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Dwight R Decker interviewed Marv Wolfman for The Comics Journal again in 1983. And the subject of the title of The New Teen Titans, his comedian e-book collection, relaunched in 1980, got here up. Particularly that the characters have been about to now not be youngsters.
DECKER: Have you ever thought of the truth that “teenagehood’-‘ does not final very lengthy?
WOLFMAN: Yeah.
DECKER: There’s solely about 4 years there and for those who stretch it out in comedian e-book time…
WOLFMAN: It’s a drawback. I do not know what is going to occur. I assume, since I’ve simply given Cyborg a birthday during which he turns into 19, they will must grow to be 20 and 21. Possibly I haven’t got to say it, they may simply begin performing in another way. Nor actually in another way however progressing past the preliminary worries that an adolescent might have. They do not actually change, they only focus in another way. From peer strain to enterprise strain. However that has to occur ultimately, I simply do not know find out how to get round it. Fortuitously we’re nonetheless younger within the e-book’s historical past.
DECKER: Nicely you may all the time have the title NEW Teen Titans…
WOLFMAN: Nicely that is as a result of we had an outdated Teen Titans…
DECKER: What I meant was that…
WOLFMAN: I am unable to take our Teen, for very completely totally different causes. Neal Adams registered or trademarked one thing referred to as The Titans for his portfolio and we might nor technically take out the phrase teen. So it should all the time be the Teen Titans, even when they’re 80 years outdated.
The New Teen Titans #1
One in all my bosses requested me to look into that. Was that true? Did Neal Adams have some form of management over the title Titans? And what modified? Nicely, I checked out a number of Neal Adams portfolios and I discovered the smoking gun, from 1979. The New Heroes, that includes characters created or co-created by Neal Adams.
The New Heroes by Neal Adams
And one particular character.
The New Heroes by Neal Adams
Zoom in (and underline) the copyright notes.
So Neal Adams claimed the copyright on Titan, however not a trademark. But it surely was sufficient, it appears, for a risk-averse DC Comics to call the comedian Teen Titans reasonably than Titans. Presumably till an precise property lawyer appeared on the concern and stated it was advantageous. Teen Titans was first trademarked by DC Comics – or Nationwide Periodical Publications as they have been then – in 1969, and stays a reside trademark. In 1982 DC trademarked The New Teen Titans, and in addition bizarrely, trademarked The Hybrid Titans although that did not appear to go anyplace. In 1988, DC Comics determined to trademark The New Titans. However in 1993, they only went for it and trademarked Titans, in response to Neal Adams trademarking Titan, that very same yr.
Each trademark purposes have been deserted, however DC Comics dropped the Teen lastly and printed Titans as a collection in 1999, with out claiming a trademark. In 2003, it switched again to Teen Titans once more, returning as simply Titans from 2008 to 2011, relaunching as Teen Titans within the New 52, then once more as each Titans and Teen Titans for DC Rebirth and now Titans Academy for Infinite Frontier…
In 2015, Titan Comics trademarked Titans for his or her vinyl figures, stating that they have been primarily based on comedian e-book characters in addition to from different media, and that’s nonetheless reside… would possibly it get challenged someday? As a result of in 2018, DC Comics launched the Titans TV collection on the DC Universe app, now on HBO Max. Can they actually go ahead realizing that Titan Comics owns the trademark on Titans – and DC Comics deserted theirs?
Posted in: Comics, Comics Publishers, DC Comics | Tagged: dc comcis, marv wolfman, neal adams, teen titans, Titans
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