Legion World Forums LEGION CLUBHOUSE The Legion of Super-Heroes Visionaries of Tomorrow Dave Cockrum's unpublished creations

I guess someone didn't buy the Legion Companion, then.

Seriously, folks, it's almost sold out, so if anyone still wants it, it won't be available much longer.

There are some really.... interesting comments on this thread about Dave's unpublished properties. For the record, Marvel and DC only own what they bought. If it didn't appear in a comic book, they didn't buy it. It doesn't make a difference where it was intended to go, they only bought what they published.

Dave Cockrum was a freelancer, not an employee of any company, therefore his work product was his own, not the company's by default. In fact, comic book fans tend to have a skewed view of publishing altogether due to "work of hire" contracts. By default, in publishing, a creator owns his own work, period. A publisher must make special arrangements for the transfer of copyright, otherwise the copyright stays with the creator. In comics, that's the "work for hire" contract. Again, by default, the publisher does not automatically own everything. The publisher must make special arrangements to purchase the copyright of a property, and if it does not make that purchase, it does not own that property.

All of Dave Cockrum's unpublished creations are now the property of his estate, which is essentially Paty Cockrum. Again, comic book creators are not employees. They are independent contractors who enter into a business relationship with a publisher on a case-by-case basis. Neither side is "weaker" in such a relationship. If you've got something that someone else wants, then you're both standing on the same ground.

As for DC buying the characters, why on God's green earth would Paty do that? Why would she be so dumb as to give away the farm for a single cheque? To make some comic book fans happy? Remember the X-Men? Remember how Dave always regretted not owning a piece of that action? Why, given everything that the Cockrum family went through over decades, would Paty Cockrum be so dumb as to repeat that mistake? You only give up ownership if there's a damn good reason for doing so, and losing characters in perpetuity just so they could appear once in a comic book story isn't even a decent reason. It's just silly.

In life, you have to look out for your own interests, mainly because the other side is looking out for theirs. DC has done crossovers in the past; they don't need to purchase the rights from anyone to tell a story using those characters. Instead, they could just work out a deal where both parties benefited and retained their own copyrights. It happened with Batman/Spawn, it happened with JLA/Avengers, and it could happen, in theory, with the Cockrum estate. Realistically, it's not going to happen because there isn't a market for it (internet inflation, i.e., a few people talking about it, notwithstanding), but in theory, it could. There's no need for Paty Cockrum to be a schumck and lose all rights forever to a potentially valuable property in the bargain. How dumb would the Cockrum family be to do that a second time?

I'm not familiar with copyright law in the USA. I thought the right to use a character owned by someone else was some sort of "copyright", even though it's obvious that buying a character is different from using a character.
Thank you for a very imformative comment on the matter.

Yeah I started this post I guess I was being a little selfish wanting to see Dave's characters in the Legion once again and to strengthen his Legion legacy that often is overshadowed by his X-Men legacy and for his characters to be seen by a whole new generation,the most important thing of course would be for Paty Cockrum to be fairly compensated but like someone else said I dont think DC would be willing to do this,That being said to me Dave Cockrum will always be my generation's Jack Kirby.
In a perfect world everyone would benefit the Cockrum family and Dave's Fans.

Umm, I do have that. Unless my edition is missing two pages, that spread is not part of the Companion.

AWESOME!!!

Thanks Nightcralwer! Don't know how you resisted coloring those pages.

One of the things I noticed while setting up the image was that Dave's costume re-designs blended well with the original costumes he left in place.

Dave was wise enough to see that while some of the costumes had room fro improvement, not all of them needed to be redone (for the sake of redoing). I wish modern artists showed that level of respect and design sense.

[/qb][/QUOTE]I guess someone didn't buy the Legion Companion, then.

[/QUOTE]Umm, I do have that. Unless my edition is missing two pages, that spread is not part of the Companion. [/QB][/QUOTE]

Yes I forgot it was in there to, but it is on page 74 of the companion.

Indeed it is, but much smaller than the Amazing World version.

Still think someone needs to put together the Ultimate Cockrum collection with colored glossy pages where appropriate.

It would include designs of all the characters he created (that were used) and some of the better ones he didn't.

Plus, more uncolored work from Legion and X-Men. He did some great covers doing Byrne's run. I think had a much better sense of drama and layout than Byrne did.

Here are my thoughts on the situation.

Cockrum-owned characters are going to languish forever unless one of the following happens:

1) Paty licenses the characters to another publisher. Honesty, I doubt there is much demand for these characters, and it would probably take a Cockrum fan like Jim Lee or maybe one of Dave's contempories like George Perez to get a publisher interested.

2) Paty self-publishes or finds an Independent label that would let her maintain ownership (seems likely). If she could get someone to revive the Futurians, the Outsiders and other such characters could be used in that series.

3) DC and or Marvel buy the characters for either the Legion or X-Men properties because they were created by Dave. Someone could write a backstory for these characters -- that they actually existed in the era in which Dave worked on the books. I don't think this is a likely scenario.

I think a revival of the Futurians is the best bet, but it's going to take some unique creators to do it.

I feel that if DC were still in the business of doing "Elseworlds" (or perhaps they could as an alternate Earth story in lieu), this would be the best way to honor Cockrum and his Legion contributions, including his unused characters. Paty would retain the rights to whatever characters DC doesn't currently own, and most of the proceeds of such a project should go to whatever expenses are still owed from his medical bills and hospitalizations (if there are still some remaining) or for diabetes research if his estate is in good shape.

And Marvel should do a similar project with his X-Men and Starjammers characters. Both companies (especially Marvel) owe a lot of their successes to Dave's phenomenal creative contributions.

Sadly, since neither have done something along these lines for him already since he died, it's very unlikely they ever will as time passes.

That night, the fiery orange glow of Nix Olympica's boiling lava illuminates one of the most glorious moments in Legion annals....

And what a moment that was! Unforgettable moment. To see all of them like this!

Seeing this spread that close (Thanks Nightcrawler), I noticed two "strange" details.

What did Duplicate Boy do - which he obviously thought was very funny - that made Shrinking Violet so mad?

And even more important:

Since when was Invisible Kid so "chummy" with Quantum Queen that he has his arm around her back?

What dark secrets does the Legion's past have that we know nothing about?

You know with this Action Comics Legion sparking interest in the old Legion...I wonder if we could get a proposal together with some of the characters he wanted to include in the Legion mythos.

Tell DC it's for a good cause (his widow!).

Here's a character Dave created named AlyXa that did get published by DC in a Wonder Woman Annual, anybody got any background information on her, it would be cool if she was from the future.

She was. It was the Legends of Dead Earth Wonder Woman Annual.

I wouldn't mind if they brought her back, and put her in the 31st century.

Not a creation, but two never-before-seen stories illustrated by Dave are presented in X-MEN: ODD MEN OUT, on sale this week!

I didn't realize it until I bought it and brought it home. I only bought it in case there was a Nighty appearance. Needless to say, I was pleasantly surprised!

Well I haven't bought an X-Men book in years, but thats about to change with this coming out.

My interpretation of Belladonna, in the Legion-verse, in story-form.

Someday I'll probably write a fic with Trio in it, my other favorite of his unpublished creations, but I haven't gotten around to it.

The costume in post #797357 looks like a cross between the female wildcat and a later storm costume.