The Boys and Invincible are clearly kind of copycats of Superman, especially with Homelander and Ryan. My question is: how have Amazon, Garth Ennis, or Robert Kirkman not faced a lawsuit by DC yet? I know Viltrum is not Krypton, but come on—it’s a straight-up Superman story. Viltrum = Krypton, and the Viltrumites even have Kryptonian powers, minus the cold breath, X-ray vision, and heat vision.
Homelander and Ryan straight up have all of Superman’s powers, and Homelander even looks like Superman. How have they not faced a severe lawsuit yet?
Like, if I wrote a story about a kid named Kendall Knight and he’s bitten by an alien spider which gives him spider powers, and he lets a mugger go who then goes on to kill his girlfriend—and this motivates him to become a superhero named ‘Arachnid Man’—couldn’t I face a huge lawsuit, especially when he has Peter Parker’s powers?
Lumidaub@feddit.org 1 week ago
You can’t copyright concepts, only their specific execution. That said, both The Boys and Invincible can easily be argued to fall under parody, as they comment on the genre and subvert its tropes.