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Boycotting Captain America

Nicholas Jahr
August 12, 2011

by Nicholas Jahr

Having written about the Captain America movie recently, I’d be remiss if I didn’t follow that up by echoing Steve Bissette’s call for a boycott of all things Marvel. I only alluded to this in my earlier post, but the publishers of the early comics industry were infamous for screwing the artists whose work made them rich. Copyright? A non-starter. Residuals? Fuggedaboutit. The treatment of Siegel and Shuster, the creators of Superman, is the paradigmatic example, the industry’s original sin, but the duo were hardly alone (to pluck one of too many examples out of the ether, read Matt Seneca’s heart-wrenching takedown on Marvel’s treatment of Gene Colan, who died this past June). Kirby cranked out new ideas and characters for Marvel for years, never as anything more than work-for-hire, often in some degree of collaboration with writer Stan Lee. But while ‘Stan the Man’ has gone on to put in a cameo in just about every Marvel movie to date, Kirby’s estate has been engaged in a long-running legal battle with the company.

Kirby’s heirs are trying to assert the right of termination guaranteed to authors by the Copyright Act of 1976. If the court recognized their claim, they would suddenly assume control over many of Marvel’s most popular characters: Spider-Man, Thor, the Avengers, even the original X-Men (note that Marvel is now owned by Disney, which has relentlessly lobbied for the extension of copyright). The catch is that work-for-hire doesn’t enjoy the right of termination, since its creators are never granted copyright in the first place. So the legal battle is fought over whether Kirby’s prodigious output can be classified as work-for-hire. Terry Hart provides what seems a solid summary of the legal issues over at Copyhype; his judgment is that the verdict against Kirby’s estate was “on solid legal ground and consistent with previous cases.”

Bissette tackles the recent decision against the Kirby estate with righteous anger, drawn in part from his own experience being forced to sign a contract with Marvel under duress back in ’77. The superficial reading I’ve done on the subject suggests that Kirby’s estate probably doesn’t have much of a legal case. But the law has only a tangential relationship to morality. And the moral case for Kirby’s claims is inarguable. These characters would never have survived and thrived, would never have taken root in the popular consciousness, without the visual dynamism of Kirby’s designs. Bissette emphasizes the irony:

This also comes down to the messages the Marvel product—comics, movies, etc.—claim to espouse:

the need/ability of the individual to turn the tide against enormous odds and massive consolidations of raw power.

Jack Kirby always, in his life and in his work, trumpeted the power of the INDIVIDUAL to act against power. It was JACK’S message, in all his work: the power of the INDIVIDUAL to CHANGE THE WORLD.

Bissette calls for a boycott of all things Marvel until they do right by Kirby’s estate and the creators who keep them in the money. Put my name down, brother.

If the rapidly (albeit predictably) dwindling grosses are any indication, most of the people who would consider seeing Cap have already been there, done that. But it’s subtitled The First Avenger for a reason. The Avengers is due next summer, with Iron Man 3, Thor 2, and Captain America 2 all on the calendar after that (sorry, if you want an original movie, you’ll have to hope they get around to Ant Man). So if you’ve already been, there will be plenty more chances to deny Marvel your money. And if you haven’t: Skip Cap. Go see Rise of the Planet of the Apes instead. Better a populist uprising than “America’s most pouty, jingoistic superhero” anyway.

Via.

Nicholas Jahr is a freelance writer based in Brooklyn and a member of Jewish Currents’ editorial board. In the past he has written for the magazine about comics, film, the diaspora, Israeli elections, and Palestinian nonviolence. His work has appeared in the International New York Times, The Nation, City & State, and the Village Voice (RIP).