spring forth fully formed in Action #1. A lot of elements evolved later from Siegel, Shuster and others. It is not as though the Siegel and Shuster heirs can just license the whole thing to, say, Dark Horse and/or Universal. Lex Luthor, Jimmy Olsen, Kryptonite, the Fortress of Solitude, Supergirl, Krypto, Brainiac, General Zod, Bizarro, Metallo, Cat Grant, Steve Lombard, Darkseid (along with his cast) and most of the rest is pretty clearly owned by DC. I guess you could argue that the versions of Perry White and the Daily Planet seen in the Fleisher cartoons are in the public domain. I am not sure what the what the status of the supporting from Smallville is, but it strikes me as a potential mess.

Absolutely right; they could license what they want with what they owned -- which is kind of a lot! -- but it doesn't make a whole lot of sense for them to want to. DC's got all its trademarks intact, and all the stuff done as work-for-hire which came after Action #1...so it's a mess already, but it'd be a remarkable mess if the material derived from Action #1 had to somehow be separated out from all the other stuff for purposes of a movie or something. Also, another part of my own non-lawyerly opinion (worth nothing to anyone, naturally) is that a lot of the current Superman "mythos" stuff comes straight of Jerry Siegel's Superboy, too, so talk about your can of worms if anyone who genuinely knows their oysters ever came to that conclusion...yikes.

Which probably signals, it seems to me, that Superman business in the future will pretty much go along as it has in the past, only with one big difference: DC has to pay the rightsholders for use of what they own. One assumes, not really a big deal for them, except they'd be happier not doing it.

I confess I'm curious about what the fate of the big red "S"-shield will be, though. To my tiny brain, that looks like it's worth about as much in money terms as all the other stuff put together. T-shirts and lunchboxes and pyjamas. One wonders.

But, I've kind of fallen out of contact with all those issues, so maybe I'm just talking nonsense. Quick, to the Internet!

My guess is that DC has the most familiar version of the "S"-shield pretty well trademarked. However, I wonder about the Black Background version from the the Fleisher cartoons. That material is in the public domain.

It would be really interesting if the Siegel and Shuster estates managed get complete control of Action #1 copyright and decided to license it to somewhere like Dark Horse. You wonder who they could get to write and draw it.

The last I heard -- though this was quite a while ago -- there was a pretty interesting argument being made that DC oughtn't to be able to claim exclusive ownership of the "S"-shield.

I do hope that the Shuster estate is as successful as the Siegel estate has been...but I doubt anyone will want to license it to anyone but DC, even if they are. However, eventually Superman will fall into the public domain, and when that happens I hope we'll see some interesting experiments from other publishers. Think how fun it would be to read a Superman comic liberated from big corporate necessity...not a hoax! Not a dream!

@ Plok:

I am increasingly convinced that falling into the Public Domain would be the best thing for Superman.

While we are on the subject of Superman potentially leaving the DCU, I have a question. How often is Superman being in a shared universe a benefit? My feeling is that it is really only once or twice a decade. For me, the examples are:

1. In the '80s, having Superman share a universe with Batman was key for DKR.
2. In the '90s, having Superman share a universe with Wonder Woman was key for "Kingdom Come" and obviously was huge for Morrison run on JLA.
3. In the '00s, having Superman share a universe with the JLA was key the "The New Frontier".

That is the list. I am sure I am overlooking something, but it really seems that the drag created by all the cross-overs makes the DCU more of a drag than a benefit to the Superman franchise.

Superman leaving the DCU might make better Superman comics but it certainly would not help make better DCU comics. Aren't you the one who was praising the way DC was treating Superman anyway?

"I am increasingly convinced that falling into the Public Domain would be the best thing for Superman."

Well, not really, because Superman is a fictional character. It may well allow for better Superman stories, but that only helps the reader, i.e. you (and me). So it would be correct to say “I am increasingly convinced that Superman falling into the Public Domain would be the best thing for ME," but that would show what I was trying to say from the beginning, that you and me and Time Warner and the S&S heirs only care about their own interests.

Hmm, that's a toughie. I think your modern-day DCU (and MU too, of course) suffers not from having a shared universe, but from having one that isn't very capacious. Of course the whole intent of a shared universe is that it should be capacious, at least capacious enough for guest-appearances to be the spice in the stew, rather than the meat. But then you get a lot of these dishes that are completely about the sharedness, and they're of uneven quality. When they're good, they make that universe incredibly seductive, as in New Frontier...or a good JLA story...

(DKR I wouldn't say is the same sort of recipe, as it's just about the Superman/Batman thing, a staple going way back, and something everybody likes to see. And I didn't like Kingdom Come, so I'll leave it out too...)

...Or Crisis, I suppose. But after Crisis, just as before, it's mostly the shared universe itself that benefits from having Superman there, doesn't it? Like somehow it's not fully "shared" unless he's present. Well, Superman is an absolutely terrific reader's-eye-view character, as well as the one absolutely everybody knows about...there may be some people who haven't heard of Donald Duck, but everyone knows Mickey Mouse, eh? However it seems to me this also means that the shared universe is rarely of benefit to the Superman character himself. People like to see Batman and Superman together because Superman's the focus..."who'd win in a fight between Superman and Batman" is a Superman-centric question...the next natural "World's Finest"-type pairing (Flash and Green Lantern) has a lot less to prove...

(...You know, I remember a time when the DC readership was clamouring for more Superman/Batgirl team-ups, actually...heady days, those were...)

But even for Batman, as far as the shared universe goes it's Superman's world, and all the other characters just live in it. Millenium, though many people don't like it (I do) was really a Green Lantern story blown up into a giant crossover, but it didn't take long for Superman to become central to it...but maybe this was especially natural in the post-Crisis era, when it was Superman who was being actively rebooted, and so was even more essential to the shared universe than he was before. But I don't really know any of this, I'm just blathering I guess...

But I do know that what would be very cool about Superman entering the public domain, is that all the other characters would take a lot longer to join him, which would sort of amount to a do-over of the way the DCU evolved in the first place, not to mention a do-over of the post-Crisis DCU's establishment. First, there would be Superman. You couldn't mention Batman, he was made as work-for-hire, he's not going to come free as fast (at least, as far as I can recall he isn't). You can't mention Wonder Woman or Green Lantern or Flash. So for a while it'd just be Superman himself, the undiluted proto-superhero doing his own thing. This is what I think people who want a JLA movie miss, that having Superman in a movie is much more awesome when he's the only one of his "kind". That's the deep-down core of the character, not one-of-many-supermen, but just plain standalone SUPERMAN!! So you'd do that for a while. Maybe a longish while.

