Public Domain Super Heroes: The Story So Far...
A Chronological Timeline
June 5, 2026
The other day, someone asked my about the reading order for my books. As always, I answered that you can read them in any order you like. Each is a standalone, with hints and Easter eggs within that might help you figure out the overarching plot I'm slowly spooling out.
But then it occurred to me that what he really wanted was a timeline, not a reading order.
So, to that end, here's the story so far. In chronological order.
Swords In The House of Horus: A Lost Scroll of Kull of Atlantis
Set in the prehistory of Stygia, the land that would one day become known as Egypt, the future King of Valusia encounters a strange, possibly immortal wizard who seeks a power from beyond the stars.
Battling the god Horus himself, Kull must vanquish foes from every quarter!
The Gauntlet of Nabu: A Solomon Kane Tract
Set in colonial Massachusetts, Solomon Kane encounters an entity that hungers for the very souls of an innocent family. Can he discover the secret of the Gauntlet of Nabu and use it to once again imprison the evil it held at bay, before it escapes and unleashes its evil upon this new land?
Red SonYa of Rogatino The Shadow of Tanaghaara
Set in an unnamed time of flintlocks and sabres, Red SonYa, warrior, mercenary and adventuress is blackmailed into escorting a young nobleman through a dangerous mountain pass to his betrothal. The pass is plagued by wild creatures, bandits and something far worse.
When Lady Raven arrives, will it be as friend or foe? Red SonYa must battle an evil from beyond the stars and her own nature to prevail!
Red SonYa of Rogatino The Secrets of the Amazons
Travelling to the shores of the Indian Ocean, Red SonYa seeks a mythical tribe of warrior women who share her penchant for battle and adventure. What she finds is a secret that might reshape the world!
The Beast of Borneo
It is the dawn of the 20th Century. In the heart of Africa, an infant has grown to near adulthood in the care of a tribe of intelligent apes. Viscount Greystoke, Huishi Zijue of China, better known to the world as Tarzan, encounters a man from Europe, the first he has met.
Captured by a strange man swathed in bandages, this man, Sherlock Holmes has come to Africa to recruit the young Tarzan for a mission far more important than stopping the gold smugglers who have taken him prisoner. Can Tarzan free Holmes before his mysterious captor does the unthinkable?
The Rock of Eternity: The Challenger Papers.
It is the early part of the 20th Century. Professor George Edward Challenger is the darling of the day for returning from his South American adventure with actual dinosaur eggs in hand. The media and scientific community are in an uproar, but those eggs are not the only thing Challenger brought back from his quest.
The inconceivably ancient knowledge he was burdened with after encountering a strange, buried, alien vessel at the base of the plateau where dinosaurs yet roam in the modern age, forces him into new adventures that will re-write the history of the universe.
The Mongo Machine
Buck Rogers, John Carter and Crash Corrigan within!
The world is at war, once again. The Nazis have recovered a machine that could turn the tide of history and it's up to a small team of warriors, Major John Carter, Captain Buck Rogers and Lieutenant Crash Corrigan to find and destroy the machine before the Axis can use it to secure weapons of unimaginable power from an incredible alien ally.
The Metropolis of Mongo
Awakening in a strange, alien city, Captain Buck Rogers and Colonel Wilma Deering find themselves thrown from a world war to a galactic one. Besieged by the Empire of Mongo, the city planet of Theopolis fights for its very survival.
Have Buck and Wilma travelled to the future? Everything, including their very biology, seems to indicate they are 500 years in their own future, but regardless of where or when they are, there's a war on and they are spoiling for a fight.
The Marine Moon of Mongo
Crash Corrigan finds himself flat on his back. Above him, a massive glass dome holds back an ocean in the sky. Is this fabled Atlantis? Where has the the strange Nazi machine sent him? When?
Before he can find the answers he needs, Corrigan is thrown into a life and death struggle in an arena that echoes ancient Rome, where life is cheap and death is entertainment. Befriended by a strange, alien creature he names Penny, Crash must fight for his life and the freedom of those who are pitted against him!
