[guyserman82]

Hey there. In one of my many, many ideas, I want to have a government-backed superhero team, Watchdog. Yes, as a reference to Alan Moore's Watchmen. Actually, that's the point. I want to take the Charlton characters of Question, Blue Beetle (both Charlton versions, actually), Captain Atom, Nightshade, Peacemaker, and Peter Cannon, and have a more comics-based portrayal, rather than the characters Moore portrayed. The incubator for the idea was the drastic difference in character portrayed by Moore's Comedian, as opposed to his inspiration Peacemaker.

Now, I've heard that the legal wrangling goes something like this: If a character's first appearance is public domain, than the character is public domain. Thanks to Charlton's lack of copyright information, I can safely say that Question, both Blue Beetles, Captain Atom, Nightshade, and Peacemaker are all safely public domain.

However, I notice that Peter Cannon, Thunderbolt doesn't appear in the Charlton list. From a quick glance at Wikipedia, his first appearance was in Peter Cannon...Thunderbolt #1, year 1966 which would indicate that this could potentially be public domain. But I'm aware that Charlton books entering the public domain is dependent on incorrect/nonexistent copyright information. So, does Peter Cannon...Thunderbolt #1 (and subsequent books) have correct copyright information? If not, it doesn't really matter. I can have Amazing Man in his place, and have the exact same character, but I would like to know.

[crashryan]

guyserman: If your Charlton hero notion is strictly fan fiction you might get away with it, though these days even fanfic is under fire by the corporations. For commercial--or would-be commercial-- purposes it's essential to know that in modern US copyright law it's not the law but the money that determines who may use what. DC says they own those Charlton characters, and DC is part of one of the biggest media corporations in the world. Use DC characters and DC stomp. At the very least you'd get a cease-and-desist. True, given the immense media landscape, you might be able to fly under the radar because nobody knows you're around. But why invest the time and effort in a project that's at risk of being swatted by the Legal Department?

[narfstar]

Very good point crash. The law takes a back seat to the money.

[jimmm kelly]

It's a peeve of mine that DC and Marvel have gotten away with ripping off each other's characters--or the characters from other companies--for generations. But they seem to get away with it because such and such a character is a parody or an homage.

While they might be able to prosecute a case where someone has appropriated the trademark features of a concept character, I think they themselves have made it impossible to stop others from taking the same idea, giving it a different name and a different look, and publishing it as their own.

If Fawcett had published Captain Marvel today--they might have been sued by Marvel for using the Captain Marvel name--but they wouldn't be sued by DC for publishing a character similar to Superman, since hundredds of copies of Superman have now been published without legal action.

If you're going to do a parody/homage you just need to be smart about it. But you don't need to be too smart--look at Deadpool.

Instead of Watchdog, maybe a name that isn't so on the nose. The powers and abilities of characters like Blue Beetle, the Question, Captain Atom and Peter Cannon are not that unique. A millionaire with clever gadgets, a mystery man detective, an atomic powered super-hero, a guy trained in Eastern mystical arts. These are virtually generic concepts. It's not the idea that's novel--it's what the writers and atists did with those concepts that made them stand out.

[mr_goldenage]

I would also add that Peter Cannon Thunderbolt was given back all rights to the creator and artist of the title and now that he has passed away his estate has control over the character. This is due to the new copyright laws that Corporations such as Disney (now parent company to Marvel) and DC of course (Warner Bros owns them.) championed along with a slew of other corporations to keep their grasp on their properties and keep in mind that is what they are now commercial properties that can potentially make them money. The Almighty BUCK rules all to these types. Remember Mickey was a Facist during WW II just ask Il Duce.

RB @ Work

[guyserman82]

To be fair, you all have great points. And yes, this is potentially for a for-profit project. However, Watchdog was never intended to be the main focus. They are secondary characters in the story. I like the idea of a man who uses force to try to create a lasting peace, and having the focus of Captain Atom be a military man rather than a scientist. I could change the characters, I guess. But right now, I'm just looking for information.
So, going back to my main question: Is there any evidence that the Peter Cannon, Thunderbolt books had the proper copyright information?

