🚀 go-pugleaf

> From:	cory!cc-30	(Kathy Li)
 
>      Heard an idea about why Marvel/Shooter is suddenly going to be pushing
> out a whole new universe with lots of new characters--it seems Kirby has a good
> chance of getting the rights to his characters, possibly leaving Marvel with
> nothing but Spiderman (unless Ditko sues).
>      Any thoughts on this? I'd love to hear.

I doubt that this is the reason. First, Kirby would not get *all* the rights
to the chracters he created. At best, he'd get co-ownership (with Marvel) of
them. I don't know what the "New Universe" angle is, but I'd be surprised if
they just do away with all of their popular characters and come up with some-
thing totally different in their place.
	Something I read somewhere (I can't remember where or why it gave me
this idea) lead me to the feeling that this "New Universe" will not be a
replacement for the current one, but just another continuity that their new
books will be put into.
	And I don't think that Ditko can press for a co-ownership claim on
Spiderman. From what I've heard, he already signed the release that Marvel
"required" before returning his artwork to him that stated that all the work
he ever did for them was "work for hire", which eliminates all claim he
might have to the characters he designed for Marvel. Actually, I may be
wrong on this, but I think Kirby again came up with the design for Spiderman,
even though Ditko was the first artist for the character.

> p.s.  Is it true that it's an official policy of Shooter's that NO negative
>       letters are to be printed in Marvel comics?

Well, I think I have seen negative letters here and there throughout the
Marvels I read, but not a whole lot. Considering that there are documented
cases in which Marvel has edited letters of comment to change the negative
commentary to positive indicates that this policy may well be true.

--- jayembee (Jerry Boyajian, DEC, Acton-Nagog, MA)

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