The Martian Monsters of Mongo
John Carter has returned to Barsoom. Somehow the alien machine spits him out on the sands of the planet he's been trying to return to for 25 years. But he's far from anything and anyone he knows and he's not alone.
A team of Nazi soldiers has come through as well and they're hunting him. Can he evade their pursuit, while fighting off the giant apes and banths that hunt him as well? And what of this strange woman who he meets in the desert? Is D'ahn J'onn a friend, a foe or something else entirely?
Operation Paperclip
Spy Smasher & Hop Harrigan within!
In the early days after WWII, Spy Smasher is on the trail of Dr. Satan, a notorious Nazi war criminal. In the jungles of South America, the evil Dr. has burrowed in like a tick and Spy Smasher, aided by ace pilot Hop Harrigan, must expose his operation to the light of day before he can bring his plans to fruition.
There's only a couple of problems. Dr. Satan knows he's there and he has an army and a giant robot!
Dr. Satan and the Element of Evil
Silk City, 1948. The Spider is trying to find a lost girl who might be in more trouble than she can handle. At the same moment, on the intelligence sent by Spy Smasher, Captain Midnight has tracked Dr. Satan to a warehouse in the seediest part of Silk City. The two heroines will collide in a maelstrom of drugs, henchmen and giant robots.
Can they work together to defeat the Doctor and save the girl?
Snakes & Ladders
Ouroboros City, a few years after WWII. Bob Wayne's mentor, the state's governor, has been murdered in the most gruesome way imaginable, leaving almost no evidence. The police are baffled, so Wayne dons the mask of The Copperhead, once worn by his grandfather to right wrongs in the Old West. Copperhead must navigate the underbelly of the city and climb the ladder to find the man responsible for the governor's death.
What he finds is not what he expected.
The Sizzling Spider and the Sinister Skull
The Sizzling Spider, Minute Man, The Shield, Uncle Sam, Fighting American & Miss Victory within!
A group of star-spangled heroes, known collectively as the Patriot Corps, has tracked a potentially dangerous relic, The Skull of Nabu, to Silk City. They enlist the assistance of the Spider and her team to recover the skull at any cost, before it falls into the hands of Illyria the spy queen.
Say the Magic Word!
It's 2026 and Billy Batson is a young girl, living a quiet life in Fawcett Bluff, a reserve in northern Manitoba, Canada. She dreams of bigger things, a life of adventure and wonder, like she sees in the action movies she loves.
An encounter with Ibis the Invincible places Billy on a path even she cannot imagine, gifting her with the magic of SHAZAM, a mantle which is only bestowed upon those who seek to protect above all.
Burdened suddenly with power beyond imagining, Billy must navigate the powers of Captain Marvel and save her family from an equally powerful entity who covets what she's been given.
Never, Mind!
Freddy Freeman isn't alone. Inside his head, an evil, bio-engineered parasite who calls himself Mr. Mind has taken root and is trying to hijack the young man's psyche.
When a plot to steal Captain Marvel's power goes awry, suddenly Freddy Freeman finds himself controlling the power of SHAZAM, just like his best friend, Billy Batson.
But is Freddy in control, or is Mr. Mind?
And I've only just begun.
I keep reminding everyone, there's a clock on this.
While I have plans to add characters to the universe through 2051 and the end of the Golden Age of Comics as it enters the public domain, the plot I'm currently unspooling in the background will begin to close off this universe on January 1, 2039.
Don't miss it!
The Perils of the Public Domain
Or "How I spent December"
December 24, 2025
So January's scheduled novella was finished.
I had chosen a hero and villain pairing that I was certain was in the public domain and written a corker of a story around their parallel origins.
I had re-imagined the hero and the hero's supporting cast in a brand new way and it worked really, really well.
Then I ran into a problem. My assumption about the villain being public domain was entirely wrong.
I found the copyright renewal record and it is indisputable.
