Judging "Superboy"

I've been trying to find something to add to the judge's ruling that the copyright to Superboy was relcaimed in 2004 by the widow and daughter of Superman co-creator Jerry Siegel -- a move that raises questions about the ongoing WB TV skein "Smallville." But not being an attorney, i'll just point to some of the more interesting reports:

Variety's own Dave McNary does a good job of getting the details of the long dispute over Superman into a few paragraphs:

The dispute over who owns Superboy goes back to 1938 -- the same year the first Superman comicbook, based on the story originated by Siegel and illustrator Joseph Shuster, was published.

A few months later, Siegel agreed to provide Detective Comics with a new Superboy comicstrip and submitted a plan that was turned down. Siegel unsuccessfully attempted several more times to pique Detective's interest in Superboy before entering the Army in 1943.

But Detective began publishing Superboy comics in 1944 while Siegel was stationed in the Pacific, resulting in a 1947 lawsuit in which New York state court Judge Addison Young found Siegel to be the sole owner of Superboy. In 1948, Siegel reached a settlement with National Comics Publications (predecessor of DC Comics) in which he sold ownership of Superboy and Superman to National.

E! Online also has a good article, talking to the likes of Neal Adams and Mark Evanier, who writes about the situation in a couple of excellent posts on his blog and even links to a fascinating document that includes Jerry Siegel's original 1975 press release in which he put a curse on the 1978 Superman movie.

I'm sure it wasn't planned, but it is interesting in light of this to take a peek at the Superboy goings on in DC's Infinite Crisis #6, which just came out this week.