So Marvel has bought the rights to Marvelman.
That’s interesting news… but I’m not quite sure what it means just yet. The press release is fairly vague – they bought Marvelman from Mick Anglo. Joe Quesada drew a poster. Okay.
The ownership of the character is still pretty cloudy, but the press release only mentions Mick Anglo. It’s unclear if they just bought the trademark to the character, or the rights to all the stories.
And let’s face it, the only reasons anyone cares about Marvelman (or Miracleman – will they retitle those stories now that Marvel is unlikely to sue itself?) are Alan Moore and Neil Gaiman. Anyone can write their own Captain Marvel knockoff if they want.
So if Marvel has the rights to reprint the Moore/Gaiman stuff, that’s awesome. If Neil Gaiman wants to finish his story, that’s awesome. But if they just have the rights to publish a book called Marvelman, well, that’s not so impressive.
So hurrah for making a potentially very cool move, but boo for being vague about what you’re actually going to do with it.