[mr_goldenage]

Alas my friend I think you miss the point on the TM & copyright issues here. DC (AOL/Time-Warner at the time) bought all of Charlton "Action" heroes. Legally they own them once the published them in their own comics. If there was an issue whether or not they were public domain or not at this point I would point out that as far as Peter Cannon goes he's had a series I believer recently @ a small publisher. As far as the rest of the crew goes DC owns them. Either way you would be tempting a lawsuit. Just my 2 cents worth and I am sure there are other here more up to date on Copyright issues than I. What say you all?

RB @ Work

[crashryan]

The ongoing confiscation of Copyright law by the big media corporations so infuriates me that I could rant forever. Luckily for you I won't. Here's the short version.

I'm not a scholar of copyright law, but I've read much about its origins. What has been happening here in the US (and in other countries with powerful media monopolies) is a 180-degree about-face in the understanding of what copyright is for. In the 18th century when all this began the underlying assumption was that EVERYTHING would--even should--eventually be in the public domain. Copyright laws basically rewarded a creator for his effort by giving him a head start. He got to profit off his creation for a certain period, after which it would become part of collective public knowledge and anyone could build upon it. Of course changes in technology and business models began warping this notion almost immediately. Once it was clear a lot of money was to be made off books, phonograph records, sheet music, etc. all manner of tricks (like work-for-hire) were devised to extract as much money as possible for as long a period as possible with as little hassle as possible.

Over the last several decades, as profits from media and music have grown into the trillions of dollars, the big media corporations have been reshaping copyright with the intent that NOTHING should ever be in the public domain. One of the pioneers of this destructive legislation was Sonny Bono, of Sonny and Cher (in)fame, who got into the California legislature and began pushing laws on behalf of his buddies in the record industry. These laws set the stage for today's abusive "intellectual property" constructs, in which big corporations get to milk forever content they had nothing to do with creating. Music is the poster child of this change, as Nina Paley discovered when she made "Sita Sings the Blues." A corporation can claim "ownership" of a property whose writers, musicians, producers, recording engineers, you name it, are long dead and to which the corporation had no connection whatever except the ability to buy "rights" to the work and control it forever. Recent legislation has been even been working to RE-COPYRIGHT ITEMS ALREADY IN PUBLIC DOMAIN, which is anathema not only to common sense but to legal precedent.

Here's why this is relevant to this discussion. A corporation with enough money can claim almost anything, regardless of the fine points of the law, and defend it against objectors either by bleeding them dry with legal fees or by  buying court judgements that hit the objectors with fees and fines to be paid under penalty of jail time. By all rights Mickey Mouse should be in the public domain by now. But you can bet your mouse ears he will NEVER be anything of the sort. Nor will Marvel or DC characters.

What hasn't happened so far is a corporation staking out a public domain character and claiming ownership. I suspect it's only because most PD characters aren't likely to make them money. As jimmm points out, comic characters have been stealing from each other for generations, so most PD characters are variations of established characters with greater name value. But let's suppose DC wanted to revive--I don't know,. let's say The Bouncer. They put out a Bouncer comic, make a Bouncer movie, and say, "We own The Bouncer!" But publisher Guyserman says, "The Bouncer is public domain!" and puts out a Bouncer comic. DC says, "Cease and desist, damages, plus you pay our legal fees at $1000 an hour." The appellate court says, "Yassuh mistuh DC Boss, yo' sho' nuff right!" and once more the sacrosanct Law is upheld.

The final affront is that all this is presented under the guise of "creators' rights." A few very successful musicians stand up and agree: misuse of intellectual property hurts us terribly! Of course they agree--they're rich corporations too and probably own a library of lucrative "intellectual properties." But they, and the content corporations, don't give a hang about run-of-the-mill creators. They'll do everything they can to remove said creators from the pipeline ASAP so they can get on with the business of owning all the marbles. That's why it's so useful to control works by dead creators. And why it's beneficial to do sequels and re-hashes of already-owned properties. The less money and time put into content creation, the greater the margin, the quicker the profit, and the easier the management of the all-powerful "rights."

