## Facts

- Detective Comics, Inc. owned copyrights in multiple issues of *Action Comics*, a monthly comic featuring the character Superman.
- *Action Comics* had wide circulation, and Bruns Publications, Inc. and its distributors had access to it.
- Bruns published *Wonderman*, featuring “Wonder Man,” a superhuman hero whose costume, feats, scenes, and recurring motifs closely resembled those in the Superman stories.
- Detective Comics sued Bruns and its distributors for copyright infringement in the Southern District of New York.
- The district court found infringement and ordered an injunction and an accounting.
- Defendants appealed, disputing infringement and arguing that only an unprotectable “superhero” idea had been used.

## Issues

1. Whether *Wonderman* infringed the copyrights in *Action Comics* by copying protectable pictorial and narrative expression rather than only the unprotectable general idea of a superhuman hero.
2. Whether injunctive relief should be limited to prevent close imitation of protected expression without granting control over the general superhero archetype.

## Decision

- The Second Circuit affirmed the finding of infringement.
- The court held that defendants copied protected “pictorial and literary details,” not merely a generalized heroic concept.
- The court modified the injunction to confine relief to protectable expression and to avoid granting a monopoly over the abstract idea of a superhuman champion.

## Legal Principles

- Copyright protects original expression (including particular pictorial details, sequences of incidents, and concrete narrative presentation), not abstract ideas or general character types.
- Proof of access combined with substantial similarity in protected elements supports an inference of copying.
- A work may be original and protected even if it draws on prior literary or mythological prototypes; infringement turns on appropriation of the plaintiff’s original presentation.
- Injunctions in copyright cases should be framed to bar close imitation of protected expression while leaving others free to use the underlying unprotectable idea.

## Conclusion

The Second Circuit held that *Wonderman* infringed *Action Comics* because it appropriated Superman’s specific expressive elements, but narrowed the injunction to prevent protection from extending to the general idea of a superhuman, cape-wearing hero.


Detective Comics, Inc. v. Bruns Publ’ns, Inc., 111 F.2d 432 (2d Cir. 1940)