Worse, the public domain status of my hero rests on a fairly small foundation. Technically, as far as I can determine with my best research, the character is public domain. The first comic issue where they appear is not locatable by any search I know how to do. But. The issues following that are renewed and that might be enough to allow the company that currently uses the character to mount an aggressive defence based on the volume and intent.
Could I win in court? Probably.
Would it be a fight I can afford?
I would be willing to defend myself and be my own foolish client, so maybe.
The thing is, even if I was willing to do ALL that, the villain is still under copyright for another decade and a half. The story, as written, dovetails the hero and villain arcs in a particular way and there's no public domain villain that would work instead.
So.
This novella is officially shelved. It will debut on January 1, 2041. Assuming I live that long and that enough people start buying my books regularly so I can keep the lights on and hunger at bay.
Will I risk using the hero before then? Technically, there's a sliver of legality that says I can. If I find the right story, then absolutely. I am willing to roll the dice as long as I can reasonably say, with honesty, that I believe I'm on the right side of the public domain with any given story. But for the moment, I have no story to hang on this particular character.
If there’s a takeaway here, it’s this: working in the public domain means accepting delays, dead ends, and occasionally shelving work I'm proud of. That’s the cost of doing it right.
It's frustrating, but I’d rather delay a book than publish something I can’t stand behind.
It's A Big Project!
And I Like Options!
December 4, 2025
As I've been saying for a couple of months, I'm knee deep in my new project over at Public Domain Super Heroes.
I'm having a blast. I'm writing (surprise, surprise!), researching, web-building, creating merchandise and all of it in that strange and wonderful domain, the public one.
But what's public domain anyhow? Simply put, it's what happens when copyright runs out.
Every book, every movie, tv show or piece of music is given an automatic copyright that belongs to whoever created the work. It lasts for different lengths of time in different countries, but for simplicity's sake, it's 95 years from publication. That's the standard in the United States and the one I'm using for my project. That rule came into existence in the 1970s and replaced a more complex and complicated set of rules that resulted in some copyrights lapsing and bringing certain characters into the public domain long before those 95 years had passed.
For instance, Robert E. Howard wrote a story called "The Shadow of the Vulture" which was published in 1934 in a little magazine called "The Magic Carpet Magazine." In that story, he created a character called "Red Sonya." At the time, the copyright rule required artists or copyright holders to renew their claims 28 years after publication. Since Howard died in 1936 and "The Magic Carpet Magazine" folded sometime in the 30s, no one renewed the copyright in 1962, so "Red Sonya" and the story itself are now in the public domain. She has no relation to the character "Red Sonja" who was created by Marvel Comics in the 1970s and is, in fact, quite different despite the similar names.
In Canada, there are different rules that mean that certain properties are in the public domain here before they enter it in the U.S., but it's simpler just to use the U.S. rules since my books are being printed there. If I want to stay in business, I need to stay on the right side of U.S. law, so publication plus 95 years it is, unless a lapsed copyright is in play.
And this means?
Over at my site, I've created a list of properties I'm interested in writing about. It's larger than I'm likely going to ever get to use, but I like options. I've divided it into sections, starting with a large one that covers all the currently public domain characters I am interested in folding into my universe, including characters published over 95 years ago and those characters whose copyrights are known to have lapsed due to failure to renew before the rule changes in the 1970s.
Now that I've collected my list, I realize it's very large and needs a little managing. Currently, I have 212 characters and stories listed. It spans characters and publications from as early as 1818 to as recently as 1955.
1818? Why?
Well, that's when Frankenstein by Mary Shelley was published and to my mind, that's when the real 'science fiction' genre began. To me, a science fiction story MUST have a plot that is driven or supported by a piece or pieces of scientific apparatus or theory that is BEYOND our current abilities or the abilities of the age in which the story is set. In my opinion, Shelley was the first to do this.
My writing is broken into 4 "Houses" for marketing purposes. Entropy (science fiction), Dread (horror), Crom (swords & sorcery) and Justice (super heroes). With the advent of true science fiction in the form of Frankenstein, there's a reasonable 'start' for my stable of 'public domain' characters. It's arguable that horror, super-heroes and swords & sorcery (fantasy) writing have been with us since the advent of writing, but science fiction is a genre with a pretty definite starting point.
