He’s Superboy, He’s Tom Welling, Superboy, Tom Welling

or “BUS 422: Introduction to Law really does have its uses!”

Superboy Tom Welling may indeed return to DC after the latest ruling from the courts that overturns the Siegel (Joanne and Laura) lawsuit against Time Warner.

Jeff Trexler has a summary of the latest ruling at his site.

In a nutshell, the court ruled in favor of Time Warner’s motion to reconsider the prior ruling in favor of the Siegels and vacated the relevant portions of the earlier ruling, including part of the statement of facts.

The judge’s opinion is worth reading on several counts, especially for crisp review of the history of the Superman/Superboy cases. William Patry has a brief run-down on the estoppel issues, which will seem a bit esoteric to non-lawyers, but you should not let the law-geek bait get in the way of the judge’s analysis of whether Superboy is a derivative work. (pp. 66-71). The judge calls for further briefing on that issue but, as reviewing judges often do, lays out a roadmap for concluding that Superboy was nothing “more than a trivial variation from the pre-existing material in Superman, other comic book characters in general, or even more broadly with other comic book characters.” (p. 69)

Of course, this case is far from over, so there may be still more surprises to come.

Well somebody needs to decide something soon as our Major Spoilers Dictionary and constant references to Superboy Tom Welling will have to go through a retcon that would make even the heads at DC spin.

You can read the entire ruling for yourself at here.

via Trexfiles