[bchat]

So, going back to my main question: Is there any evidence that the Peter Cannon, Thunderbolt books had the proper copyright information?

Not that I've seen, and I have looked because it's always bothered me that a good chunk of Charlton's books from the 1960s have invalid notices & entered the Public Domain, yet everybody under the sun will say that Peter Morisi (and his estate) own "Peter Cannon: Thunderbolt".  There should be evidence somewhere of a valid copyright on those early stories, or evidence of Charlton transferring the copyrights to Morisi, and yet I haven't found anything so far.

Alas my friend I think you miss the point on the TM & copyright issues here. DC (AOL/Time-Warner at the time) bought all of Charlton "Action" heroes. Legally they own them once the published them in their own comics. If there was an issue whether or not they were public domain or not at this point I would point out that as far as Peter Cannon goes he's had a series I believer recently @ a small publisher. As far as the rest of the crew goes DC owns them. Either way you would be tempting a lawsuit. Just my 2 cents worth and I am sure there are other here more up to date on Copyright issues than I. What say you all?

RB @ Work

If DC bought the Copyrights from Charlton for the books Charlton had published, then there should be evidence of this in the form of a Copyright transfer, which would appear on the Copyright Office's website, since the transaction happened in the 1980s.  I've seen no evidence that Charlton ever transferred the copyrights to DC Comics, but it's possible I simply didn't see it.  However, since the copyright notices in the majority of books involved were not valid anyway, then Charlton really had nothing to transfer to begin with.  If that is the case, then the only thing DC most likely paid for was all the Trademarks Charlton owned at the time, and any rights Charlton might have had to use the characters in new stories.

[narfstar]

From my non-lawyer understanding if the character's appearances are PD then the character as appearing in those books can be used on the inside of a book. The trademark name and appearance can not be used to promote the book or appear dominantly on the cover. So an anthology title might be a good idea.

[guyserman82]

What hasn't happened so far is a corporation staking out a public domain character and claiming ownership. I suspect it's only because most PD characters aren't likely to make them money. As jimmm points out, comic characters have been stealing from each other for generations, so most PD characters are variations of established characters with greater name value. But let's suppose DC wanted to revive--I don't know,. let's say The Bouncer. They put out a Bouncer comic, make a Bouncer movie, and say, "We own The Bouncer!" But publisher Guyserman says, "The Bouncer is public domain!" and puts out a Bouncer comic. DC says, "Cease and desist, damages, plus you pay our legal fees at $1000 an hour." The appellate court says, "Yassuh mistuh DC Boss, yo' sho' nuff right!" and once more the sacrosanct Law is upheld.

See, here's where I have a problem. Why doesn't Universal try to get rough with anyone using the character of Dracula like they do Frankenstein's monster? After all, it could be argued that the Universal movie is the most well-known version of the character. It's because the character of Dracula is, by legal definition, in the public domain. True, the character of Frankenstein's Monster is public domain as well, but Universal created the image of the character that is the most well-known, which is more of a trademark dispute than a copyright dispute. If I can prove a character is public domain by the legal definition, then what ground could they stand on? Yes, I'm aware of trademarks. Therefore, I don't intend to use the names of the characters in any sort of marketing I do. I also contend that DC has altered the characters so much from their Charlton incarnations, that any Charlton-based version would be different enough to be easily distinguishable, thus free of any trademark dispute. It's not my fault that Charlton didn't put the correct copyright information on their books, and by the laws of copyright at the time, the books, the source works of the characters, are now public domain.

So, going back to my main question: Is there any evidence that the Peter Cannon, Thunderbolt books had the proper copyright information?

