Superboy - Legal Status

Legal Status

The Superboy character is currently the subject of a legal battle between Time Warner, the owner of DC Comics, and the estate of Jerry Siegel. The Siegel estate claims that the original "Superboy" character published by DC Comics is an independent creation that used ideas from Jerry Siegel's original rejected pitch and was created without his consent.

On April 4, 2006, Federal judge Ronald S. W. Lew issued a summary judgment ruling that Jerry Siegel's heirs had the right to revoke their copyright assignment to Superboy and had successfully reclaimed the trademark to the name as of November 17, 2004. Warner Bros. replied that it "respectfully disagrees" with the ruling and will appeal. Since the ruling, the name "Superboy" has rarely been used in print to refer to any version of the character.

On July 27, 2007, the courts ruled in favor of Warner Bros' decision to appeal the previous ruling and dismissed some of the Siegel estate's claims about the Superboy character. The trial for the dispute over the Superman copyright was expected to begin on May 13, 2008, with the trial for the Superboy copyright dispute to begin some time afterwards.

The legal dispute affected DC Comics' treatment of the various incarnations of Superboy, such as in the Secret Origin of the Teen Titans back-up story in the weekly 52 limited series, where an illustration of Superboy was changed into Wonder Girl. In the Sinestro Corps War storyline in the Green Lantern titles and in the Countdown to Final Crisis limited series, the Superboy-Prime character was then known as Superman-Prime, a development that came about in part because of the legal dispute. Additionally, other stories, such as those in Teen Titans, then referred to the modern version of Superboy as "Conner" or "Kon-El."

On June 28, 2008, Dan DiDio said in reference to Legion of Three Worlds at the Wizard World Chicago convention, "We’ve got Geoff, we’ve got George, we’ve got SuperBOY Prime (yes, we can say that again)."

In July 2009, Didio explained in the "DC Nation" column featured in the back of certain DC titles that Final Crisis: Legion of Three Worlds No. 4 "returned Conner to the land of the living, while Legion of Three Worlds No. 5 ... resolves the issue of the multiple Legions once and for all", and that in August DC would revive "Adventure Comics Starring Superboy and the Legion of Super-Heroes", with additional pages split-featuring Superboy and the Legion in separate stories.

The legal issues regarding the character may also be a factor in the decision by Warner Bros. not to release any further seasons of the syndicated Superboy TV series beyond season 1 to DVD; the first season was issued in 2006 at about the time the legal wrangling began. Warner, for its part, indicated in a September 18, 2008 chat that sales of season 1 weren't strong enough to justify further releases.