1940),[1] the case of Superman v. Wonderman,[2] is a 1940 decision of the Second Circuit in which the court held that the archetype of a comic book hero, in this case a cape-wearing benevolent-Hercules figure (Superman), is an idea, which the copyright in the comic strips does not protect against copying; only the specific details of the strips, their particular expression, enjoy legal protection.

The defendant Bruns Publications, Inc. published a comic strip magazine that featured an action hero called "Wonder Man".

The court described the strips in these terms: Each publication portrays a man of miraculous strength and speed called "Superman" in "Action Comics" and "Wonderman" in the magazine of Bruns.

Each at times conceals his strength beneath ordinary clothing but after removing his cloak stands revealed in full panoply in a skintight acrobatic costume.

The court acknowledged the accuracy of Bruns's contention that the "various attributes of Superman find prototypes or analogues among the heroes of literature and mythology .

We think it plain that the defendants have used more than general types and ideas and have appropriated the pictorial and literary details embodied in the complainant's copyrights.

So far as the pictorial representations and verbal descriptions of Superman are not a mere delineation of a benevolent Hercules, but embody an arrangement of incidents and literary expressions original with the author, they are proper subjects of copyright and susceptible of infringement because of the monopoly afforded by the act.