Not that I've seen, and I have looked because it's always bothered me that a good chunk of Charlton's books from the 1960s have invalid notices & entered the Public Domain, yet everybody under the sun will say that Peter Morisi (and his estate) own "Peter Cannon: Thunderbolt".  There should be evidence somewhere of a valid copyright on those early stories, or evidence of Charlton transferring the copyrights to Morisi, and yet I haven't found anything so far.

If that's the case, is there a reason that the comics haven't been uploaded? If/when I am taken to court by DC for my "copyright infringement", it's handy to be able to print out the comics to prove to the judge that the comics in question are in fact in the public domain.

[bchat]

So, going back to my main question: Is there any evidence that the Peter Cannon, Thunderbolt books had the proper copyright information?

Not that I've seen, and I have looked because it's always bothered me that a good chunk of Charlton's books from the 1960s have invalid notices & entered the Public Domain, yet everybody under the sun will say that Peter Morisi (and his estate) own "Peter Cannon: Thunderbolt".  There should be evidence somewhere of a valid copyright on those early stories, or evidence of Charlton transferring the copyrights to Morisi, and yet I haven't found anything so far.

If that's the case, is there a reason that the comics haven't been uploaded? If/when I am taken to court by DC for my "copyright infringement", it's handy to be able to print out the comics to prove to the judge that the comics in question are in fact in the public domain.

Some sites, like this one, shy away from certain books where the copyright status is questionable. 

If you're taken to court, I would imagine that having physical copies of the books, whatever information you can find regarding the original copyright registration (or a lack of one), plus some sort of documentation that you actually searched for a copyright renewal and couldn't find one, would be your best defense.  It's too easy for someone to download a book from the internet and photoshop it in such a way that it says whatever they want it to.  Having a physical original copy puts you in a better spot to defend yourself, since you've closed the door on anyone possibly claiming that you have done something deceptive.  The books aren't that expensive, and you'd only need something that predates any book with a valid copyright, plus whatever stories your work would be referencing.

[narfstar]

From my understanding, and I do not have the the actual wording, the proper notice must be at the beginning of the book fc, ifc or first page and have copyright date and to whom. First issue of of Thunderbolt simply says International Copyright secured, which is what many Charltons say. Issue 59 says International Copyright secured 1967 but it does not say to whom. I would like to see Charlton indicia run past a copyright lawyer to assure correct interpretation. I do not know why we do not have issues of Thunderbolt onsite.

[guyserman82]

And there's no such thing as an international copyright, so it'd be another example of Charlton putting incorrect notices on their books. In fact, that's the first thing I looked for when reading those books: what the copyright notices actually said, and why they were incorrect.

But, back to what bchat said about this site shying away from books with questionable copyright, I see a big chunk of Charlton, Fawcett, and Quality comics books already on the website. It's my understanding that DC rabidly protects their "rights" to these books and by extension the characters inside (though I have a sneaking suspicion that DC knows they don't have the copyright to these characters, evidenced by the fact that they've created new versions of them with copyrights they clearly control), and I assume you haven't had trouble with them. Is the Peter Morisi estate more ruthless in protecting their "rights"?

[Ed Love]

It may be simply that people are willing to allow them to have the rights, much like the Spirit to Will Eisner. Or companies are playing better safe than sorry, especially in regards to characters who may be public domain copyright-wise but maybe/maybe not in regards to trademark. Thus, they will go through the hoops to secure the rights to the MLJ and Eisner characters despite the fact the characters are actually public domain.

Frankly, Peter Cannon doesn't really fit the Ozymandias role and I think Dynamite's recent mini unintentionally drove that home. Cannon is self-aware and philosophical, not a schemer or worldly intellectual. Amazing Man could, he wasn't as introspective or meditative type of character. Another you might look at and which was a revelation when I came across him here is Mr. Ozymandias! Mr. Ozymandias was a back-up character in Dell's Brain Boy. He had no compunction about being the direct or indirect cause of someone's death in the name of justice. A few of the characters had multiple influences, and I see Mr. Ozymandias philosophically more in line with Moore's Ozzie and from Peter Cannon, he just adopted the physical ability. Moore's Watchmen had various layers of influences. Nite Owl for example is obviously Blue Beetle, but look at the second Black Owl from Prize Comics, down to having a flying owl ship. Comedian looked like Bucky/Sandy in the 40s and grows up to be a perversion of the patriotic hero. Silk Spectre seems more like the Black Canary by way of Phantom Lady than Nightshade. Dr. Manhattan strikes me more of an extrapolation of Dr. Solar than Captain Atom.

