Marvel’s Mystery Men Title May Need to Rethink its Name
Yesterday, Marvel Comics sent out a teaser image for an upcoming series titled Mystery Men. The image was illustrated by Patrick Zircher, and shows a number of 1940s style superheroes. One of the characters appears to be The Fin and another looks like The Thunderer, both of whom appeared in Daring Mystery Comics, which was published in the 1940s by Marvel parent Timely Comics.
Now, the teaser certainly piqued my interest, but what is far more interesting is the fact that ICv2 are claiming that Marvel may not actually have the rights to publish a series under the title of Mystery Men. according to their article, it seems that the name has already been claimed by Universal Pictures, who produced a Mystery Men movie in 1999, based on characters from Bob Burden‘s Flaming Carrot comic book series.
When contacted by the website, Bob Burden clarified that he owns the trademark to the one-word Mysterymen title, and Dark Horse and Universal own to the two word Mystery Men title. When asked if Universal had contacted him about Marvel’s use of the Mystery Men title, Burden told ICv2, “I have not heard from Universal, but I am sure Universal will proceed in an orderly and propitious manner.”
The article also hints that there may also be a possibility of a clash between Marvel and Dynamite, whose Project Superpowers comic features a group of Golden Age characters that Alex Ross has named The Super-Mysterymen. However, based on the fact that all of the characters in this series are re-purposed Golden Age comic characters that have fallen in to the public domain, I doubt that Dynamite would have a leg to stand on. Add to that Dynamite and Dynamic Forces’ great relationship with Marvel, and I don’t think there will be much trouble there.
To read the full article, please head to http://www.icv2.com/articles/news/19304.html
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Check out what others are saying about this post...[...] This teaser caused a bit of controversy, because it turns out that Marvel may not actually have the rights to publish a series under the title of Mystery Men. This is because the name has already been claimed by Universal Pictures, who produced a Mystery Men movie in 1999, based on characters from Bob Burden‘s Flaming Carrot comic book series. According to Bob Burden, he owns the trademark to the one-word Mysterymen title, and Dark Horse and Universal own to the two word Mystery Men title. (Full story here) [...]