Then, one day: Batman.

And then one by one, the rest of them. Of course it'd take a really long time to empty the DCU of all exclusive copyrights, so don't worry about them...uh, unless they put barriers in the way of people creating new characters, or kill off all the new characters people have created anyway, just because...but over a longish period of time you'd have a whole public-domain DCU gradually becoming available for folks to play with. Darwyn Cooke could just go off somewhere and write a Batman comic. Maybe Captain America would be in it? Not just a public-domain DCU, obviously, but a public-domain mega-multiverse. It'll be interesting to see what that becomes...

Provided, of course, that somebody doesn't sink the ship in the meantime.

But I dunno. Random scotchy thoughts, here, probably horribly misguided and misinformed -- the length of time it takes any given work to enter the public domain does seem to vary, depending on what kind of work it is and when it was published, and under whose laws, and I confess I'm not up-to-date on such things. I don't know how many legal reservations you can slap onto a given character.

But still, a man can dream, can't he?

That's not true, Ted -- people often choose to do things that aren't in their own interests. Maybe the Siegel heirs don't give a damn about Superman, but they're doing it because it's what their father wanted. You don't know.

But, I'll definitely agree that there's no such thing as "the best thing for Superman". You know, just in case the above sounded snotty.

While my blood’s boiling, I think I’d also like to offer fifty bucks to anyone who can actually demonstrate a bit of evidence for the claim that the Siegels are just in it for the bottom line.

Who cares if they are - it's still their right to get what they legally have a claim on.

It would be really interesting if the Siegel and Shuster estates managed get complete control of Action #1 copyright and decided to license it to somewhere like Dark Horse. You wonder who they could get to write and draw it.

You'd probably be amazed by how different the book would have to be as well - DC would still own all the trade marks, I believe.
He wouldn't be able to fly, the shield on his chest would be different... no Perry, No Jimmy etc.

The same judge who granted them a share of the copyright just ruled that they were not owed any actual money for the most recent film and TV adaptations, so I suspect the issues involved are not easy for a layperson to understand.

You're not talking about this ruling are you?
Because that's not what he ruled on this one.

"That’s not true, Ted — people often choose to do things that aren’t in their own interests. Maybe the Siegel heirs don’t give a damn about Superman, but they’re doing it because it’s what their father wanted. You don’t know."

Yes, people don't always do what is in their best interests in an absolute sense, but they do always do what they believe is in their best interests. If they wanted to punish DC then they would think it was in their interests to punish DC so they could be happy.

I guess it is possible that the Siegel heirs are out for vengeance. But surely we want the most PARSIMONIOUS explanation. And working off Hanlon's razor, I would say "Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by greed." Greed is the most parsimonious explanation, and in the lack of any other evidence I say looking for malice is indeed “bashing the Siegel heirs".

I don't think I answered that very well so I'm going to try again.

“That’s not true, Ted — people often choose to do things that aren’t in their own interests. Maybe the Siegel heirs don’t give a damn about Superman, but they’re doing it because it’s what their father wanted. You don’t know.”

People don't OFTEN choose to do things that aren’t in their own interests. It may happen sometimes (depending on how we define interests) but rarely. Thus, when we have DOUBT, like now, the best guess (and all things are always more or less guesses) is that it IS in their own interests.

Two things could have happened here, either the heirs want MONEY or they want REVENGE. I would say money is HUGELY more likely, so much that revenge isn't even worth considering. Dean seemed to immediately JUMP to revenge, which was my complaint.

Dean said: "The heirs just seem vindictive to me." That is because he is looking at this wrong, assuming malice instead of greed.

Ted, thanks for giving that second answer, because I think I would've felt compelled to argue with the first one! You know, just on philosophical grounds. So (what a relief!) I won't argue about the likelihoods you set out, but I'll argue about how many of them you number, and the necessity of guessing in the first place.

I think I agree that people don't often choose to do things that aren't in their interests (or at least: things they don't want to do, even if they'd often serve themselves better if they did do them), but I think if you want to make basic categories of motivation for the Siegels, you must also allow that in addition to pursuing money or revenge (and I don't have the slightest problem with them pursuing either of those), they might also be motivated by a sense of DUTY, that might in some cases be ultimately motivated by LOVE.

Or, hey! Not to stack the deck: it could be motivated by self-loathing, instead!

But for myself -- perhaps we just have different philosophies about human nature -- I find the revenge motive more believable than the duty motive, I find the duty motive more believable than the money motive. In other words I don't think it is the best guess that money is the motive. Statistically one might say that money (self-advantage) is the most common motivation for every act...but statistics only work on mass populations, that are assumed to be motivated by average desires. People like the Siegels, it seems to me, are not in that category. I've met many people who've chosen against their own monetary benefit, or their own enlightened self-interest, even when they've known what it was. I've met many people who couldn't be talked out of actions that were almost sure to be self-destructive. Though we can never do any more than guess, in many situations, I'm not sure that always entitles us to count on our guess, or to say it is any more than just a guess. And surely sometimes we must just throw up our hands and say "I could guess...but what would be the point?"

Who's Hanlon, though? I never heard of this person. Is this Objectivism? Pardon me if I seem ill-informed or naive...I'm not very well-versed in Objectivism, and maybe I jumped to an unwarranted conclusion by invoking "Objectivism"...but I'm curious, I like information, I certainly won't fight with you about something I asked you to enlighten me about...so if it's convenient, who the hell is this Hanlon guy?

And Funky: yes, you're quite right, it's their right whatever their motives may be...still, I do care, and the offer still stands, because I think by acceding (without evidence) to the idea that they have base motives, we give tacit support to the idea that their moral claim on the copyright is deficient, even though the law has decided in their favour. And ideally, the law and morality are supposed to be in step with one another. So aren't we allowed to think that this is justice both moral and legal, and that the system (though imperfectly and abominably late) has really worked, here? I mean let's celebrate this! Let's not say the Siegal decision is just another dispassionate decision, lost in a field of other dispassionate decisions, let's yell out loud that this is justice!

Agree/disagree?

Plok, I had a feeling right after the first response that I would take this discussion somewhere it really didn't need to go, so I'm glad we're still on track.

First of all, 'Hanlon' is nobody. 'Hanlon's Razor' (which I should have capitalised differently) is: "Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity.” I extended it to greed as well. I was going Wiki it, and probably should have. I wasn't implying it was common knowledge, I had to look up the name.

