Welcome to the 941st installment of Comic Book Legends Revealed, a column where we examine three comic book myths, rumors and legends and confirm or debunk them. In the second legend of this installment, we look into why Marvel seemed to treat Conan the Barbarian like he was a Marvel property during the 1970s.
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one of Marvel's most famous licensed characters was Conan the Barbarian, who became a hit comic book in the 1970s. However, reader Patrick Duke noted that it sure seemed like Marvel featured Conan on a lot of Marvel merchandise in the 1970s, right? He was on Marvel's calendars, he was on the Marvel Slurpee cups at 7-11, and he was in the Marvel Topps stickers collection...
And if you look on the Conan sticker, it even says that the trademark is MARVEL'S!
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I asked Roy Thomas about it, and he noted that Conan Properties didn't even EXIST at the time the original deal was signed, so it wasn't like there was this strong presence to negotiate the rights with Marvel, and as a result, while Thomas doesn't know the PRECISE detail of the more than 50-year-old licensing deal, he knows that it included merchandise rights for Marvel. When Conan Properties WAS formed, the deal was renegotiated, and that's why you stopped seeing Conan appearing on all that Marvel merchandise around the late 1970s.
A glimpse into simpler times when everyone didn't protect IP and franchises with such vigour. Although they don't touch on it, the timing seems key as Star Wars changed everything when it came to merchandise rights and I imagine an army of lawyers went to work trying to get all the rights back.