So why 1955 as the last year of my list?
Two reasons. One theoretical, one practical.
For the comic book industry, 1955 was a decidedly low point. Sales had cratered, super heroes were being usurped by western and war themed books, comic book companies were folding right and left. The following year, DC Comics reintroduced a familiar character in a brand new form in an attempt to revive the flagging sales and kicked off a whole new age for the medium.
When The Flash was re-costumed and given a new identity, comics entered "The Silver Age". What had come before was eventually known as The Golden Age and to me, that's as good a place to cap my new universe as there could be. I plan to use characters from the beginning of science fiction story telling and use characters who follow in that tradition up to the end of that comic book Golden Age.
The other consideration is a practical one. Characters created in 1955 will enter the public domain in 2051. By then, I'll be 82. If I'm still around, I'll still be writing (assuming my faculties don't leak out of my ears between now and then) but I will not be opening up a new age for Public Domain Super Heroes at that point. If Public Domain Super Heroes still exists by then, the fact is, someone else will be running the show.
And why am I telling you all this?
Well, over the next few months, I'll be blogging about the various characters I'm working with or intending to work with. I'll be starting with an article about the pre-1900 characters I'm interested in using. Then another about the characters created between 1900 and 1929, then an article...well, you get the idea.
Articles may cover decades, a couple of years or even just a single year, depending on the numbers of characters created in each year. I find this stuff endlessly fascinating and I hope you will too.
The articles will give you a sense of how some of my stories connect, why they connect and how I intend to grow this universe over the next decade or more. I plan a novella a month (or more!) to add to the project, so who knows, maybe I will actually get all 212 characters into the universe eventually!
For the moment, I have 10 of those 212 in one or more of my current novellas. In January, more characters will join them and I hope you'll check back regularly to find out just who those characters are!
Robin Hood Plus!
So, Where's The Fun?
November 14, 2025
The new Robin Hood show from MGM is lush, beautiful and genuinely intriguing.
Sean Bean as the Sheriff of Nottingham? Inspired. As I’ve said for years, the villain maketh the show, and Bean brings exactly the kind of weight you want in a period piece like this.
Robin Hood is arguably the original superhero. He's the template for every masked vigilante who followed and, more importantly for studios, the ultimate public domain property. Nobody owns him. Anyone can reinterpret the myth and slap “Robin Hood” on the box.
Sound familiar? Hold that thought.
Now, what’s missing so far in this shiny new version isn’t the acting (solid), the direction (slick), the set design (chef’s kiss), or even the music (though I’d trade the sappy strings for a little Celtic harp).
The real absence is simple:
Fun.
I get what they’re going for. “Game of Thrones” grit without CGI dragons, sold to an audience that’s always hungry for the next serious, prestige-washed, brooding epic.
Hollywood sees one hit and immediately thinks, “A lick of paint, move a few chairs, fool ‘em twice.” And yes, sometimes they’re right. But as we saw this summer with the abrupt cancellation of Wheel of Time, three seasons into what was supposed to be a decade-long run, it’s not always that simple.
You know why the 1938 Errol Flynn film is still the gold standard after almost ninety years?
It’s not the acting (fun but not Oscar material).
It’s not the writing (pulpy).
It’s not the direction or sets (good for their day).
It’s because that movie is fun.
A silly outfit, a bow and arrow, a grin that could cut glass. Flynn makes that film sing.
This new version? Serious. Brooding. Beautifully shot misery.
All good things.
But not a lot of joy.
I’m only two episodes in, so maybe Robin will eventually stop crying long enough to shoot something, smile at someone, or crack even a tiny joke. The setup isn’t bad — but drama only pays off if we eventually get some brightness to contrast it.
For my part, the Flynn film is still under copyright for another decade. The minute it hits the public domain, I’ll be putting it on my YouTube channel.
