Question regarding Franchise Creation(Comic Books) (1 Viewer)

[DeathStar1]

About ten years ago, I cam up with a title and characters for a comic book I created during art class when I was told to be a bit more 'Creative'.

It was a campy idea, more like 60's Batman than anything, and called Stupid Heroes. However, I want to revamp the idea completly, with a whole new direction, whole new characters, and whole new Heroes.

However, creating an interesting Heroe with interesting powers is rather tough. Since all major super powers have basically been covered in the last 50 years. If one of my characters has the same powers as another super hero, but look completly different and have a completly different origin, could the comic have legal troubles?

I'm working on a script now. All I need is a decent artist who could do the idea justice...and would like to get some advice on this before I go any further..

Thanks .

 

[Rob Bartlett]

I don't think you're going to have any legal problems. For one thing, if you're a small press publisher, it seriously wouldn't be worth Marvel's time and money to slap you on the wrist for anything other then a pure bootleg.

Things like strength, speed and telepathy are pretty much public domain. You could even create a character with the powers of a spider, since spiders are not copyrighted. You might get in trouble for a combination of powers (say, if your hero had a healing factor, retractable claws, and said claws coming out of his fist), but that ultimately has to do more with the look then anything.

In fact, a fairly thin proxy of a famous superhero might not be enough to land you in hot water. (A dark vililante who spends the day as a millionare industrialist) though with obvious ripoffs, you are cheating yourself.