There are lots of past and present lawsuits that pertain to creator's rights, but most of them don't deserve ridicule. It's a serious question how much credit certain people deserve for creating long-lived characters and what is owed to them and their heirs. Bob Kane took almost all the credit for creating Batman's world when most of it should go to Bill Finger. Readers are sharply divided on how much credit to give Stan Lee and how much to give his collaborators like Jack Kirby. In that spirit, we must consider the claim made by Iron Man's original creators, Ben and Ray Lai. Wait, what? The Lai brothers filed suit, contending that the designs of Iron Man's suits as seen in the movies were based on their own comics series, Radix, created in 2001, and not a design widely known to have originated in the first year of Iron Man stories, in 1963. They also sued because an Iron Man 3 poster showed Iron Man rising from one knee, just like one of their Radix characters did once. Rising from one knee is not a copyrightable concept. Also, the Lais worked for Marvel for a bit themselves, in a standard work-for-hire contract that gave Marvel full rights to use any new suit they chose to give Tony Stark. In any case, the Lai brothers filed this suit seven years after the first Iron Man film, meaning the statute of limitations has expired. Such a shame. They had such a strong case otherwise.
T Campbell has written quite a few online comics series and selected work for Marvel, Archie and Tokyopop. His longest-running works are Fans, Penny and Aggie-- and his current project with co-writer Phil Kahn, Guilded Age.