When I made the distinction between revenge and money, it was really between suing to HELP THEMSELVES (i.e. the Heirs) and suing to HURT OTHERS (i.e. DC). The 'hurt others' would include revenge and duty.

To me, when something is statistically the case, then it must be the case for MOST people. It doesn't make sense to me to apply generalisations to everybody but refuse to apply it to any particular person. Yes, many people are, shall we say, self-destructive. But while I'm sure self-destructive decisions stick in your mind, keep in mind that everyday, almost everybody goes to work to make money and doesn't buy things to save money. Self-destructive decisions happen occasionally, money decisions happen EVERYDAY, often SEVERAL TIMES A DAY. I can't see how you can diminish money. "People like the Siegels, it seems to me, are not in that category." If this were Siegel HIMSELF, then maybe I would support it. But I don't see what basis you have for excluding the Siegels from the largest group.

It comes down to this. If the case succeeds, DC are going to lose money and the Siegels are going to gain. But what if there were the opitions of:
1) DC gains and Siegels gain
2) DC loses and Siegels lose
As far as I can see 1 would be acceptable for the Siegels and 2 unacceptable. If they are doing this for revenge or duty, 2 would be acceptable and 1 unacceptable, and I just think that is unlikely.

Note also that I think doing it for money is the GOOD option for the Siegels. If they are in it for money then DC and the Siegels are EQUAL. If the Siegels are doing it out of SPITE, (either for revenge or duty) that would reflect BADLY on them. Spite seems a much more base motive than money. But that seems the (much) LESS likely option.

Ted, I want to reply to this at length, but have to go off and do other things for a while -- ridiculous, but there it is. Hope to pick it up on my return.

But, very briefly:

1. If the Siegels were to act out of spite, I wouldn't consider that to relect poorly on them at all. Maybe they feel spited. I've been there many a time myself.

2. You're familiar with the "punishment" principle? Suppose you are offered one hundred dollars, with the proviso that you must offer some of it to me. If I agree to your offer, we're both paid out. If I refuse your offer, neither you nor I get paid one thin dime. Hang on tight, here's some Ditko, but it's NOT the orthodoxy...!

In tests, it appears that if you offer me too small a percentage of the (FREE!) money you're set to receive...I'll refuse it, and then neither of us gets paid. But you lose more than I do. Theoretically, if I was a perfectly self-interested actor, if you offered me ten bucks I'd think "Wicked! I'm ten bucks to the good!" But this turns out not to be the case.

Sorry, must dash now, I know this is bad etiquette but I really must. Agree with you that simple self-interested decisions make up the vast bulk of all the decisions human beings make: most of our decisions are not complex. The Siegels may have grown up with a family story that conditioned their responses, however...what would be simple decisions to you or I might have had complicated ramifications for them. Finally, I firmly believe that while statistics prove out over masses of people, you can get badly stung thinking that any individual will act as the masses do. Sample ten people and you're safe. Sample one person and you're dealing with wet dynamite, as far as predictions go.

But that's just my belief.

And now I'm overdue to be elsewhere, please forgive me, I don't mean to argue and run.

"Sorry, must dash now, I know this is bad etiquette but I really must."

Don't worry about it, I'm just glad to have got the response I have so far. I'll just say a couple things.

I wouldn't call someone irredeemable just because they once acted from spite. Certain acting from spite is understandable, I've certainly done it myself. That being said, the idea of destroying something you have, merely to hurt someone else, seems the very worst of human impulses. To say "if I can't have it then no-one can have it" seems the epitome of petty vindictiveness. Feeling spited isn't a justification for acting spitefully.

You might respond that it isn't spite if the punished party deserves it. 'Deserves' opens a giant can of worms in itself. Can I perhaps say that if someone deserves punishment in this instance, and I don't want to make a judgment either way, whoever they are they aren't really Time Warner shareholders. To me, and this may be controversal, with no-one still alive with a personal claim, this isn't really a moral issue. As far as I can see the claims on the Superman profits by both Time Warner and the Heirs are purely economic.

I have heard of the punishment principle but it had slipped my mind. The difference here, and this builds of what I have just said, is that I don't think that this dispute is personal. The punishment principle is shown in cases where a person has been directly deprived, but here we have indirect deprivation, and retribution against people who are only indirectly responsible. Plus this is not an immediate gut decision, but a long-term major undertaken. I don't doubt that the Siegels have been moments of spite, but I don't see it being able to motivate them in the long term.

What you said about "a family story that conditioned their responses", not exactly the same as the punishment principle, is more interesting, but I'll leave that discussion for tomorrow (by which I mean my tomorrow, which is probably your this afternoon or something).

@ Ted:

Superman leaving the DCU might make better Superman comics but it certainly would not help make better DCU comics. Aren’t you the one who was praising the way DC was treating Superman anyway?

I was praising DC and Warners for keeping the property relevant across all media (comics, TV, animation, movies) for seventy years. If you created a cohort of pulp inspired properties from the pre-WW2 (i.e. The Shadow, The Phantom, Flash Gordon), then Superman is the healthiest by far. Even if you add Golden Age superheroes, Batman is the only one who surpasses him. To me, that is a credit to DC and WB.

Restricting the discussion to comics published in the last 20-25 years is a whole different topic. Sorry if I broke the thread.

Two things could have happened here, either the heirs want MONEY or they want REVENGE. I would say money is HUGELY more likely, so much that revenge isn’t even worth considering. Dean seemed to immediately JUMP to revenge, which was my complaint.

I made that statement based upon the tone of a quote from their attorney before reading the judgement. The quote still sounds vindictive upon re-reading. However ...

1. It is from their attorney, not the heirs themselves. That was not clear in the first place I read it.
2. After reading the judgement, it is pretty clear their attorney has done a lot of over-reaching during at least this phase of the trial. Maybe being dramatic is just his style.

Like I said above, the Siegel heirs are not a known quantity to me. I have no idea what their motives are, so I am depending upon public statements. However, they do not seem to be making any.

@ Dean

"I was praising DC and Warners for keeping the property relevant across all media (comics, TV, animation, movies) for seventy years."

OK then, but I would respond, how popular do you think Superman would be now if he hadn't been part of the shared universe since 1940? Being in the DCU has meant that Superman has been in (or been mentioned in) many comics (not necessarily good comics) than he would have otherwise. Even when Superman's popularity is at a low ebb, there's little risk of the character fading away completely while he is so important to the DCU. The fact that The Phantom only appears in The Phantom, while Superman can appear in any DCU comic, I think is a good reason why Superman is more popular. It IS a credit to DC that Superman is still popular, but being part of the DCU I think is part of his popularity.