[narfstar]

Very good points. Too bad Moore has disdain for us fanboys who care about such things and would not let us know.

[guyserman82]

It may be simply that people are willing to allow them to have the rights, much like the Spirit to Will Eisner. Or companies are playing better safe than sorry, especially in regards to characters who may be public domain copyright-wise but maybe/maybe not in regards to trademark. Thus, they will go through the hoops to secure the rights to the MLJ and Eisner characters despite the fact the characters are actually public domain.

It's my understanding that Eisner signed a contract with Quality that stated that the rights to the Spirit belonged to him. Now that I think about, I'm actually not sure how all that was supposed to work in law. Anyhow, that's why when Eisner was drafted into World War II, Midnight was created in his place. That's why the Spirit isn't public domain when most of the rest of the output from Quality is. But you could be right about MLJ stuff. Though I will say, if you didn't get a license from Archie, you can't use characters that originated during the Mighty Crusaders era, like the Fly or the Superman-like Shield.

Frankly, Peter Cannon doesn't really fit the Ozymandias role and I think Dynamite's recent mini unintentionally drove that home. Cannon is self-aware and philosophical, not a schemer or worldly intellectual. Amazing Man could, he wasn't as introspective or meditative type of character. Another you might look at and which was a revelation when I came across him here is Mr. Ozymandias! Mr. Ozymandias was a back-up character in Dell's Brain Boy. He had no compunction about being the direct or indirect cause of someone's death in the name of justice. A few of the characters had multiple influences, and I see Mr. Ozymandias philosophically more in line with Moore's Ozzie and from Peter Cannon, he just adopted the physical ability. Moore's Watchmen had various layers of influences. Nite Owl for example is obviously Blue Beetle, but look at the second Black Owl from Prize Comics, down to having a flying owl ship. Comedian looked like Bucky/Sandy in the 40s and grows up to be a perversion of the patriotic hero. Silk Spectre seems more like the Black Canary by way of Phantom Lady than Nightshade. Dr. Manhattan strikes me more of an extrapolation of Dr. Solar than Captain Atom.

I appreciate the work you put in putting this together. In fact, it may help me, but here you actually bring me to the heart of my idea. I'm not looking to recreate the Watchmen characters with the Charlton inspirations, but to present the original Charton characters in contrast to their Watchmen counterparts. For instance, I see Peacemaker as a totally different character than the Comedian. The Comedian is a psychopath and killer. I see Peacemaker as a man who confronts conflict to create a peaceful resolution with as little bloodshed as possible. I see Captain Atom as man who lives in the here and now, a military man who uses his powers to protect American lives, rather than a scientist who spends all his time looking at atoms, losing touch with his humanity, like Dr. Manhattan. I see Rorschach as a radical conservative, rather than an Objectivitist as the Question is supposed to be. And while Moore did take a more Black Canary approach to Nightshade since he wasn't thrilled with the original character, I think that Nightshade's powers are interesting (plus, I like her design; sexy without being revealing). And from what I can tell, Ozymandias is not a Buddhist; a person's religion should be central to their lives, so I would have Tibetan Buddhism be the core of Peter Cannon's identity (which is why Amazing Man would work just as well). Nite Owl was probably the only character who, in finished form, resembles his Charlton counterpart somewhat accurately, but he's a middle-aged man trying to find some meaning in his life after retirement. I see Ted Kord as a young man, still new at this superhero thing, and having a youthful enthusiasm about it.
That's not to say you haven't been helpful. Thanks to your work, I'm thinking about using some of these characters for contrast purposes.

