Why is Red Sonja out of the MU?

[Colossus77]

As some of you know Red Sonja is being printed by Dynamite Entertainment. From what I can remember, Roy Thomas created this character back in a Conan comic when Conan was Marvel's property. Kulan Gath was a character created in the Marvel Conan mythos and he stayed at Marvel. Why did Red Sonja leave? Isn't she Marvel's property?

[agrich]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_sonja

Info here. There was a "Red Sonya" character in a Robert E. Howard story that apparently the Thomas character was adapted from. According to this link Howard's estate sued for the rights and won.

[Colossus77]

Interesting. It says that Red Sonya was a 'pistol-wielding heroine'. I wonder why Marvel just didn't change the name and tried to keep her character.

[Tanjint]

she wasn't exactly doing spider-man numbers I imagine...

-T

[Radioactive Zombie]

she wasn't exactly doing spider-man numbers I imagine...

-T

There was... one or two crossovers, IIRC. And they were, like, seventies or eighties.

[AllisterH]

I've actually read the Red Sonya story (and I use the term loosely).

Basically, there's more similarity between Batman and Moon Knight than there is between Red Sonya and Red Sonja.

The problem for marvel is that Roy Thomas flat out admit he was inspired from Red Sonya but if say he had called her "Vixen", the REH estate would've had no leg to stand on.

Miscalculation on Marvel's part (and yes, I do think they kick themselves. Personally, I think this is why Marvel has gotten out of the licensed property comic business.

Marvel did some GREAT works which have become the basis for these properties (both GI JOE and Transformers, the entire backstory/mythology were created by Marvel's writers) yet see no profit from it nowadays. Ironically, very similar to how marvel treats its own creators in a way.

[Zero Hunter]

I know that the Dark Horse "Chronicles of Conan" trades that reprints the Marvel series can't even reprint the issues of Conan that Red Sonja appeared in now. I know they did for her first few appenrences in that book, but not anymore. Kinda sucks to be reading through the trade and suddenly have 2 or 3 issues missing.

[Tanjint]

There was... one or two crossovers, IIRC. And they were, like, seventies or eighties.

i meant her books didn't sell say as much as spider-man sells so marvel didn't care too much to lose her.

-T