"I made that statement based upon the tone of a quote from their attorney before reading the judgement."

NOW I understand. I thought you were calling them vindictive merely because of their ACTIONS, which seemed out of nowhere. If it was on the basis of a quote (although, as you pointed out well, not necessarily a very reliable quote) then you statements are much more understandable.

I thought your reasoning was "They sued therefore they are vindictive", which made no sense to me. Now I see it was "They sued AND said vindictive things therefore they are vindictive" which makes MUCH more sense.

@ Ted

OK then, but I would respond, how popular do you think Superman would be now if he hadn’t been part of the shared universe since 1940?

I think that it is a mixed bag.

Being one of the "Big 7" members of the JLA is obviously a huge plus for the character. His relationship with Batman was historically popular, but since Moore and Gibbons did "... For The Man Who Has Everything" his relationship with Wonder Woman has become progressively more interesting. More than that, there is a certain chemistry to Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, the Flash and Green Lantern that elevates them all.

I'd call characters like Supergirl and (to a lesser extent) the Legion part of the Superman franchise. However, if you want to count them as part of the shared DC Universe, then I would count them as a plus as well.

The Kirby Fourth World characters are a mixed bag to me. Obviously, they are WONDERFUL characters. However, the Lee-Kirby approach works badly for Superman to me. He should have problems and character flaws, but brooding about them almost always rings false. Superman is an extroverted and sensory-driven person. Worse, the cosmic nature of a bad guy like, say, Kalibak takes Superman out his area of strength as a solo character. To me, Superman works best resolving problems that seem real.

Now, I also think that Darkdeid and company are the best thing that ever happened to the JLA, but we are just talking about the Superman franchise.

As to the rest of the DCU, I think it is a genuine drag on Superman. It is genuinely difficult to explain why he is special in universe where there are hundreds of powered people, dozens of whom have nearly his exact powers and there have been for seventy years. Again, it produces an instinct to move the character away from what he does best and toward stories that are better suited to other types of characters.

@Dean

Are we talking about what is ARTISTICALLY best for the Superman character or what is COMMERCIALLY best for the Superman brand?

I would certainly agree that artistically Superman gives more to the DCU than the DCU gives to Superman. However commercially I think Superman has and will continue to sell much better in the DCU rather than out of it.

@ Ted

Are we talking about what is ARTISTICALLY best for the Superman character or what is COMMERCIALLY best for the Superman brand?

Both, but let me see if I can separate them.

The artistic point is clearer. If you listed the top 25 Superman stories across all media, I would be stunned to see more than 3-4 that needed the rest of the DC Universe to be told. Superman works best in universe with a high degree of verisimilitude (i.e. Season 1 of "The Adventures of Superman", the Donner-Reeves films). He works next best in a universe with a lot of classic sci-fi elements (i.e. the Fleisher cartoons, Season 1-3 of "Smallville"). He relates best to other superheroes in sort the King Arthur role of the vanguard of a movement. The DC Universe has not offered any of those options in over twenty years, so Superman winds up in stories that show him in a highly imperfect light.

The commercial point is more complex. Until COIE, the DCU was pretty clearly a strong net positive for Superman for the reasons you discussed. In the 24 years since, it has become a bit of a liability. Superman is often depicted as either a scold, or a nanny, to B and C-listers in the DCU. He shows up in a cross-over and tells them to behave themselves. In big cross-overs, he is seen playing the same role with fellow A-listers. The net effect is that Superman starts to seem like a wet blanket. No one wants to read the adventures of dreary, scolding guy. That has acted as a slow and steady drag on sales.

Dean, I pretty much completely agree with you on the artistic front, and while what say on the commercial point makes sense, I have to look at it this way:

If we take these figures on June sales, http://www.icv2.com/articles/news/15338.html, and if I've read them correctly there are Superman comics at #43, #47, #49, #52 and #58. Now those figures are, well, pretty shitty actually. But if we compare them to comics outside the Marvel U and DCU then we get Buffy at #37, Angel at #78 (and technically they are both in a shared universe with each other), The Boys at #84 and all other non-DC/Marvel book below that.

I'm have seen plenty of anecdotal evidence that plenty of people will only buy comics 'if they count', by which they mean 'if they are in (DC or Marvel) continuity, and I imagine you have too. You are probably right that "dreary, scolding" Superman has "slow and steady drag on sales." I just think that taking Superman out of continuity would be a much greater drag on sales. If Superman isn't in the DCU, I not sure what would keep him out of the #80s.

@ Ted:

You could be right. I think that it would depend almost entirely on who wrote and drew the title. All-Star Superman sold extremely well, despite not "counting". However, All-Star Superman had a great creative team and was really, really good. The run-of-the-mill title cranked out by mid-list creators would probably sell about where you suggest.

The one thing that would be certain fewer titles would get released. There is no way a non-DCU Superman is supporting five monthlies.

Again, I am not sure that is the end of the world. It seems like the marketplace forcing fewer, better crafted Superman stories might be a better for the property in the long-run. Maybe we would actually get someone using the immense symbolic power of the character to say interesting and meaningful things for a change.

It is a parallel situation with Wonder Woman. These are characters who are too popular to be interesting and too uninteresting to be exciting.

While we are on the subject of marketing, I have a theory on the reason the property consistently under-performs.

If you sorted the comic reading audience using the Meyers-Briggs personality test (http://www.personalitypage.com/four-prefs.html) , I am willing to bet that you would get a very consistent personality type. Comic readers are vastly more introverted than extroverted. They are also far more likely to be Intuitive than Sensing, since comics as a medium tend to appeal to people that are comfortable with abstraction. Finally, they are vastly more likely to be Judging Types than perceiving ones. Dan DiDio described it as "the collector gene".

Well, what personality traits do the best-selling comic book characters evidence?

Introverts are going to tend to withdraw from the world when they have a problem. Batman goes to his cave alone. Spidey swings through Manhattan alone. Wolverine goes off into the woods alone.

People who are driven by intuition are going embrace abstract ideas, like "... With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility", or "Criminals are a Superstitious and Cowardly Lot".

Judging people are going to tend to see things in black and white terms morally. For example, they would see "pro-registration" or "anti-registration" as an either-or choice.

In other words, the most successful current comics feature characters and situations that appeal to vast majority of its current audience. This is hardly a stunning insight.