[bchat]

It may be simply that people are willing to allow them to have the rights, much like the Spirit to Will Eisner. Or companies are playing better safe than sorry, especially in regards to characters who may be public domain copyright-wise but maybe/maybe not in regards to trademark. Thus, they will go through the hoops to secure the rights to the MLJ and Eisner characters despite the fact the characters are actually public domain.

It's my understanding that Eisner signed a contract with Quality that stated that the rights to the Spirit belonged to him. Now that I think about, I'm actually not sure how all that was supposed to work in law. Anyhow, that's why when Eisner was drafted into World War II, Midnight was created in his place. That's why the Spirit isn't public domain when most of the rest of the output from Quality is.

In order for him to own the copyrights to The Spirit's early stories, Eisner would still have needed to have Quality transfer the copyrights to him (since the copyrights were filed under the company's name), then file renewals for the stories Quality published.  As far as I can tell, neither of those two actions ever took place, so the stories would be public domain.  From what I've read, Midnight was created in the event that Eisner ever up & left Quality, taking the rights to publish stories of The Spirit with him.

[festerb4]

According to interviews in the fan press, Morisi's original contract with Charleton called for him to keep the copyright to the character; Charleton never owned or had the right to the copyright to begin with, and did not have the right to sell it to Warner.

Eisner kept copyright to the Spirit because it was originally published as a syndicated comic strip, distributed as part of a newspaper supplement. Quality reprinted the strips that had already been published in the newspapers.

The Watchmen was originally pitched to DC as a story about the Charleton heroes; Dick Giordano, who had edited the books at Charleton, suggested that the series be made about alternate characters instead, so as to leave the Charleton characters available for ongoing series. There would not have been much future for them after the ending to Moore's story.

[narfstar]

NON LAWYER understanding good old Charlton did not bother to put proper copyright notice in their books making them PD from the start. And actually bothering to file copyright 

[guyserman82]

According to interviews in the fan press, Morisi's original contract with Charleton called for him to keep the copyright to the character; Charleton never owned or had the right to the copyright to begin with, and did not have the right to sell it to Warner.

Eisner kept copyright to the Spirit because it was originally published as a syndicated comic strip, distributed as part of a newspaper supplement. Quality reprinted the strips that had already been published in the newspapers.

The Watchmen was originally pitched to DC as a story about the Charleton heroes; Dick Giordano, who had edited the books at Charleton, suggested that the series be made about alternate characters instead, so as to leave the Charleton characters available for ongoing series. There would not have been much future for them after the ending to Moore's story.

All very interesting. I thank you for your time. Let me tell you what I think I know.

Now, it is interesting that Morsi understood that he owned the copyrights associated with the Peter Cannon character. However, Charlton had a odd habit of putting incorrect copyright notices on their books. Most of them said, "International Copyright Secured," which means nothing; copyrights are handled on a nation by nation basis. Even today, in our global, digital age we do not have an international copyright (maybe it's time to hammer one out?). According to United States copyright law from that time, if a published work did not have the proper copyright information clearly printed on the work, it became public domain upon release. That is the reason that George Romero's Night of the Living Dead is public domain; somehow, one print of the movie that was sent out didn't have the proper copyright information in the title sequence. We can argue whether or not that was fair (I'm of the opinion that it's a good thing that that particular law was changed before the rise of internet videos), but suffice to say, that was the law. Since Charlton books do not have the correct copyright information in their books, their books up to the point when the law was changed are public domain. And, as narstar mentioned, there's also some doubt as to whether Charlton ever registered their books for copyright in the first place, as shown here: http://www.herogoggles.com/copyright1.html .

