Catching up on Teen Titans Go! on the On Demand channel today, I was able to see the end credits full size for a change. It's a fun show and I was surprised to see that they kept the same voice cast from the first series! It's great to see the "innocent" Starfire again and a non-angst driven Cyborg! Boo-YaH!
Back to the credits, they list Marv Wolfman & George Perez as the creators of Cyborg, Starfire and Raven and Arnold Drake as the creator of Beast Boy. But there's no listing for Robin. I guess the "Created by Bob Kane" provision only counts for Batman. Would it really be terrible for DC to see a "Robin created by Bob Kane, Bill Finger and/or Jerry Robinson" byline after all this time?
Beyond the prerequisite "Jerry Siegel & Joe Schuster", "Bob Kane" and "William Marston" credits, I've also seen "Aquaman created by Paul Norris". Has anyone seen any other DC credits out there?
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The "created by" credits might be contractual. I don't happen to know whether Marvel and DC movies and TV shows ever make credit creator acknowledgements that they don't have to make. Possibly Disney/Marvel's and Time-Warner/DC's lawyers worry that such acknowledgements could be used against their company at some point. Possibly there's also an issue of whether it's appropriate to use someone's name if you don't have an arrangement with him or her; it could be construed as using his or her name to sell the product without payment. But I'm not a lawyer.
Please forgive me if we've talked about this before. I don't mean to be repetitious, or to disagree with your view.
Doesn't stop DC and Warner using Alan Moore's name without his permission, willy nilly, much to his chagrin.
I know that the fans lobbied for Jack Kirby to be listed as the creator of the Silver Surfer in that cartoon of the 90s, and they got it, as that happens to be well documented and the makers of the cartoon were happy to go that route.
I'd have to imagine that the makers of Superman the Animated Series mentioned Kirby by name in the credits of that series of episodes where the New Gods featured strongly. Not sure if they credited him in the normal run-of-the-mill episodes where various New Gods had guest spots though.
I was very disappointed to see that Batman: The Brave and the Bold didn't credit any of the creators apart from the 'usual suspects already mentioned. Kinda rubs it in that it's just a corporate exercise, which is a pity as everything else abot that cartoon was pretty good.
There was an attempt to get Warner to mention in the credits that Robinson came up with the phrase the 'Dark Knight' seeing as they named a whole movie after it, but they weren't interested.
The best situation for DC would be if no-one cared who originally created their wonderful characters and that their lives and struggles and contribution towards hugely popular icons were forgotten. Queries like Philip's above must really gall them.
It's just weird to me that Beast Boy's creator is named but if the name "Bill Finger" goes on screen, the world ends in a fiery cataclysm of horror and torment! It cannot even be debated!
Still it's good to see Marv Wolfman get his rightful creator credit after the BLADE debacle and now NOVA, it seems, is getting a major push. Yes, Marvel, I know it's not Richard Ryder so yes! Shame on you!
At least The Spectacular Spider-Man animated series listed both Stan Lee and Steve Ditko as creators.
It would appear that the more moolah a concept generates, the less there is to go around, somehow...
I don't know whether Marvel has agreements with the Kirby family, but I would think it's quite likely. You'll have to tell me if DC makes use of Moore's name other than by identifying stories when it reprints them as by him.
Apparently Warner used his name on the V for Vendetta movie - even though he did not write the movie. Perhaps he is talking about the studio lying that he had approved of an early draft, which was a sore point.
He said this about it when discussing the Watchmen movie later:
See "Snark Part 3" here
I don't know of any agreement between Marvel and Kirby's family. The court cases would seem to attest that they don't agree on much.
It's interesting that the early X-Men movies displayed Kirby's name much more prominantly in the end credits than the Avengers movie did. But then, the Avengers movie was actually made by Marvel, which is telling.
It is a shame, even from a business perspective, that Marvel can't link their product more closely with such a widely respected American artistic visionary, but obviously the pros outweigh the cons on their ledger for that.
In the Thor Saga they published a while ago, an overview of the key points in Thor's publishing history, Kirby was listed as merely one of the many Thor artists, whose work was used between the covers. He wasn't listed amongst the writers at all. That's Kirby, whose original concepts and storylines the same publication showed they had been recycling for decades.
In regards to Philip's argument, Kirby is a special case, anyway, having co-created the entire Marvel universe, rather than a particular few characters here and there.
Perhaps, and let me stress that I have no proof or facts on this, while Jack Kirby's status as "creator/co-creator" is absolute for Captain America and the Hulk (and Nick Fury though I will grant that Kirby didn't create Samuel L. Jackson), the same can't said for Iron Man, Hawkeye and the Black Widow who add Larry Lieber and Don Heck into the mix.
Also Jack only interpreted Thor and Loki, and even that interpretation was considerably altered.
It would have been far more "Kirby-centric" had the movie included Ant-Man/Giant-Man, the Wasp, Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch and had Kang the Conqueror as the villain!
Regarding Marvel movies:
FANTASTIC FOUR (I)
FANTASTIC FOUR RISE OF THE SILVER SURFER
both say in the main titles in large letters:
"Based on the Marvel Comic Book by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby"
SPIDER-MAN
SPIDER-MAN 2
both say in the main titles in large letters:
"Based on the Marvel Comic Book by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko"
Thanks Richard. Now if someone could supply the creator credits for the movies Marvel themselves produced, both halves of my argument would be illustrated.
That's the Hulk, Captain America and Thor. Now there's a superhero triumverate. A bunch of creations that it would be hard to imagine either the wonderful early issues of Avengers the comic, or indeed the Avengers movie without.
Philip - please can you supply a single creative concept since forever that didn't involve a 're-interpretation' or update of an already existing concept. That's what artists do. It's how well they repurpose the old ideas for their times that make them great, or successful, artists.
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