Now, read the description of an ESFJ here: http://www.personalitypage.com/ESFJ.html

and here: http://www.typelogic.com/esfj.html

Sound like anyone? To me, that is a pretty good summary of Clark Kent's personality. It is also complex and has flaws. However, those flaws are very different than the defects of character seen in your average comic book fan. They literally do not make sense in the same way the flaws in a Peter Parker, or Bruce Wayne, do.

The temptation is depict Superman as less Sensing and more Intuitive and/or less Extroverted and more Introverted to appeal to the audience. In other words, water down the personality and make him more bland. We do not live in a time when a blander product is a more appealing product.

"Maybe we would actually get someone using the immense symbolic power of the character to say interesting and meaningful things for a change."

Absolutely, but now we are getting into the artistic side again.

Your type theory is very interesting, although I dare say the reality is somewhat more complicated. What was most interesting for me that while we can fairly accurately stereotype comic readers NOW that has not always been the case. So as the kind of readers more like Superman have stopped reading comics SO HAS Superman's sales gone down. I would say that your explanation is the best why Superman is less popular now than in the past.

I'll admit to not being an expert with regards to the Meyers-Briggs personality test, but I'm not entirely convinced by your characterisation of Superman. Something important, to me, about the Superman character is the idea that he is Kal-El sometimes pretending to be Superman and sometimes pretending to be Clark Kent. Which leaves the question: who is Kal-El? I could see Superman and Clark Kent as complete extroverts, but Kal-El does have the 'Fortress of Solitude'. I'm still uncertain.

Another point is that other characters that were perhaps ESFJs, like say Captain Marvel, were also very popular in the past but now are much less so. I would then make the argument that perhaps the difference between a Captain Marvel and Superman is, once again, the shared universe. (Yes, technically Captain Marvel is in the DCU but he always felt like an unneeded add-on.)

Something important, to me, about the Superman character is the idea that he is Kal-El sometimes pretending to be Superman and sometimes pretending to be Clark Kent. Which leaves the question: who is Kal-El?

Ok, we are officially treading into very subjective territory. With that caveat, here are my thoughts ...

From what I understand of Meyers-Briggs, each personality type has a Primary, Secondary and Tertiary mode. The first two emerge in youth, while the third evolves as a person matures. So, an ESFJ would be an extroverted feeler first. Think of Bill Clinton (who is an ESFJ) saying "I feel you pain" and you get the general idea.

However, the Secondary mode is introverted sensing. That mode is "storing data and information, then comparing and contrasting the current situation with similar ones". That is a pretty good description of pretty much every Silver Age story that took place in the Fortress of Solitude with which I am familiar. Those Silver Age Fortress stories seemed to be the root of the Kal-El stuff Elliot S. Maggin wrote in the '70s.

Finally, they are extroverted intuition in their tertiary mode. That manifests most often as a teasing (or if you prefer "dick-ish") sense of humor. Think Terry Bradhsaw (another ESFJ) on the FOX NFL Sundays. My theory is that, like a method actor, Superman uses a part of himself to play the role of Clark Kent. In this case, it is pretending Tertiary mode is his primary mode. That is why I favor the George Reeves version of Clark, who always seems to be on a crusade about something and has a very short attention span.

Obviously, I have given Superman waaayyy too much thought. I cannot speak to Captain Marvel with nearly the same depth.

OK, that does make sense. Another point I just thought of is that combing Intuition and Judging, having a person with lofty ideals and a dedicated adherence to them, is something that seems to mesh well with the idea of a person driven to fight crime. Replacing that with Sensing and Feeling seems to, perhaps, not fit as well in the superhero mould. Thus the changing of Superman's character, at least to be more intuitive, could be seen as a move to make Superman more artistically viable, rather than just to make him more appealing to a certain audience.

For an example of George Reeves pretending to be on a crusade as Clark while making fun of the whole idea, check out "The Human Bomb" from Season 1 of "The Adventures of Superman".

What makes that interesting is that introverted/extroverted apparently works like a positive/negative charge on a magnet. Extroverted feelers attach to introverted feelers, while repelling other extroverted feelers. If Clark is pretending to be primarily an extroverted intuitive person and repels Lois, them that suggests she is primarily an extroverted intuitive. If she is drawn to Superman who is primarily an extroverted feeler, then that suggests she is secondarily an introverted feeler. That is an ENFP (http://www.geocities.com/lifexplore/enfp.htm), which is a pretty interesting of looking at the Lois Lane character to me and suggests some pretty obvious relationship conflicts.

Hmm, I'm not sure. Lois Lane has always seemed to be a character who was fairly dedicated and career-oriented. I'm not sure that would be reflected in an ENFP.

@ Ted:

Another point I just thought of is that combing Intuition and Judging, having a person with lofty ideals and a dedicated adherence to them, is something that seems to mesh well with the idea of a person driven to fight crime

To me, that is what makes Superman different.

One of my favorite Superman moments is from the long speech the Ghost of Jor-El gives in the Fortress of Solitude, "... They can be a great people, Kal-El, they wish to be. They only lack the light to show the way. For this reason above all, their capacity for good, I have sent them you... my only son". Pretty clearly that is Christ allusion, but it is also a call back to the original conception Siegel and Shuster had of Krypton. They were supposed to be a more evolved version of humanity.

Not to go all Grant Morrison, but I love idea of Superman's mission being to act as a vanguard of the next stage in human evolution.

There are two things about that which relates to our discussion. The first is that it is more of a sci-fi premise than a superhero one. Superman isn't called to fight crime. He is called to be an example. Second, he has options about where to go with that mission. An ENTJ would start an organization to market books and merchandise about how to become more like Superman. Clark doesn't even consider doing that. His immediate focus is using his abilities to help people.

@ Ted:

Fair enough. I move around on character typing Lois. The Teri Hatcher version from "Lois & Clark" almost certainly was an ENFP, but every character she has ever played is an ENFP.

While we are character typing ...

I think Batman being an INTJ is the mother of all no brainers.

However, what do you think of Wonder Woman as an ISTP (http://www.geocities.com/lifexplore/istp.htm)? Her signatures are deflecting bullets with her bracelets and using a lasso. Both would require literally hundreds of hours to really master. That is the personality type that acquires those types of skills. Also, the Moulton version of her origin suggested that her fellow Amazons had no idea she was as gifted with martial skills as she was.

