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9 Comic Book Creators Who Were Seriously Screwed Over


Unfortunately, superhero comics tend to be where creator rights go to die. It may be understandable that the company that employs the artists get a cut of the cash for a character, but sometimes creator end up seeing barely a penny for wildly successful heroes they created. They can struggle in poverty while comic book companies make millions off their idea. And unfortunately, this has been going on since the beginning. Let’s take a look at comic book creators who didn’t get their fair share when it came to their comic book creations. By the way, if you want to help out any of these creators financially, an organization called The Hero Initiative will help you do just that.

 Do you have any creators to add? Say so in the comments!

  1. Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster

    When I say creators getting screwed goes back to the beginning of superhero comics I mean the very beginning- as in the birth of Superman. He’s one of the world’s most famous heroes and many would say his creation was the birth of superhero comics as a longlived genre, so you’d think his creators would have had it made. But this wasn’t true at all.

    Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster created Superman at age 17 and 5 years later, they sold the rights to the character to Detective Comics for a mere 130 dollars. In return, they received a ten year contract to produce all Superman-related work. The character was quickly syndicated for newspapers and Seigel and Shuster naturally wanted to a raise for doing this additional work- they asked for their pay to go from ten to fifteen dollars a page. What they received in response was an affronted letter from an editor that said such an audacious request took his breath away. 

    To say Superman was wildly successful was an understatement, and his creators were entitled to a percentage of the profits, but instead they received claims that the character has actually “lost money”, despite appearing in a radio programs and cartoons.

    Jerry Siegel later submitted the concept for “Superboy” to the company, and was rejected. He went off to fight in World War II, and while on the warfront, learned that the company was now publishing his Superboy concept without his permission or knowledge and keeping all the cash. What’s more, Siegel and Shuster’s bylines was being used without their permission. They sued and won regarding Superboy and the use of the byline, but still lost out on Superman. They got a meager sum and were broke two years later. When Superman got a movie deal, the pair had to contact the company and demand a sum. It wasn’t until the 1970’s they got a yearly pension and legal battles over who owned Superman raged on even after the creator’s deaths. 

  2. Jack Kirby- The King

    Jack Kirby helped create Captain America, The Incredible Hulk, The Fantastic Four, Iron Man, Thor and many more successful characters that make a boatload of money- but far from giving him the proper compensation for his creations, Marvel refused to even hire his on as a regular employee with health benefits. Like Siegel and Shuster, he tried to sue for the rights to his characters, and like them, he lost.

     In the mid 1980’s, Marvel tried to convince Kirby to sign away all his rights to the characters he created or else they would not return his very valuable original art that they possessed.  Eventually they relented and gave him back some of his art, but not nearly all of it. Stan Lee admitted after Jack’s death that he should have gotten more recognition. 

  3. Bill Finger

    As I’ve written before, while Bob Kane is credited as the creator of Batman, it was Bill Finger who did all the real work. Kane really just came up with the name- Finger came up with the costume, who had the idea he shouldn’t have superpowers and should be a detective, his tragic origin and even wrote the first Batman story despite being uncredited. He also came up with the Batmobile, Comissioner Gordon, Robin, Gotham City, Catwoman, The Joker and so on.

    But when Bob Kane showed the character to DC Comics, he negotiated a deal where only he received the credit and benefits. Much like with Stan Lee, it wasn’t until after Finger died that Kane admitted Finger deserved co-credit- and it wasn’t until last year he started getting included in the “created by” section of Batman comics and movies. 

  4. Joe Simon

    Joe Simon was the other creator of Captain America and he tangled with Marvel over the rights to the character. Back when the character was first created, Martin Goodman promised Joe and Jack much larger earnings than they got for their work- so they left Timely Comics over being stiffed. Simon later sued Marvel for rights to Captain America several times, but ended up settling.

  5. Steve Moore

    The Hercules movie starring Dwayne Johnson was based on a comic by a man named Steve Moore, but he didn’t see a penny for the movie. And this was despite signing contracts that had a clause giving him $15,000 for the movie- the company removed the clause in the last contract Steven signed before the movie was made official, and the poor guy didn’t notice, so it was all moot in the end.

    Steve took it better than most of us would have and simply asked that his name not be used to promote the movie, since it looked like crap anyway. But then he died that drummed up some publicity…. and so his name was put on the promotion for the movie, because who cares about respect for the dead. His friend Alan Moore (no relation) was outraged and called for a boycott of the movie, but it still did pretty well. 

  6. Bill Mantlo

    The creator of Rocket Racoon from Guardians of the Galaxy, Bill Mantlo (who also worked one several other comics) was hit by a car and tragically suffered brain damage. His brother Mike had to sell off nearly everything to get them in Medicaid, but Marvel didn’t see fit to fork over additional money for the use of his characters. That is, until the Guardians of the Galaxy movie became a big thing- they then realized it would be super bad publicity if they didn’t give him some cash and hook him up with a  private screening.

  7. Len Wein

    Len Wein co-created Wolverine, one of Marvel’s most popular characters. He got $350 dollar check and about $15 a page. And that was it, for years and years, despite the character taking over Marvel with a bajillion titles and movies, not to mention merch. He only ever received a check for The Wolverine movie.

    Interestingly, Wein says DC Comics is somewhat better about this- he also created Lucius Fox and when the character was featured in Christopher Nolan’s movies, he got enough to pay for a house. He says his one check for The Wolverine is less generous. 

  8. Gerry Conway

    Gerry Conway, however, notes that things have changed at DC since editor Paul Levitz left. DC now does not pay creators royalties for what they deem a “derivative character”. The led to quite a conundrum- Gerry Conway created the original villain Killer Frost, whose civilian name ws Crystal Frost. Sterling Gates and Derlis Santacruz created a new Killer Frost named Caitlin Snow.

    Caitlin Snow is currently appearing on The Flash TV show, which would normally mean Gates and co would get royalties. Except now they don’t, because Caitlin Snow is “derivative” of the original Killer Frost. This means Conway, the original Killer Frost creator, should be getting the royalties then, right? Except no he doesn’t…because he didn’t create Caitlin Snow. So nobody gets to get paid for use of Caitlin Snow. Except DC.

    As Conway puts it “Caitlin Snow was created by Sterling Gates and Derlis Santacruz. Except, according to DC Entertainment, she wasn’t. Because she was “derived” from the original creation of Killer Frost. Which means Al Milgrom and I created her. Except, according to DC Entertainment, we didn’t. Nobody created her. Or, rather, nobody gets credit and creator equity participation for creating her. And that, my friends, is truly obnoxious and despicable. DC Entertainment has created a marvelous catch-22 that allows them to cheat creators by using both sides of an argument to serve DC’s interests.”

    Conway hasn’t been treated well by Marvel either. He co-created the Punisher and hasn’t seen a penny for the movies the Punisher has starred in. He also had to campaign on Twitter to get invited to the premiere of The Amazing Spider-Man 2, which adapted a story he worked on, “The Death of Gwen Stacy”. 

  9. Steve Gerber

    Steve Gerber, the creator of Howard the Duck, tried to sue Marvel for rights to the character, claiming he was an ancillary character in Gerber’s Man-Thing comic, he wasn’t part of the work-for hire agreement. Steve was forced to settle, though, and when he was diagnosed with pulmonary fibrosis, he struggled to pay his bills.

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