BREAKING NEWS: Jack Kirby's Estate Loses Character Rights To Marvel

@thanos thanks I will edit it now.

Thats a butt load of $. Sucks to be Kirb's estate. Good to be Lee

I think the judge made the right call. It was a "work for hire," they were working for Marvel when they created the characters so technically Marvel owns them.

Just another example of greedy offspring trying to make money off of their ancestor's hard work. *cough-seigel shuster family! cough cough*

@metalmachine this is not a "creative" issue... his works were done for Marvel. Marvel owns them. end of story. as with all work-for-hire... it doesn't belong to the artist or writer... it belongs to the people that PAID THEM TO DO THE WORK. when the estate tries to get more money or the rights to something that IS NOT THEIRS, it appears to be greed.

i confirm nuclearpriest's comment!!

Lucky for us fans, Who knows what he would have done with his "share" of characters, The Avengers may not have been possible if Kirby won.

The next civil war will be between whats left of the middle class and poor, against rich people. That is if Marvel doesn't do theirs first.

....Vote Independent and send 'em a message.

Shite

@metalmachine if you think my comments were ignorant you should re-read your own posts because they are a primer in abject ignorance.Jack Kirby did not leave Marvel and publish for himself as the guys at Image did, he instead went to DC and created more characters that he doesn't own. Rob Leifeld does not own Cable for the same reason that Jack Kirby does not own The Silver Surfer. They created these characters under the auspices of Marvel Comics. How you cannot understand this simple fact is baffling to even someone as ignorant as myself.

[frick]ING SUCK SHIT KIRBY KIIDS YOU GREDDY BASTARDS !!!!!!!!. THEIR MARVEL CHARACTERS AND THIS IS FOR THE MARVEL FANS.

Good, although I wouldn't really lay into the Kirby heirs for this one, not completely at least. The greedy prick Marc Toberoff was the one who pushed the Kirby heirs into this. He'll be back to appeal this as well. I'm glad he got his ass handed to him and sent packing but it ain't over.
It's a bit of a suspicious move that as soon as Kirby characters start making money on the big screen, this dick Toberoff - who is also (surprise,surprise) a movie producer - is banging on the Kirby's door pulling his Grima Wormtougue routine about them being owed something and that he has most likely worked a deal with them to have his own company hold a vast percentage of the character's rights, much in the same way Toberoff and his company stand to gain the majority of anything gained from the Superman case while the Shuster/Siegel heirs contend with scraps, yet again.

Toberoff is the parasite manipulating these people for his own agenda. This bitch is using the plight of the little guy as a smoke screen. Glad at least one judge saw through this.

Wow... Stan Lee has reaped the benefits of having worked with Jack Kirby and the public loves Stan Lee. The way some of you are reacting towards Jack Kirbys estate is very disrespectful. He created and co-created the vast majority of the Marvel universe. I say "co-created" to be fair to men like Stan lee. Often times Lees only contribution to a creation would be to say, "Hey Jack, what if we had a guy on a surfboard?" Then Jack would create the Silver Surfer while Stan lee promoted himself. Jack Kirby suffered in life when he should have been coddled and adored by corporate Marvel. You have no idea what went down in the 70s and 80s as Kirby struggled and Stan Lee and Jim Shooter and others grabbed every bit of glory they could for themselves and the profits for Marvel.

In addition, some of you have been throwing petulant fits on here and insulting others because you claim to be an "artist" (though I'm not sure fan-fiction or fan-casting qualifies). This statement asserts that we must not be artists because we understand the concept of logic and law. Asinine, just like many of the arguments in support of the Kirby Estate. Here's my suggestion: Honor the man for his contribution to the worlds in which we lose ourselves, but also recognize that without the "machine", in which Kirby was a cog (one of the singular, most important cogs, but a cog nonetheless), NONE of this would exist for us to enjoy.

In closing: Get down off of your collective crosses, use that wood to build a bridge and get over it.

Lord Loki has spoken

What a pity that it came to this, for both parties.

I think the ‘fight’ is being contested by two parties more interested in winning, fame and fortune than the actual characters and work involved.

Here you can watch Stan Lee praising Jack Kirby, saying he couldn’t have done it without him…

http://www.webofstories.com/play/16759

I am a graphic artist and I work for a marketing company. If I want to include the work I have done for my employer in my personal portfolio, I got to ask for permission because I don't own the work I did for the company.

If I ever make a comic book, and I want to keep the rights for that comic book, I will publish it myself instead of working for a company.

Kirby was a master comic book artist and deserves much glory and praise but he was working for a company. Marvel owns the characters. Period.

THIS MAKES ME SPIT FEATHERS! Money going back to Money. Why SHOULDN'T KIRBY'S family have a stake in HIS work. WOULD ANY OF YOU DENY YOUR POTENTIAL GRANDKIDS a legacy of SOME KIND. DO ANY OF YOU KNOW WHAT MARVEL DID WITH KIRBY'S ART? They stiffed him in his own life time. They HAD no F*CKING RESPECT for his art. F*CK Marvel and DC. They screwed The SUPERMAN estate too. Before ANY of you bitch - WRITE a god damn original comic and DRAW IT TOO. Watch some rich asshole take the rights from you - THEN COMPLAIN.