Bolstered by the legal fight between the heirs of Jerry Siegel & Joe Shuster against DC Comics, the family of Jack Kirby is going after the rights of a large chunk of the Marvel comics universe.

The legal battles over the ownership to Superman has been a long one, dating back to the 1940′s.  It has had more twists and turns than one can count, but in the end, DC has paid some money to the families, and some small issues still linger.

Now comes Marvel Comics turn to fight in court to retain characters created under its brand name.

The family of Jack “The King” Kirby has served Marvel with notices of their intent to reclaim the rights to 45 characters in 2014 that he created while working for the company in the 1960′s and 1970′s.  This was announced this past summer, even before the news of Disney buying Marvel broke, and Disney has stated that the issue was taken into consideration when determining the $4 billion price tag it paid for the comics publisher.

Now news comes today that Marvel is taking the Jack Kirby estate to court and claiming that all of the characters were created under a “work for hire” situation.  This essentially means he worked for them, was paid for his work, and that Mr. Kirby retains no rights to those characters as they were purchased outright by the company.  John Turitzin, a lawyer for Marvel, said, “[the Kirby heirs] are trying to  rewrite the history of Kirby’s relationship with Marvel.  Everything about Kirby’s relationship with Marvel shows that his contributions were works made for hire and that all the copyright interests in them belong to Marvel.”

Marc Toberoff, lawyer for the Kirbys, replied, “It is a standard claim predictably made by comic book companies to deprive artists, writers, and other talent of all rights in their work.”

While I have not seen the actual contracts, I hate to tell the Kirbys that Marvel is more than likely correct.  Back in the time he was working for the company, comic books were seen as nothing more than children’s entertainment, and the work was disposable at best.  No one saw the long term iconic status these characters would reach, nor the millions they would bring in at the box office.  They simply were stories sold to kids, and nothing more, the fact that they have endured is a testament to the work Mr. Kirby did, but if the contracts read the way I imagine they do, they have no real case here.

I am certainly not defending the way Marvel treated Jack Kirby over the years, but a contract is a contract.

The one thing Mr. Toberoff said that really angered me, and prompted me to write this article at all, was, “Sadly, Jack died without proper compensation, credit or recognition for his lasting creative contributions.”

Excuse me?  Have you ever spent any time within a mile of a comic book store or convention?  Heck, within a mile of a comic book fan alone?  Jack Kirby is spoken with reverence and love by just about every comic book fan who draws breath.  No credit?  No recognition?  You, sir, are a fool who are just trying to paint Marvel in an unfavorable light, but instead you just show your extreme ignorance to the industry you have decided to take to task.  You would be well served by doing some research.