"The first is that it is more of a sci-fi premise than a superhero one. Superman isn’t called to fight crime. He is called to be an example"

That's a really good point. Perhaps the problem then is people, not necessarily writing Superman as a total crimefighter, but writing him in a crimefighting world. Someone like Batman might see his role as holding back the flood, he'll never win but he doesn't need to. The Superman story has to end with humanity actually evolving, or else Superman just looks hopelessly naive. I guess then I could say that perhaps the comic fans that exist now would accept a Superman that is the total opposite to them if he was in a more utopian world than the DCU (not that they would ever pick the comic up if it was in the DCU).

"what do you think of Wonder Woman as an ISTP"

Hmm, I see a lot of Wonder Woman in an ISTP, at the same time I wonder if ISTP doesn't reflect the dedication to an ideal that Wonder Woman has. I would suggest as a counter-proposal INFP, although INFP may be a too passive temperament, and Wonder Woman certainly isn't passive.

Jeez, you turn your back to attend to real life for a couple of days...!

Apologies, fellows. And apologies again, because I think you're both stark staring animal crackers out of your respective trees...! To quote Green Arrow. Hah.

Okay, I really wanted to say two things right away: one is that as a former fortune-teller I really think Myers-Briggs isn't as useful as many people seem to take it to be...and another is, you guys have walked it around and around so much that I think you've actually made it useful where it otherwise wouldn't've been. Because, here's the thing, I think tastes in superhero fantasy have become incredibly hidebound over the last couple of decades that the age-old kid argument of Who Could Beat Who between Superman and Batman, once a very Superman-centric argument (I mean really the question is "is Batman so smart/capable/rich/etc. that he could take Superman", not "is Superman sufficiently superpowered to have the natural edge over Batman") has weirdly turned into a matter of geek politics: in these days, as far as I can tell, it's so casually assumed that Batman would win such a contest, that one might as well not even ask the question.

So, hmm...something wrong in that, I think. And although I'm rather dubious about Myers-Briggs...

I think you may have hit on something.

Superman, after all, is surely the one superhero character who most strongly resists easy identification with the reader. Sure, there's the brilliant device of him being Clark Kent in his other identity: but who nowadays can most easily identify with Clark Kent either? "Easily": I'm talking sociology now. Superhero comics used to have a pronounced pedagogical function, because of what groups they were marketed to. The imaginary contest between Superman and Batman was a contest between two "bests" -- two best ways to be an upstanding citizen. Now Batman wins the contest easily because he's less "best" than Superman: now, to the overwhelming majority of superhero-comics-buyers, Superman looks paper-thin as a sociological role-representer. Or, as you guys say: he looks "naive".

And I think this is a way in which Superman's association with the DCU is corrosive of the character's appeal. Basically, Superman's made a schmuck by the necessity to deposit in him all the conformist messages that exist in a shared universe with Forties roots. "Big Blue Boy Scout"...that about says it.

Actually, Superman's an awesome character for reader identification. Except, who are the readers, and what are the criteria for identification? The latter changes with the makeup and expectations of the former...but Superman can't change too much when in the grip of a very large corporately-run shared universe...must remain an Eagle Scout out of 1941...and so one may come to think of Batman as "wicked badass" because he can still stand for 1940s values at the same time he takes 1990s ethical shortcuts to them...

But Superman can't take any shortcuts at all.

This didn't used to matter. There was a time when Batman was every bit as squeaky-clean as Superman, and that was the point of wondering who could take whom. Nowadays, though, it's very difficult to manufacture a situation in which anyone could conceivably REMOTELY give a damn about their methodological conflict. Superman looks like only he, by dint of his supreme super-poweredness, can afford truly "high" morals -- and therefore not only is he open to lots of implicit criticism about his representation of "Good", but the "Good" he represents is automatically taken to be something an ordinary person can't even aspire to. Ahhh, the negative side of all that Christ-imagery: what Superman has come to represent is an ethical ideal we might as well not even take a stab at.

And yet it's nothing but our own notion of what an averagely-good person should strive for. Don't lie. Don't cheat. Don't steal. Think of others. Do good where you can. Man, suddenly this is all sullied by Superman being a super-prig in relation to all the other superheroes. He doesn't drink, swear, or pick up sticks on Sundays. He doesn't even beat the asses of lame-o lowlifes. So what are we to make of him, and why should we care about him? He's become Fonzie in the last couple of seasons of Happy Days. He's been neutered, and then neutered again just to make sure.

So, why would anybody care about him, who reads comics?

Or more to the point: to the degree that Myers-Briggs is even descriptive of human psychological prejudices at all, to that degree you can expect people who are like Superman to shun comics in which Superman and the DCU are deeply inter-involved, because it makes him look like a PUNK. If I'm (say) a college athlete who's a bit of a dick, I might like Wolverine or Batman. If I'm not a bit of a dick, I won't like Superman, because he's not like me, he's like my Dad or like Officer Friendly or like Mr. Rogers or any goddamn coach with a camera trained on him. Within the DCU, Superman is the voice of Blah.

When he's safely tucked away in his own title, though, he's okay.

I don't know, I just felt guilty from being so long away from this conversation, when I said I'd be back so quickly. And, oh, damn it, real life calls again.

Back when I can be, guys.

The Superman story has to end with humanity actually evolving, or else Superman just looks hopelessly naive.

True. In the Silver Age they had an answer to that question the Legion. Did you ever notice how Weisinger had the 30st century look exactly like Krypton? Now, I am sure that was partly a failure of imagination, but it really worked to emphasize that Superman was right and humanity would evolve.

Alan Moore used that to excellent effect in "Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?"

I would suggest as a counter-proposal INFP, although INFP may be a too passive temperament, and Wonder Woman certainly isn’t passive.

With Wonder Woman, I probably should have specified my version. I was thinking of the William Moulton Marston and HG Peters stories (or at least what I have read of them). George Perez version almost certainly was INFP. So, her characterization varies from the Golden Age to the modern age enough to say she has two different personality types.

You are also right in saying that she is changing again and becoming more extroverted. To me, that is an example of what Brian once called algebraic storytelling. DC wanted Wonder Woman in their "Trinity", so they changed so that she could have an extroverted intuition that connects to Batman and an introverted feeling side that connects to Superman. That concept has never done anything for me.

Personally, I like the idea of Wonder Woman as an ISTP better. Comics are absolutely full of NF women (especially INFJs). Stan and Jack went to the temperament for women a lot. That was also the preferred temperament for women in Claremont's X-Men. DC certainly has their share of NF women (Lois Lane, Supergirl, Zatanna) witj a bit more diversity by adding NT women (like Barbara Gordon and Dinah Lance). Still, they are all very much up in their heads. For storytelling reasons, it would help to have some diversity of type.