Until then, you’ll have to settle for the 1922 Douglas Fairbanks silent version, which I’ve just uploaded.
Best watched with some Clannad for musical accompaniment.
Or maybe the Indiana Jones soundtrack.
This is the first film in a new section I’m adding to my channel alongside the serials. At the moment, anything made before 1929 is public domain. Every year, a new batch opens up, and every now and then something slips into the PD through a paperwork miracle (hello, 1960s copyright renewals).
Robin Hood himself isn’t someone I’m dying to use in my Public Domain Super Heroes universe but he could show up someday. He certainly checks all my boxes thematically.
One of my core pillars with Public Domain Super Heroes is taking beloved, square-jawed white-guy heroes and giving them a makeover. Sometimes that means race-bending, gender-bending, or dropping a character into a brand-new era.
But with Robin Hood, if I want to keep the historical setting, I’m a little boxed in. An Asian Robin Hood would make no historical sense, and Robin Hood as a woman has already been done more than once. Not saying “never,” just “not my first choice.”
Still, I may find a place for him.
Plenty of characters, like Kull of Atlantis, I am including in almost-original form… with major worldbuilding changes. My Atlantis is not Robert E. Howard’s. My Kull does not follow Howard’s timeline. I plucked him up and dropped him straight into my universe.
That’s the joy of the public domain.
Nobody gets to tell me “you can’t do that”. Well, almost nobody.
My very first Amazon review (thank you, sincerely) came from someone who read Swords in the House of Horus and was upset enough by my version of Kull to leave a one-star review.
They felt my Kull wasn’t an “honest attempt at telling a Kull tale.”
And they’re right. It isn’t Howard’s Kull.
It’s mine, in my world, rewritten to serve my universe’s mythology.
I’ve since clarified that in the book description, because that kind of misunderstanding is on me.
But here’s the thing:
I’m going to do it again. And again.
With every character I can legally use who sparks something in me.
And through all of it, every tweak, every shift, every reinvention, I’m holding myself to one promise:
I make them fun.
Drama? Yes.
Tragedy? Occasionally.
Action? Constantly.
But the stories themselves?
They’re fun. They should be fun.
These characters deserve that.
If you’ve stuck with me this far, you’re already part of what I’m building. And if you enjoyed one of my books, the single most powerful thing you can do is leave a review on Amazon.
It doesn’t have to be long. Two sentences is enough.
But those two sentences make a world of difference. Not just for sales, but for visibility, momentum, and future projects.
A book sale keeps the lights on for a day.
A review keeps this whole operation moving for years.
If you like what I’m doing, tell the world.
I’ll keep writing the fun stuff.
You spread the word.
Deal?
HAVE YOU SEEN THE YOUTUBE CHANNEL?
REGULAR UPDATES! PUBLIC DOMAIN VIDEO, FREE TO WATCH!
October 23, 2025
That's right!
As part of my new project at PublicDomainSuperHeroes.com, I went ahead and created a YouTube channel to bring some of the super heroes and adventurers I will be writing stories about to you in the form many people were first exposed to them.
Back before streaming, there was cable. Before cable there was free to air television. Before ANY of that, there were movies. In the early days of movies, theatres used to draw their patrons in by offering more than just whatever feature film was being show. From the late 1930s to the early 1950s, it was fairly normal to expect that along with the price of admission to the movie you wanted to see, you'd get newsreel footage (no tv news, remember?), a cartoon and maybe an episode of a serialized movie.
Coming from a serialized medium like comic books or pulp magazines, super heroes and adventurers were prime fodder for these serialized adventures. Republic and Columbia made dozens of serials and thank to the rules of copyright, even though the characters may or may not still be protected by copyright, these serialized versions are usually not.
I have plans to upload every single super hero or adventurer based serial I can get my hands on and I'm already well into that part of the project.
Thanks to how YouTube's algorithms work, I can't just upload everything at once. They limit uploads to a certain number a day. More than that, to keep the channel active, I can't just upload and leave it static. To satisfy their arcane rules, I'm splitting the difference. I upload a serial a week. In most cases, I set it up so the first episode goes live right away and then every week or two, the next episode gets added.
