Omega The Unknown

Most of you reading this probably have no idea who Omega the Unknown is.  So first a little history....Omega was created back in the seventies by Steve Gerber and Mary Skrenes.  Gerber is the creator of one of my favorite comic book series of all time, Howard the Duck.  Gerber was one of my favorite writers during that time, when I was growing up.  His work on the Defenders was some of the most original superhero work I remember reading.  But to be honest Omega didnt' really do much for me.  Maybe it was just over my head at the time. 

 

All these works were created while Gerber was working at Marvel Comics.  Later he went on to sue Marvel over the ownership of Howard the Duck.  The suit was settled out of court and all parties were told they couldn't disclose the outcome, so I have no idea what happened or what he got.  I know he didn't get Howard the Duck, Marvel has went on to publish various issues of the Duck.   Hopefully he got something out of it.

 

Now I've dipped my toe in the world of comic books, but all my writings were pretty much done for small independent companies, which meant I got to own all my creations.  I did do a series that was an adaptation of a book series, so I knew that I would have no claim on that going in.

 

During the seventies it wasn't quite as clear cut.  It's easy to say that anyone working for Marvel or DC should have known that anything they created was owned by the company.  But nothing is ever easy.  It seems that there were no contracts signed at Marvel by the creators, the company put a little stamp on the back of the check that was supposed to give all rights to them.  The legalities of this is still in question.

 

It's hard to grow up and realize that the company that you loved as a kid, that you thought was filled only with heroes like they wrote about was nothing more than another big corporation that wanted to own everything.

 

Jack Kirby, creator or co-creator of almost the entire Marvel Universe and definite co creator of the Fantastic Four, his family gets nothing from the new Fantastic Four movie that's about to come out.  It's his vision, his characters, but he gets zip.  Kirby's family (Jack is dead) should have millions, think about all the Marvel characters and all the money they have generated...Spiderman, Fantastic Four, Hulk, Thor, IronMan, Avengers...the list goes on and on. 

 

Omega the Unknown has been announced to be coming back, written by novelist Jonathn Lethem (I probably misspelled the name, this is from memory and we all know how bad my memory is). 

Gerber is understandably upset by this.  Omega was very personal to him, if anyone brings it back they should have went to him.   Can Marvel do this legally?  For the moment yes.  I doubt that Gerber wants to get into another big legal battle with Marvel again.  Last time it took years of his life and a lot of money.  And money is something Marvel can afford to throw away on a suit like this, trying to get the little guy to quit before he's spent all his money.  Morally is another matter and something that Marvel evidently doesn't care about.

It would be nice if the company that you thought was filled with heroes did something heroic for once. 

So that's that the little box you might have noticed on the sidebar is for, that Omega The Unknow was created by Steve Gerber and Mary Skrenes.