That was why Darwyn Cooke's Big Girl take on WW in "New Frontier" was so refreshing. It showed a comic book woman inhabiting her body, but not in the Wally Wood sense. Every woman that Wood had a hand in creating (including Power Girl) is an ESFP and that is the second traditional female "type" in comics.

Look, I loved Wolfman-Perez "Teen Titans" as much as the next guy and I wish DC took more cues from the Murakami cartoon. However, I wish we could past the point when every comic book cast called for an ENTJ male, an INTJ male, an INFJ male, an INFJ female and an ESFP female. It is a grouping that has a certain chemistry, but it has become a total cliche. When you only have three basic types of men and two basic types of women, the same basic situations tend to come up over and over.

That is why I thought the Power Girl on-going was exciting. I have never seen an on-going with an ESFP female as the protagonist. Sadly, it seems as though they are down-playing that prospect by emphasizing ... sign ... how intuitive and judging PG can be. Yawn.

@Plok:

one is that as a former fortune-teller I really think Myers-Briggs isn’t as useful as many people seem to take it to be…and another is, you guys have walked it around and around so much that I think you’ve actually made it useful where it otherwise wouldn’t've been.

Thanks, I think....

I have my doubts about Myers-Briggs as a tool for actual, individual human beings. However, it seems to be a useful way to think about groupings of people. It is helpful when thinking about superheroes, because:
1. It is Jungian. That makes it a nice fit for stories that are at least some form of "the Heroes Journey".
2. It is a good, non-judgemental way to bundle people from a marketing perspective. Comic readers are disproportionately male INFJs, which is why there are so many fictional INFJ females wandering around comics. If you want comics (even superhero comics) to grow as an art form, then it is important to understand where you are and why it is restrictive.
3. Good superheroes tend to be icons. No matter what version of Batman you see, he is always an extroverted thinker. Tim Burton made WB a fortune by showing Bruce Wayne as an introverted idea guy, who transforms into an extroverted thinker. That model was actual storyline of "Batman Begins". Clearly, the hero transforming from one mode into an iconic version of another works. The presence of a tertiary mode suggests a way that the superhero could be written with three dimensions.

(Superman) doesn’t even beat the asses of lame-o lowlifes. So what are we to make of him, and why should we care about him? He’s become Fonzie in the last couple of seasons of Happy Days. He’s been neutered, and then neutered again just to make sure.

It is telling that in the nearly 25 years since Alan Moore invented the deconstructed superhero, no one has come up with a deconstructed take on Superman that makes any sense. It has been tried dozens of times, but I am always left thinking that whatever Superman pastiche I am reading really seems nothing at all like ... well ... Superman.

They always focus on either his judging side, or his power, or both. In other words, the most dull, imitated and over-used aspects of the character. No one seems to realize that is exactly what DC has used to neuter and re-neuter the character. You can't deconstruct Superman by taking the judgemental knob DC already has set to "10" and dialing it to "11" (or "50" in the case Mark Waid's "irredeemable"). That just takes the character way beyond normal human psychology and, ironically, further into the boring zone they are trying to critique.

Maybe it is just me, but it seems like people have been praising Chris Reeve depicting Superman as an extroverted feeler for thirty years. You would think just maybe writers would get interested in that aspect of the guy. Or (God Forbid), maybe someone might notice that prior doing his introverted sensing in the Silver Age that the dude took a GIANT PHALLUS and PUT IT IN A KEYHOLE IN THE SIDE OF A FROZEN MOUNTAIN. Somehow, DC writers and editors have either overlooked, or ignored, the least subtle Freudian imagery in human history for a long, long time.

@Dean

"I was thinking of the William Moulton Marston and HG Peters stories"

OK then, I see what you mean. I'm not really that familiar with those stories so I'll have to take your word for it.

"That concept has never done anything for me."

I guess, for me, I like the idea that Wonder Woman can provide an ideological counterbalance to Batman, with Superman as a mediator (although this happens more in theory than in practise). I thought it was interesting that, of all the types you suggested, there were no NPs. I would like to see an Perceiving counterbalance to the Judgemental nature of the DCU, and I don't think (although you could defiantly disagree) that an SP will be able to provide any ideological weight, being more concerned with specifics.

"It is a grouping that has a certain chemistry, but it has become a total cliche."

And I think that is the problem, that arrangement has works SO well. I guess the question is, are all types (and groups of types) equal from a storytelling point of view (or, to be more accurate, from a Superhero storytelling point of view)? Because if certain types are less interesting as Superheroes (as I hesitantly suggest might be the case) then writers aren't going to want to write those types, or if they do their stories will be bad and no-one will want to read them. I guess I'm presenting a counter-proposal, perhaps the problem with Superman isn't identification, but that his type is harder to write good Superhero stories about. Perhaps.

@plok

"And although I’m rather dubious about Myers-Briggs"

I too have my suspicions. But what I think is so unique, and brilliant, about Superhero stories, is that they DO fit into types. As such Superhero stories provide a way of clearly talking about human psychology while presenting 'people' who don't really have usual human psychology. I would be much more hesitant to apply Myers-Briggs theory to many other genres.

I would like to see an Perceiving counterbalance to the Judgemental nature of the DCU, and I don’t think (although you could defiantly disagree) that an SP will be able to provide any ideological weight, being more concerned with specifics.

I agree that a Perceiving balance is pretty badly needed in the DCU and Wonder Woman pretty clearly has a Perceiving nature. It is a personality type that I associate with jocks. All the Ancient Greek weapons on Themyscira remind me of the Olympics.

I would rather see the vocal advocate of being open-minded be a different character. I loved the "Seven Spiritual Laws of Superheroes" that Grant Morrison and Depak Chopra played with. The character who symbolizes connection and communication (Vishudda) is the Flash. To me, being open is pretty essential to communicating. That is the great shame of pushing Wally West to the side. He is an NP (probably ENTP), while Barry Allen is almost certainly is a NJ (likely an INTJ).

... the question is, are all types (and groups of types) equal from a storytelling point of view (or, to be more accurate, from a Superhero storytelling point of view)?

I think some are pretty clearly easier to write some types than others. However, a lot depends on the origin story. I mean, Superman could have literally any personality type and have the same origin. (As an aside, it amazes me that no one has written a Superman story that turns on Jor-El making inaccurate assumptions about the personality little Kal-El would have.) Conversely, Batman can really only be an INTJ.

It is just that certain veins have been mined to the point where they are nearly depleted.