If you are a serial fan like me, there's absolutely NOTHING wrong with that. These things were released exactly that way and were meant to be consumed once a week or so. They are the direct ancestors of today's network television.
But I realize that we live in a binge conditioned society, so I've made concessions to that as well. Every few serials, rather than trickling the feed, I will give you the whole thing in one shot. 12 or 15 episodes, ready to binge.
As part of my efforts to turn PublicDomainSuperHeroes.com into something that will pay a few bills around here, I'll be updating this blog every once in a while to let you know what I've added recently.
Below are links to what's already live. Each thumbnail will link you to the playlist:
First up, the serials that are being set to live every couple of weeks. Feel free to click and then bookmark the playlist to check back for the next episodes:
And here are the serials I have uploaded in their entirety. Watch them from start to finish or bookmark the playlist and spread the experience out over a few days or weeks, your choice.
I hope you enjoy these little time capsules. My project is taking these heroes and adventurers and placing them in my newly created, integrated universe, but here you'll see them as many fans first saw them back when the only colour you'd see was in comics or your own imagination. Some of these are terrific, some less so, but the heroes they feature are ALL wonderful characters that I'm truly enjoying bringing to life in my new books.
I hope you'll like and subscribe to the videos and my channel. I know that EVERY YouTuber asks you to do that, but it turns out, they're not just saying it to inflate their numbers and their payout. YouTube takes all that 'like/subsrcribe/watch/rewatch' data, puts it in their algorithm and THAT is how you get all those videos down the right side that relate to or complement whatever you're watching.
Like and subscribe actually helps get these videos out there to more people. So if you enjoy them, that little click actually helps someone else enjoy them too!
Please support the project by visiting PublicDomainSuperHeroes.com as well. I have a page set up there for watching all these serials, totally off YouTube, should you prefer a little privacy from their 'suggestions.'
If you enjoy my blog, I'd be grateful if you would buy a book, either a PDF direct from the site or from my Amazon pages. I've done everything I can to keep the prices low for you. The PDFs are only $3.99 at the site and you get a full novella for that low price.
My shiny new author page at Amazon will give you access to all my books and you can choose from Kindle or Paperback copies of anything I've published. https://amazon.com/author/james.richardson
There is also a free to read story on the site, updated every month. That will never change, so if you're not sure if you'd enjoy a longer book, feel free to taste test my writing there that way!
MOST importantly, your comments and reviews are the BEST way you can help keep my venture alive. Both YouTube and Amazon are DIRECTLY influenced by reviews and comments. Their algorithms place my books and videos in a sliding scale with everything else in their database. Every time you comment, every time you add an honest review, that influences the algorithm and moves my stuff up or down in the pecking order.
I absolutely NEED you, my readers and blog visitors to engage with those sites if I am to make a success out of this project. I don't need you to write an essay, just a sentence or two to say you enjoyed something I wrote or posted is worth more to me than the tiny profit I make on a book or piece of merchandise.
You, dear reader, can keep the site, and my dream, alive.
Please and thank you.
UNBOXING THE HOUSE HOODIES!
THE HOUSE HOODIES ARRIVED!
October 23, 2025
I cannot tell you how excited I was to get these! They'd been stuck in Toronto during the postal strike and I was thrilled when they arrived!
They're fantastic!
And I could still REALLY use your help. My offer to send you a FREE 3 day novel has been extended to the end of the month!
Public Domain Super Heroes needs for YOU to buy a book (Kindle or Paperback) and REVIEW IT. That's the most important part. Amazon runs on reviews, so if you buy that helps me today, if you buy and review, that helps me FOREVER!
And remember to request your FREE 3-Day novel after your purchase. The offer has been extended to the end of the month!
UNBOXING THE FIRST CALENDAR!
THE PUBLIC DOMAIN SUPER HEROES 2026 CALENDAR HAS ARRIVED!
October 8, 2025
It's arrived! The first in my line of 2026 Calendars!
