The comic book industry has just changed a lot. This article in The New York Times will give you the basics, and here's the lede…
LOS ANGELES — Time Warner is no longer the sole proprietor of Superman.
A federal judge here on Thursday ruled that the heirs of Jerome Siegel — who 70 years ago sold the rights to the action hero he created with Joseph Shuster to Detective Comics for $130 — were entitled to reclaim their share of the U. S. copyright to the character. The ruling left intact Time Warner's international rights to the character, which it has long owned through its DC Comics unit.
And it reserved for trial questions about how much the company may owe the Siegel heirs for use of the character since 1999, when their ownership is deemed to have been restored. Also to be resolved is whether the heirs are entitled to payments directly from Time Warner's film unit, Warner Brothers, which took in $200 million at the domestic box office with its Superman Returns in 2006, or only from the DC unit's Superman profits.
If you're interested to read the entire opinion, Jeff Trexler has it over on his weblog. It's written in surprisingly clear language and you needn't have a law degree to understand most of it.
For reasons you can perhaps guess, I'm not going to be commenting on any of this. So don't ask.