Things do change. Superman and WW might have traditionally exhibited personalities that are now novel, but it is hardly like the Golden Age was renowned for its three-dimensional scripts. Traditional adventure characters were always ENTJs, so the DCU Trinity stood out from the crowd. Stan Lee and Jack Kirby added introversion to the mix, but there are only so many times we see the same transformation from shy pondering to bold thinking before it becomes utterly stale.

I agree with you about the Flash and his best position in the DCU. However I'm not sure that "open-mindedness" per se was exactly what I was looking for in Wonder Woman. Rather I was looking for a consequentialist opposition to Batman's single-minded deontologism. Perhaps (and this is very likely possibility) I've misinterpreted the Myers-Briggs typology, and this is in fact a distinction that can be captured by psychological type. What I was going for wasn't necessarily openness to different ideas, but rather dedicated adherence to an idea that isn't Batman's.

@ Ted:

Perhaps (and this is very likely possibility) I’ve misinterpreted the Myers-Briggs typology, and this is in fact a distinction that can be captured by psychological type.

I cannot pretend to know enough to answer that question. That said, my problem with Wonder Woman is less that her personality has been softened past the point of being recognizable than her philosophy.

To me, that is why Wonder Woman is the only superhero out there who has watered down more than Superman.

William Moulton-Marston created in her in service of his own very idiosyncratic philosophy of life, which was sort of a mash-up of first wave feminism and BDSM. She was sent into the man's world to teach men the value of submitting to others that women allegedly get intuitively. Her main target were supposed to be men with a lot "pep". The whole character design is in service of that idea.

Marston had softened the mythological concept of the Amazons by making them immortal and, thereby, getting around the whole question of where the kids come from and what happens to the boys. However, all the talk of submission was too much for Wertham and the Comic Code. WW became sort of a generic female superhero.

Perez tried to fix that by making her an "Ambassador of Peace", but that advocates of peace and tolerance don't tend to kick people in the head. As much as I might admire Gandhi, he would make a really boring superhero. The effect is to rob WW of any coherent Point of View. That is problem for any character, but it is a disaster a NF that is always supposed to be thinking about the Big Picture.

I pretty much agree with what you're saying. I also think that an ISTP Wonder Woman, espousing a Marston-esque philosophy, would be an almost unique character, certainly amongst American Superhero comics. Such a character in an out-of-universe comic would make for some very interesting stories, albeit probably very hard to write.

My only problem would be that an ISTP Wonder Woman, in the DCU, wouldn't, I believe, be able to hold a place in the Trinity. The ISTP Wonder Woman method of spreading her message, which I think Marston called "loving persuasion", seems to wilt in comparison with the more forceful ideologies of someone like Batman. My problem would that if Wonder Woman in the DCU was made an ISTP she would be pushed to the sidelines, and the last thing the DCU needs is LESS exposure for female characters.

"Perez tried to fix that by making her an “Ambassador of Peace”, but that advocates of peace and tolerance don’t tend to kick people in the head."

That, to me, is the central contradiction of an INFP Wonder Woman, and one which would allow for great thematic resonance. Making Wonder Woman a person who is willing to wage war in the name of greater peace makes her a complex and interesting character, one who is willing to make sacrifices but who is always afraid that they have sacrificed to much. And it creates a great counterbalance to someone like Batman, who is unwilling to sacrifice but often thinks that they should. The problem then becomes that such a character is hard to write, so hacks are going to (and have) latched on to the warrior aspect of her personality and made her a gun-happy hawk. However, in the right hands, an INFP Wonder Woman is just what the DCU needs.

So, in conclusion, both an ISTP and an INFP Wonder Woman make for great characters, the ISTP perhaps even more so. But I don't think the ISTP is correct for the DCU.

@ Ted:

Such a (Wonder Woman) in an out-of-universe comic would make for some very interesting stories, albeit probably very hard to write.

Really?

It seems like you could do a series of World War II and post-War stories in manga (or manga-ish) format pretty easily. You could set up some kind of quest McGuffin, like the Armor of Hypolyta being stolen by Herakles, broken into Seven Pieces and scatted around the world. Steve Trevor piercing the mystic clouds covering Themyscira is some ancient prophesy about Ares returning to drive the Amazons from their home and only a champion wearing the armor can protect them.

Then, you have some special branch of the OSS using Diana to fight the Nazis while Diana uses the OSS (and later the CIA) to feed her information about pieces of armor.

Meanwhile, Diana gets exposed to the world beyond Themyscira. She finds out that the opposite sex is a mixed bag and not pure evil. She starts to wonder what happens to all the boys back home as her tertiary trait of introverted intuition starts to kick in.

Mix in a love plot line that takes some unexpected (read: bisexual) twists and turns. How does that not work?

My problem would that if Wonder Woman in the DCU was made an ISTP she would be pushed to the sidelines, and the last thing the DCU needs is LESS exposure for female characters.

Yes, DC has a real shortage of female characters. It is sad that DC has to pull the dreaded gender-switch in an attempt to get some more B-List females.

I am going to defer to you on the politics of the DC Universe. My interest in how the DCU fits together as a whole waned around "Zero Hour" and never recovered. The DC characters are better than the Marvel ones, but the Marvel Universe is vastly than the DC one. All the efforts to "fix" the DCU over the years have tended to make things worse, not better. If you feel that the "Trinity" concept works, then I will take your word for it.

So, in conclusion, both an ISTP and an INFP Wonder Woman make for great characters, the ISTP perhaps even more so. But I don’t think the ISTP is correct for the DCU.

Fair enough. I enjoyed the "talk".

"How does that not work?"

Sorry, maybe I was unclear. I think a COMPETENT writer could easily write such a story, quite possibly in the way you outlined. The point I was trying to make is that that, while an INCOMPETENT writer can easily write a story with Batman being an INTJ, while if they tried to write this story I imagine that they quite probably will stuff up and write a different personality type. I mean there is nothing on the face of it, that I could see, that would prevent an INFP Wonder Woman being in such a plot, so a hack writer might just make Wonder Woman an INFP because it's easier. My point was that in a corporate environment eventually your character is going to be written by a hack, so the simpler (or perhaps the more common) the personality the less likely the character is going to be written out of character.

"If you feel that the “Trinity” concept works, then I will take your word for it."

I should add a caveat and say I think it SHOULD work but I don't know it ever quite did, once again because of incompetent writers. I myself have not really been reading DC since Final Crisis, so now Batman's dead all this Trinity talk is fairly academic.

"I enjoyed the “talk”."

Me too.