Linda wrote:
The indicia of their Silver Age reprint books always looked sort of bizarre, with various stories appearing "courtesy of" other companies. Why was this? Weren't all the originals owned by Marvel themselves?
Because the character licensing was not the emphasis back then, it was on the copyright afforded to the actual "publisher" who retains a copyright to actual published version. Same reason that folks who take a public domain novel like, say, WAR OF THE WORLDS have a copyright claim to their printed "version" of it -- the physical look of it. The text itself is public domain, but the way it looks in published form is copyright to whomever does the formatting and publishing. You take their book and make xerox copies of it or scan it then you've just violated the copyright of the publisher -- even though the work itself is public domain.
Nowadays, Marvel is its own publisher, but back then it was different. As a result, if they were going to reprint something, they had to get permission of the one who owned the copyright to the actual published material. Even though Marvel itself owned copyright to the intellectual property itself.
Interesting though. Never noticed that and I was one of the uber-geeks who actually read the indicia on his comics sometimes.
