The Sword and Laser discussion

We learn a lot about nunchucks and old best SciFi lists, but we spend the majority of our time mulling over Some Desperate Glory by Emily Tesh. We also kick off a cozy October horrorish read.

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Marvel and DC have absolutely sued people for using the word “superhero”. A lot. Like, a super lot.

(I’m not a lawyer but I was an editor at Lexis-Nexis in the mid-90s. I read and edited thousands of court cases.)

The trademark claim for “superhero” originated in 1966 by a guy named Ben Cooper and DC went after him, finally wresting the trademark away in 1977 after Marvel teamed up with them. In 1979 the joint claimants secured the trademark. The initial claim was so broad that I’m surprised the government allowed it. They probably just shrugged and let it go because it was comic books, which were super niche kid stuff during that era.

They trademarked “Super Heroes” and every variation of those words. But DC/Marvel didn’t limit it to just comics: they included essentially all printed media, such as t-shirts, stamps, notebooks, napkins, etc., as well as television and movie productions, amusement park rides, toys, and so on.

(Side note: Marvel on its own also tried to trademark the word “zombie” in the early 70s, but that one didn’t fly. Instead they opted for “Marvel Zombies”. They wouldn’t use that title until 2005, more than 30 years later. They play the long game.)

The list of people Marvel/DC have gone after is long indeed. Back in the 90s they successfully sued a detergent company for using the word “superhero”, a product which has nothing to do with the various media the publishers locked down. Then they went after an Australian outdoor adventure camp. In 2016 an English businessman wrote a book with the title “Business Zero to Superhero” and attempted to trademark that title. The courts sided with the comic book giants.

We see this happen a lot. When the Cleveland Browns moved to Baltimore, they changed the team name to the Ravens. Problem being, there was already a wheelchair basketball team called the Baltimore Ravens who had been using that name since 1972. Check out the NFL schedule to see who the court sided with. There was an interactive educational attraction called “Jurassic Park”… until the movie came out. Now it’s extinct.

This is also currently happening in the world of board games, where the German company Hans im Gluck that makes the game Carcassonne recently trademarked the word “meeple”, the little generic figures used in many tabletop games. They did not originate the word, they’re just locking it up so no one else can use it. This is beyond shady, yet somehow the EU allowed it. At least one small husband and wife publisher had to change their game because they used the fan-created generic word meeple in their game title. It’s not an expense they can easily afford, but the evil, greedy SOBs at the company Hans im Gluck doesn’t care.

That’s why I was so shocked that Marvel/DC lost their trademark -- conservative courts and activist judges have become so business-friendly in recent years that they’re literally tearing down the foundations of democracy. That’s not hyperbole; the damage done by the Supreme Court first by allowing Citizens United to pass, effectively granting corporations the legal status of people with all of the rights but none of the responsibilities of humans (remember Mitt Romney saying “Corporations are people, my friend,”) and then this summer nullifying Chevron v. Natural Resources Defense Council followed by the Loper Bright ruling has effectively destroyed the power of government regulators, granting corporations even more power. It was bad enough when the corporations used the lobbying organization ALEC to literally write bills for Congress, now they won’t even need to pretend to give lip service to regulations passed by the expert scientists who’ve devoted their entire lives to this stuff.

Maybe this trademark ruling is the first sign that the pendulum is going to start swinging back to more rational world, so we don’t end up on the dark path of the Fourth Turning.

(See The Fourth Turning: An American Prophecy—What the Cycles of History Tell Us About America's Next Rendezvous with Destiny, 1997, which was frighteningly accurate, and The Fourth Turning Is Here:, 2023, which shows two routes forward: one dark and destructive, the other bright and hopeful.)