Detective Comics v. Bruns Publications, 203.
| Decision Date | 29 April 1940 |
| Docket Number | No. 203.,203. |
| Citation | 111 F.2d 432 |
| Parties | DETECTIVE COMICS, Inc., v. BRUNS PUBLICATIONS, Inc., et al. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Second Circuit |
Weil, Gotshal & Manges, of New York City (Horace S. Manges and Gabriel Kaslow, both of New York City, of counsel), for complainant-appellee.
Koenig, Bachner & Koenig, of New York City, for defendant-appellant Bruns Publications, Inc.
Samuel A. Fried, of New York City (Asher Blum, of New York City, of counsel), for defendants-appellants Kable News Co. and Interborough News Co.
Before L. HAND, AUGUSTUS N. HAND, and CHASE, Circuit Judges.
The complainant is the owner of eleven copyrights for a like number of monthly issues of a periodical known as "Action Comics". Judge Woolsey found that these copyrights were infringed by a magazine of the defendant Bruns Publications Inc., (hereinafter called Bruns) and known as "Wonderman". He found infringement both by Bruns and by the defendants Kable News Company and Interborough News Co., who were the distributing agents of Bruns. The defendants all had access to complainant's periodicals, which had a wide sale.
We have compared the alleged infringing magazine of Bruns with the issues of "Action Comics" and are satisfied that the finding that Bruns copied the pictures in the complainant's periodical is amply substantiated. Each publication portrays a man of miraculous strength and speed called "Superman" in "Action Comics" and "Wonderman" in the magazine of Bruns. The attributes and antics of "Superman" and "Wonderman" are closely similar. Each at times conceals his strength beneath ordinary clothing but after removing his cloak stands revealed in full panoply in a skintight acrobatic costume. The only real difference between them is that "Superman" wears a blue uniform and "Wonderman" a red one. Each is termed the champion of the oppressed. Each is shown running toward a full moon "off into the night", and each is shown crushing a gun in his powerful hands. "Superman" is pictured as stopping a bullet with his person and "Wonderman" as arresting and throwing back shells. Each is depicted as shot at by three men, yet as wholly impervious to the missiles that strike him. "Superman" is shown as leaping over a twenty story building, and "Wonderman" as leaping from building to building. "Superman" and "Wonderman" are each endowed with sufficient strength to rip open a steel door. Each is described as being the strongest man in the world and each as battling against "evil and injustice."
Defendants attempt to avoid the copyright by the old argument that various attributes of "Superman" find prototypes or analogues among the heroes of literature and mythology. But if the author of "Superman" has portrayed a comic Hercules, yet if his production involves more than the presentation of a general type he may...
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