Comic Book Media and Rights Issues

In comic books, heroes fight any number of deadly and dangerous foes, but one foe that they cannot defeat are lawyers and the case of certain issues regarding the rights of their portrayal in fictional media. There have been many times where potentially great comic book related cartoon and live action series have been derailed by legal issues and of course, the people who may have to suffer the most would be the fans.

Triumphant Cases of Legalities defeating Super Heroes.

There have been many instances where a deadlier foe then the Joker, Lex Luthor, Doctor Doom, the Green Goblin, Darkseid, whoever has compromised several heroes in their media portrayal over the years and that being the issue of who has the rights to certain characters.

Why Hasn’t the Adam West Batman Series Come Out on DVD

This is rather the most frustrating example to many fans, as with the exception of the live action movie, no episodes from the beloved, but very much campy, Adam West Batman series have been on television. One company owns the show, while DC owns Batman, then there is a tricky issue with the music and also various celebrity cameos, so it is all a tangled mess of rights issues that is preventing a full scale official DVD release. I say official because there are bootleg copies of the 1966 Batman show out on DVD of various qualities from okay to really horrible. And obviously, episodes have popped up on various video sharing websites and torrents, the cut up TV Land versions anyway. Full episodes as they aired back in the 1960s, don’t seem likely any time soon. Most of the major Batman villains have passed on, with Julie Newmar who played Catwoman being the only one of the big four(Riddler, Joker, Penguin and Catwoman), still living. It appears that this show will never see official DVD release.

The Human Torch Being Removed from the 1970s Fantastic Cartoon.

That was really not because of fears from moral guardians that children were going to set themselves on fire, as it was often rumored. Although parents who don’t teach their children that fire is bad and thus they would be setting themselves on fire, should have their children taken away. But that is beside the point. Still the fears that children were going to set each other on fire was not the reason why the Human Torch was removed from the cartoon. Rather the fact that he was going to be part of a live action project. Which never truly got off the ground. He was replaced by HERBIE, the loveable little robot, who I have no problems with, but obviously with the Four he’s a lot better, than being a replacement for one of the Fantastic Four. Which was a rather legit complaint people had but rights issues strike at the worst possible time.

Ah, Yes, the Bat Embargo

During the Justice League Unlimited era, the Batman cartoon series was also being put right into production to air in the Kid’s WB during the 2004 Fall Line Up. On the bright side, Batman would remain on JLU but none of his supporting cast would rather have been able to appear on JLU. This Bat Embargo left the door open for some other characters to get time to shine, but boy were people bitter. The theory was that children would be confused if like two different versions of the Joker were running around. Just goes to show you how little executives and legal teams think of the youth today. The Batman also got popped with the Embargo, with Ra’s Al Ghul and the Scarecrow not showing up due to their roles in the Batman Begins movie. The same thing with Two Face, because of the fact he appeared in the Dark Knight. A similar embargo around this time caused Aquaman to be removed from JLU, for a live action series that also flopped and Black Manta be renamed to Devil Ray. The Bat Embargo got fans up in arms for years to come and there are debates about what could have been with JLU if the Bat Embargo wasn’t.

The Original Voice Actors of the 1987 Ninja Turtles Series Being in Turtles Forever.

Yeah, that was mostly because 4KidsTV does not employ union actors, which all of the old voice actors of the 1987 Ninja Turtles series was. They could not make an exception obviously (either side), because that would set a precedent that would be contest later. So we had replacements for Turtles Forever. Some of them were actually pretty spot on and others had missed the mark. Still it was a quality movie and a great closer to the end of an era for TMNT, before the franchise was taken over by Nickelodeon.

Spectacular Spider-Man Cut Off At the Knees

The Spectacular Spider-Man had a devoted fan base and its share of critics, but only two seasons later and it is gone. Spider-Man has had the worst luck with cartoons and hopefully the Ultimate Spider-Man cartoon coming up will be good and long lasting, but the last few after the 1990s Spider-Man cartoon were not. Spectacular Spider-Man was a dastardly villain of the rights. Essentially Sony gave up the rights to the Spider-Man cartoon series, so it can continue to produce Spider-Man movies. The cartoon only lasted two seasons but there were three more planned and perhaps a couple of DTV movies as well. But it was not to be. While not as beloved, Wolverine and the X-Men was also cut off, having twenty six episodes and a second twenty six episode season teased, based off of the Age of Apocalypse storyline, with several new characters showing up, including Deadpool. But sadly once again, it was not meant to be.

Heroes have one common foe and that being legal issues to cause their shows to die, be compromised, or never be released on DVD. No doubt there will be many more issues of super heroes being screwed over by legalities in the future.