I'm going to trademark "Superchamps"

It turns out that Marvel and DC Comics jointly own the trademark on the term "Superhero," and it was filed back in 1981. Apparently, now they are trying to register the term "super-hero" (note the hyphen). Gut reaction to both trademark applications: this is ridiculous. Everyone knows what a superhero is, but do they necessarily associate the term with either of those 2 companies? Well... maybe. Maybe my gut reaction was wrong and superheroes are normally associated with DC or Marvel, and everyone just fails or refuses to admit it. Let's see...

Name 5 superheroes. Off the top of my head, I'm gonna say Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Wolverine, Spider-Man. Look at that closely and you could also read it as DC, DC, DC, Marvel, Marvel. Did anyone say Human Torch? Marvel. What about Daredevil? Marvel. What about Green Lantern and the Flash? Both DC. I'm willing to bet that if I were to name a superhero, you'd be able to tell me if it's Marvel or DC. I guess we do associate them with superheroes.

Now, there'll be some nay-sayers out there that will yell out the likes of Savage Dragon (Image), Spawn (Image), and Witchblade (Top Cow). My only response to that is: do you really think of them as superheroes, or are they just comic books? I'm not making a distinction in quality, because there isn't one by any means, but rather simple semantics. It's just that the term comic book implies some sort of super-powered characters and their adventures, no matter the publisher. Take the comic book "Fell" for instance. It's an Image comic about a detective in the crappiest part of the crappiest part of town. No super-powers here. And I constantly find myself saying "Fell" is awesome, and making sure to tell people that it's just about a detective with no powers. It's a crime/detective/noir comic. If I were to say I bought a comic called "Cyberforce" (Top Cow), and left it at that, would you honestly not automatically think it was about a team of mutants or whatever... maybe even about cyborgs (which I don't think it is, by the way).

There's a recent editorial in the Los Angeles Times on the Superhero trademark that is worth reading. Quite frankly it's not the best editorial in the world, but it does make a fine point about certain terms like Band-Aid and cellophane losing their association with their original brands. Found this link thanks to my constant visitation to the awesome blog BoingBoing.

Overall, I think I've convinced myself that this this isn't entirely a big deal. It doesn't prevent me from using the term superhero in normal conversation. I just can't brand anything with that name, and I wasn't planning to. Very few people use the word "superhero" in a title anyways.

I reserve the right to change my mind and explode in a fit of rage when this directly affects me. You were forewarned.