This first one sports 12 months of public domain comics and comic book covers and as you'll see in the video below, it is GORGEOUS. The quality blew me away and I'm going to be making at least a few more calendars for the season!
And don't forget, every purchase qualifies you to receive a free PDF of the 3 Day Novel of your choice!
Stop by The Public Domain Super Heroes Store and pick up a calendar today!
Once you've done that, email info@publicdomainsuperheroes.com with your order number and which 3 Day Novel you would like and within 24 hours I'll email you the pdf!
UNBOXING THE ELEMENT OF EVIL!
THE PROOFS FOR BRED IN THE BONE AND THE ELEMENT OF EVIL ARRIVE!
October 8, 2025
A week or so ago, I got these proofs for the newest books and I'd like to share my excitment!
PUBLIC DOMAIN SUPER HEROES IS LIVE!
A WHOLE NEW WAY TO LOOK AT CLASSIC SUPER HEROES
September 29, 2025
Welcome to the new home of classic and forgotten heroes! We’re live today with a promise: you’ll find something new here on a regular basis. Expect monthly novellas paired with free companion stories, so there’s always something fresh to read.We’ll be rolling out regular updates to our comics and YouTube pages to feed your appetite for timeless heroes and their adventures. And don’t miss the merchandise pages—show your Spy Smasher pride, sip from a Captain Midnight mug, or mark the year with our PUBLIC DOMAIN SUPER HEROES 2026 Calendar. Every dime goes toward our mission: bringing you high-quality, original content starring heroes and villains reclaimed from the public domain.
Check back often. We guarantee you’ll be thrilled—and surprised—by what we have in store.
FROM THE MORGUE:
FILE UNDER 'S' FOR "STUFF I DIDN'T KNOW...
...or "Super Hero".
I was only made aware that Marvel and DC Comics both held a joint Trademark on the term "Super Hero" or "Super Heroes" very, very recently when I read about an effort (apparently not the first) to get the Patent and Trademark people to rescind the trademark as too generic a term. A company wanted to market "Superbabies" (I have NO idea and nor do I care) as a "team of superheroes" and ran into the trademark issue.
Well, now you no longer have to worry about it. They won. We here at Public Domain Super Heroes are grateful!
Apparently the Marvel and DC people failed to respond to the petition and the Trademark has been revoked.
I'm usually on board with most things that comic book companies want to do to protect their interests, but this one seemed pretty low class to me. It's a very generic term, thrown around for all kinds of reasons by all kinds of people. Marketing a character or characters as "super hero" in NO way could ever diminish Marvel and DC's brand. Perhaps they finally saw just how crappy it was to hold onto it and simply decided to do the right thing. We'll likely never know.
If the legalese interests you, there's an article for you here.
FROM THE MORGUE:
DO YOU KNOW THE KING?.
No, not the new guy across the pond. Not the rock and roll guy either. I'm talking the King.
Jack "The King" Kirby. Co-creator of many of the characters that make up the Marvel Cinematic Universe juggernaut that has turned comic books from a hobby I used to get mocked for indulging in to a multi-billion dollar empire that has altered the movie going landscape. He's at least partly responsible for characters like Captain America, Black Panther, Iron Man, Hulk, Ant-Man and the Fantastic Four and more.
In an article over at CNN.com, I learned that Kirby actually had a similar experience to mine in his youth as a fan of fantasy fiction, hiding his love of the genre from his peers to avoid being bullied over it. It's nice to know I'm in good company and I'm sure Kirby would be proud to know that his work has since gone so mainstream that it's now cool to be a comic book geek.
Here's a link to the article. It's about a five minute read and while it only skims the surface of Kirby's life and career, it is still a fascinating snapshot of the life of a man that is only well known to hardcore comic book fans and little known by the millions of people who flock to movies based on his creative genius.
So take a few minutes to get to know the King. The next Marvel movie you take in will have a little more meaning for you if you do.
FROM THE MORGUE:
THE PHANTOM - A PUZZLINGLY UNSUCCESSFUL SUCCESS.