But, just because a work is public domain, does not mean that anyone can use any character portrayed in the work. The 1940's Superman animated show is a great example of this; though Warner Brothers cannot deny that the cartoons are public domain, they've been able to successfully claim that they own the Superman character (though after Man of Steel, maybe that's not such a good thing). Now I am not a lawyer, but from my understanding, a character is considered public domain only if their first appearance (in legal terms, the "Source Work") is public domain. since DC has consistently maintained their copyright on Action Comics #1 (or whatever book Superman first appeared in), Superman is not public domain. I get my information from this: http://www.public.asu.edu/~dkarjala/publicdomain/Vanpelt-s99.html . Since all of the Charlton characters I am interested in first showed up in public domain material, I should be able to use them, free and clear.

If you've read other posts on this very page, you'll find that others dispute this idea, saying that any characters in any public domain work should be public domain. After thinking about it, I disagree; I think that the Source Work criteria is the best possible solution. My rational? I wrote a DC fan-fiction years back. I never posted it online; in fact, I'm the only one who ever read it. I, of course, have no copyright on it. Therefore, I think it qualifies as public domain. Therefore, by that standard, shouldn't other people be allowed to use my work (an unauthorized derivative work) in any way they wish, claiming that they are deriving from my public domain work? No, that would invalidate the very concept of copyright law.

So, no matter what Moriri's agreement with Charlton was, if Charlton didn't post the correct copyright information on the Peter Cannon...Thunderbolt books, Peter Cannon is public domain. I won't say what they actually did, since I haven't seen the books.

[festerb4]

A few more thoughts:
If Charleton did not own the copyright, the fact that they did not put proper copyright notices on their publications may not necessarily prejudice Morisi, any more than a pirated copy of the Man of Steel causes Warner Bros to lose the copyright in Superman. It is likely a matter of degree.

There is also a difference between copyright and trademark. Even if the cartoons of SUperman are public domain, the character may not be. I did not think that it depended on who owned the first appearance.

Fawcett won the first trial decision on Superman v Captain Marvel because the trial court found that National Periodicals had not put proper copyright notices on some of the Superman comic strips; this was overturned on appeal and an new trial ordered. The parties reached a setltement before the trial.

These are just little bits of info , not a full story, but I hope they help.

[narfstar]

The fine line between copyright and trademark. I think Thunderbolt is trademark to Morisi but the original stories are not copyright. The character can be used inside but not as trade dress to sale a comic.

[guyserman82]

A few more thoughts:
If Charleton did not own the copyright, the fact that they did not put proper copyright notices on their publications may not necessarily prejudice Morisi, any more than a pirated copy of the Man of Steel causes Warner Bros to lose the copyright in Superman. It is likely a matter of degree.

I don't understand the point you are trying to make with this paragraph. Can you reword it or extrapolate please? I'm not sure how piracy relates to trademark.

The fine line between copyright and trademark. I think Thunderbolt is trademark to Morisi but the original stories are not copyright. The character can be used inside but not as trade dress to sale a comic.

True enough. Though again, I wasn't intending to use Peter Cannon as a main character. I wouldn't try to use the Charlton characters as main characters, and even if I did, I certainly wouldn't use the clearly referential name of Watchdog as the title. That comes very close to "confusingly similar" that would put me in violation of trademark law. I'm intending to use a very stylized look, so as to be immediately recognizable as different from current trademarks. I'm not trying to make trouble; I just like these characters, and think in their original form, they have unique insights to offer my main character. Since they are public domain, I should be able to use these characters as I wish, so long as they are not confusingly similar to DC's version of the characters. Plus, and this is tipping my hand a little bit, this is a video game project, not a comic project. Since neither DC Comics nor the Morisi estate holds a video game trademark for these characters, I believe (as a non-lawyer; please correct me if I'm wrong) that will give me more leeway in the use of these characters.

[festerb4]

To explain what I wrote earlier, if Charleton never owned the character in the first place and the trademark was always owned by Morisi, Charleton's actions in publishing without a copyright notice would not put the character necessarily in public domain. It is similar to a pirate publishing the work without a proper copyright notice; in both cases the person omitting the copyright does not own the character.

The first several Tarzan books are public domain; the character is not.