This most-famous-of-all comics was being talked about early in the week because we're approaching the 70th anniversary of its publication, which every comic book fan knows ushered in the beginning of the Golden Age of Comics, as well as launching the superhero genre. That makes it kind of important, to some of us! However, yesterday Action Comics # 1 made headlines of another sort: in a story that I don't fully grasp all of the implications of just yet, a court ruled that the heirs of the Jerry Siegel estate now hold (or co-hold, with DC) the copyright to the contents of that historic comic! Jerry Siegel, along with Joe Shuster, created the Man of Steel in the mid-1930s and eventually found him a home at what would later become DC Comics. There's a link at the bottom of the article to a FAQ that sheds some light on the whole thing, but it's still fairly complicated (to my simple mind, at least).
Could more copyright reclamations be forthcoming? Is that why Marvel killed off the Steve Rogers Captain America (also created in the Golden Age)? These are certainly interesting times.
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