The Phantom. The Ghost Who Walks. The Long Lived Character With No Hits.
For the life of me, I cannot wrap my head around "The Phantom". He's a stupendous concept, been around longer than Superman, is still published in comic books today and yet on film and television he's almost a non-entity. The character has never gone away but somehow never reached his true potential.
Oh and he's fond of purple, so I'm on board with the costume. Even the trunks.
He started in comic strips, created by Lee Falk in 1936. He showed up on film in a 1943 serial and then pretty much disappeared back into the relative obscurity of comic strip print. In the 80's he showed up as part of "The Defenders of the Earth" along with Mandrake the Magician, Flash Gordon and Lothar and their respective offspring. For the time it was a decent cartoon but never made much of a splash.
In the 90s, first he appeared in "Phantom 2040" and then in a live action film with Billy Zane. Both are competently done but neither gets a lot of love.
The Phantom 2040 animated series starred Scott Valentine as the Phantom (that's Mallory's rock-stupid boyfriend from Family Ties if you're wondering) with a supporting cast that included Margot Kidder as the heavy, Ron Pearlman as her flunky and Mark Hamill as the cyborg news guy. It's two solidly done seasons that has about zero fans these days despite being a pretty solid show. It gets a lot of love in Australia, where the popularity of The Phantom is still very strong but that's about it. I had to buy my dvd of season 1 from Oz, in fact and season 2 has yet to be released.
Billy Zane really looked every bit the hero in the 1996 film and took his role so seriously that they shot his out of costume stuff first so he could SHAVE HIS HEAD to make the skull cap fit all the better when they shot the costume stuff. That's a dedicated actor!
There was a SyFy miniseries attempt to update the character, but it was so poorly done that the series it was a pilot for never materialized.
So, why keep trying?
The Phantom is a unique creation that blends fantasy, superhero and sci-fi elements with a very cool backstory that allows the character to show up at virtually any point in history or even the future without causing a problem with character canon. The original Phantom was the sole survivor of a pirate caused shipwreck off the African coast in the 1500s, who vowed to devote his life and the lives of his sons to the elimination of piracy in all its forms in return for the gift of his survival. The most well known incarnation of the Phantom bases out of Africa in the 20th Century but he can pretty much show up anywhere, anywhen and still be perfectly "in-canon" since the mantle is handed down from father to son in perpetuity.
The Phantom is unique as well in his longstanding commitment to the environment. From the get go, The Phantom is as hard on those pillaging the natural world as he is on evil doers. While that's pretty common in the superheroes of today, it was pretty revolutionary at the time the Phantom was created.
Oh and he wears a skull shaped ring, leaving skull shaped imprints in the villains he punches. How awesome is that?
Add to all of that the real and ever present need of the current incarnation of The Phantom to marry and produce an heir to carry on the legacy, you have a character who just screams cinematic gold, particularly in the current comic book friendly Hollywood. Great costume, cool gimmicks, animal friends like the dog Devil, romance, history and he's so environmentally friendly he even recycles his identity! I could write a hit film with one hand.
The two big drawbacks of the character are easily addressed. First he really falls smack into the "Great White Saviour of Africa" trope, in a lot of ways between Tarzan and "Great White Hunter" territory. While that's a part of the character's DNA, it would be easy to rework the character to put that behind him. Either use a modern day incarnation and simply place all that stuff squarely in a less than perfect past or do a period piece and have the character avoid the stereotype. I could even see it as something that gets hung on a historic version of the character that he privately disavows.
Second, the whole "father to son" thing is outdated. In The Defenders of the Earth cartoon, The Phantom has a daughter, so there's already precedence to either cast a woman Phantom or a female heir to the throne (seriously, the Phantom uses a skull motif and has a Skull Throne in his lair) for a sequel down the road.
A great Phantom movie is due. How we haven't already had one is a complete mystery.
In the meantime, The Phantom will become part of the Public Domain in 2031. He will become part of the Public Domain Super Heroes Universe that same year.
Promise!