Marvel Comics buys the rights to Miracleman/Marvelman

[dx23]

Or so they say. Joe Quesada announced in San Diego that they had acquired the rights to the character.

http://www.examiner.com/x-3094-Graphic-Novel-Examiner~y2009m7d24-Comic-Con-09-Marvel-acquires-Marvelman-rights

http://blog.newsarama.com/2009/07/24/dial-h-for-history-marvelman-edition/

Still, there are some reports that they are still negotiating with Alan Moore and Neil Gaiman for the 80's series rights.

http://classic-comics.suite101.com/article.cfm/the_legal_history_of_marvelman

I still don't get this. Why all of a sudden did Mick Anglo own the rights of the character? I know he created them but I thought that Len Miller, the owner of the British publication, will also own the character. Then in the 80's Alan Moore recreates the character for Warrior, and then gets in a legal tangle with Marvel Comics. Warrior stories where then picked up by Pacific comics and then by Eclipse, where the character changed name to Miracleman. Neil Gaiman continued the stories and then Eclipse closed shop. Todd McFarlane bought Eclipse with the purpose of getting Miracleman and then everything when to shit, since Gaiman and McFarlane went into a legal battle for Miracleman and 2 Spawn characters Neil had created. From there, it went to Marvel purchasing the rights? How?

hopefully, Marvel will be able to publish the stories. I for one will definitely buy anything the release regarding Marvelman/Miracleman.

[fujishig]

This does sound odd. I'm sure Marvel has all its ducks in a row, but I too fail to see how this is the outcome after years and years of legal battles between Mcfarlane and Gaiman. All of a sudden the original creator got the rights back and renders all that moot? What?

Or are we somehow talking only holding onto the rights in Britain?

This is more confusing than the stupid Harmony Gold/Big West Robotech/Macross crap that prevents that stuff from coming out here...

[JasonF]

The short version is this: Mick Anglo has always owned all of the rights to pre-Warrior Marvelman. For a long time, people thought that Len Miller had a piece as well, and all of the stuff that Moore and Buckingham and Gaiman and all the rest did in the 80s in Warrior were based on a license from Miller. Likewise, Eclipse's rights (and therefore McFarlane's) were derived from Warrior. Since Miller never had any rights in the first place, neither does McFarlane. This all came to a head when Gaiman sued McFarlane over the rights to Angela. Gaiman considered taking McFarlane's Miracleman rights in exchange for his Angela rights as a settlement, but ultimately concluded that McFarlane had no rights. Only Anglo did, and he has no apparently decided to sell them to Marvel.

However, this doesn't mean that Marvel can reprint the Moore or Gaiman stories. Under UK copyright law, the individual writers and artists own copyright in their work. Anglo only owns copyright in the character and on the stories he personally wrote and drew. So Marvel still needs to negotiate with Moore, Buckingham, Gaiman, Leach, Davis, and all the rest. However, Moore has said in an interview that he believes Marvel will be reprinting some of his Miracleman stuff, which suggests that Marvel has already reached out to him and struck some sort of deal.

[dx23]

Still, that doesn't answer on who owns the characters in the UK and who owns the copyright of the stories and characters in the US. I want to finally be able to purchase reprints of all Miracleman/Marvelman comics, especially the Alan Moore and Neil Gaiman works. Hopefully, whatever agreement comes of this will help do that. Still, things can get muddy, especially when Moore is on the other side of negotiations.

[Josh-da-man]

Gaiman set up the "Marvels and Miracles" thing in order to sort out the rights to the character, so I don't think that either he or Buckingham are going to present much of a problem for getting their existing material back in print and continuing their storyline.

The biggest roadblock for getting the Moore stories back in print is all of the artists involved (as well as letterers) and the usage of the Warpsmith characters.

It shouldn't be too long before we get some news...

[benedict]

I still have all my original Warrior magazines, always having been a fan of anthology titles. I'd start buying comics again if I knew of something similar in the market today.

I also picked up some/all of the US reprints and continuations having been given a free copy of Issue 1 by publisher Dez Skinn at a little chat he gave at a British SF Association meet way back when.

It'd be interesting to see what comes of this. I remember when MArvel leaned on the UK publisher for using Marvelman and the namechange happened because they couldn't afford the litigation in spite of having a good case for the legitimacy of the character's longstanding appellation!

[Patman]

I guess it's too late to sell my complete run of Miracleman now, eh?

For the longest time, I was sort of scared of reading them, lest I damage them somehow, and piss away my retirement. LOL!

[DaveCole]

I sold my set a few years ago. Looking forward to picking up some tpb reprints and hopefully new stories.

[dx23]

A friend of mine who works at Marvel told me that we should expect Marvelman items in 2010, but he couldn't give any details on what exactly is coming out.

[whaaat]

Hoping for a reprint of the Alan Moore run on Miracleman so I don't need to pay an arm and a leg for originals...