And historically speaking, no way does that end well.

So, this is all very tricky legal stuff, but it all ties into the ongoing legal battles between Warner Bros. and the heirs of Superman creators Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster.

Warners is rushing Zack Snyder's Superman reboot Man of Steel - they're determined to have it in theaters in Summer 2012. Now, the obvious reason for this is to have a worthy adversary to Marvel's Avengers, and that's certainly one reason for the deadline. The other reason is all about the lawsuit, and puts potential sequels to Man of Steel in jeopardy. In fact, it puts Superman's entire future in a bit of a limbo.

Variety breaks it down: beginning in 2013, Warners will be able to

exploit the Superman projects it's already made, but under the Copyright Act, the company could not create new "derivative" works based on Action Comics No. 1 and other properties held by the heirs.

So, there would be a version of Superman established as being solely DC's property - having deviated sufficiently from the character as he first appeared in Action Comics #1 - and then there would be the original, tall-building-in-a-single-bound leaping guy from 1938 who lifted cars and made men clutch their hats in wide-mouthed terror. That guy would be the property of the Siegel and Shuster estates.

And don't even ask about this guy.

These would be two separate, distinct characters, each named Superman, each controlled by different entities.

How the whu, you say? Why, I'm glad you asked, because it's super-weird and involves Neil Gaiman.

In a recent article published in the Columbia Journal of the Law & the Arts, Anthony Cheng writes that 7th Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Richard Posner's decision in Neil Gaiman's suit against Todd McFarlane "could provide the rationale for both parties to continue legally exploiting" Superman. Posner determined that Gaiman's "Medieval Spawn" was "sufficiently distinct" to justify a separate character copyright from the original Spawn.

So. This is why you don't screw over creators. Karma catches up eventually, and in this scenario, two watered down versions of Superman will suck for DC, and it will suck for Warners across the boards, as Superman is a crucial ingredient of their marketing and merchandising machinery, and it will suck for fans.

As for what it will do to the movies? Theoretically, it bodes very poorly for them, but you know, they're in a strange place already. The last two movies featuring Superman were Superman IV: The Quest for Peace, and Superman Returns, both critical and commercial flops, and Zack Snyder is not exactly flying high at this moment in his career.

So the future was already murky. It's just much, much, murkier today than it was yesterday.

For more on the 70+ years of greed and ego conspiring to milk every penny from Superman at the expense of creators and fans, I highly recommend Jake Rosen's excellent book Superman vs. Hollywood.