"I mean common, they are really scraping the typical 80's story well with that one. Maybe the A team will pull up in their van and lend a hand. I am sure snake eyes knows them from Nam."
Forget the world! We gotta save the Youth Center! Those kids gotta have a place to go after school! Keep 'em off the streets! Outta gangs! Gotta eat their greens!

"...If so then I find it hard to believe GI Joe is going to win this one."
I was thinking the same thing. With Cobra's 'win' so utterly complete, and only three issues to go, I honestly can't see a way for the Joes to win without a bonafide, honest-to-God bullet clean through Cobra Commander's head. And if the Commander dies without any "where's the body" question whatsoever, and he would certainly have to this time, no book following this one could be anything but a reboot.

What? they're making a Billy figure? is this one of the convention exclusives, or a mail-away for flag points?


//wonders how rumors get started....

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Oh come on, that movie isn't even out yet.

Wait, say WHA-!? You mean-they took-again and-I mean coil-Nuke cobra island-CC unmasked-the other stuff-now this, That's it "LASER BLAST" Devils Due.

Could type that last part again please? In English this time?

Or Duke could have a puzzled look on his face and be muttering, "I don't remember anyone named Rex..."

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You know you have a point, I have tried to stay under the radar and humble in the hopes others would point these things out so that I didn't look like some jerk screaming about how the big company stole my custom idea for an already established character. But you know what, to hell with that, here goes.

Almost a full year before issues 20-25 of the original DD run, I had The Coil led by Serpantor and Overlord. My idea was based off of the rumored third season of the Sunbow toon, the name Coil was used there and was to be led by Tomax and Xamot.

Also a full year before I brought back "The SAW Viper" (With a simple explaination that I didn't follow comic continuity fully THUS he never died in the copter with a granade cause in my joeverse it didn't happen). I don't think there ever was an explaination behind how he showed up in DD.

Oh and lets not forget the Memorial service in the rain too. Hell I directly quoted Cap when I made that and gave him cred in the story itself.

Unmask of CC-oh yeah did that almost 2 years before they hyped it.

Nuked Cobra Island, Yep, had CC do it since the ecological damage is easier to explain on the bad guy.

Remember Mariner? I had a character named Mariner (Seal Shipwreck actually) and I said on the DD boards I would sue if he became a bad guy (I was jokeing however). After I made that comment he was never seen in the book again. Ever notice how he mysteriously disappeared?

After that Lady Jaye got killed off and the community rallied to General Hawk for thier "theft" (that is in no way an affront to General Hawk nor ment in offence. A statement of what happened and nothing more).

I hit some hard times and had to let my dios go down for a long while. Last year things started looking up and I put them back up.

And guess what-A full year later DD basicly "mysteriously" comes up with an idea that is nearly exactly like the larger part of my whole Diostory. Cobra has taken over not only most of the Untied States and most of the world. Well isn't that special.

I mean keep in mind that while this was happening I literally had to live on Rice so my kids could eat. I was unemployed for almost 6 months watching this go on and trying to take the "High Road" hopeing others would notice so I wouldn't sound like a jerk off.

Now at some point someone is going to say "It's just cause someone at DD thought like you." or something, well save the breath, no offence but that is the exact reason I pointed out the rally by the community to General Hawk for one thing (again no afront to him, but a statement of fact, I hope now you see why)

SO I am thinking of having some blinking letters on my site that say "THE DIO THAT INFLUENCED THE DEVIL'S DUE COMIC SERIES!!!"

If you can't tell after five years of this I am kind of ticked off.

OH YEAH!!! before anyone says imitation is the best form of flatery too, keep in mind my kids were starving cause there were no jobs opening where I live while someone else made money of my ideas, or should I say, at least seemingly so.

Wow. You're nuts.

Personally, I've experienced the same kind of coincidental "theft" between DDP and Hasbro over the years. I've never had the hubris to consider they actually stole it from me.

Depth Charge was the codename for a Joe I created in the original draft of "Rage of Cobra", a fanfic I posted at Zartan's Domain back in 1998. Nicknamed DC, he was the Naval representative in the 4-man Joe team sent to Europe to infiltrate the Cobra-controlled continent.

So where do I begin the lawsuits? Nowhere, because after the first draft I wrote when I was 16, "Rage of Cobra" evolved into a continuation of the Marvel Comic, featuring the 1997 toyline characters... and Depth Charge never went further than a few sketches and a romantic subplot. The European Cobra Empire was scaled back to the three countries Cobra controlled at the end of the Marvel comic.

In the third chapter of "Rage of Cobra", Storm Shadow threatens Scarlett's life, prompting Snake-Eyes to attack Stormy... much like Casey's resolution to the Red Ninja ressurection story. Do I go punch punch him at a ComicCon because he ripped off my story? No, because Zartan's Domain shut down, and I have never posted that story online.

If you're correct, and Devil's Due somehow focused on you as a target of plagiarism, it's really no one's fault but your own. You posted your ideas and work openly on the Internet. If you had any intention of profiting from your ideas, you would've submitted them properly to DDP the way I did.

By the way, in my comic proposal, "Serpent and the City", Tunnel Rat fights a Fred series Crimson Guard, and gets backup from the New Yorkers witnessing the brawl. The final battle was written with Cobra attempting to retreat, only to be held back by the residents of Queens long enough for GIJoe to capture them proper. If my script at all inspired the events in AE #33, I'd be proud. But seriously, the Spider-Man movie was a much more likely source of inspiration than my dinky little proposal.

There's only so many ideas out there, dude. The likelihood of someone else doing something similar to you is unbelievable high.

So what is the likely hood of a company borrowing several ideas from several online dio guys? The odds of that happening by chance seem incredibly low. If you were reading Hawk's, Tim Elf's, and Zed's dios at the time these were all major plot points.

Now I'm not saying DDP combed the internet looking for ideas. But I'm also not knocking the possibility. Sure Zed trying to act like someone stole money of his pocket is just as ludicris as you saying he should have copyrighted his work. My question is what does it say when professionals can't come up with stuff better then online fan fiction? Sure we have some talented fans in the community but you'd think people who have experience, training, and resources behind them would be able to tell a story the fans haven't heard before.

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No moreso than the "borrowing" of ideas tossed around on their very own message board, custom-made for farming ideas from the fools who choose to throw them out into the ether.

If you post your ideas online, my point is, you kinda have to accept that they might be taken by someone and used elsewhere, likely for profit. But if the same thing has happened to me, with names and specific scenes that I've never shared with anyone... it's possible there's not theft at all, and just a matter of collective unconscious.


I never said that. I just commented about the nature of posting your ideas on the internet. There's three options. Keep your stories to yourself, copyright them and attempt to get them published, or post them online and run the risk of someone stealing them with almost no legal culpability. Of those three options, Zed (and many others) have chosen the latter, and to feel personally slighted seems very self-serving (almost deluded).



Well, that's another matter entirely, and one I definitely agree with you on. DDP has told some boners in their time. But I also think that it reflects on the high caliber of creative minds in the community, that they can think of Joe ideas that would get approval by Hasbro and are deemded worthy of publication.

But that said, the basic concepts may be the same. That says *nothing* of their execution. Taking something as fundamental and basic as "Cobra takes over the world" isn't plagiarism... it's a logical next step after 25 years of them *trying*. Unless Zed's diostory included the Pague (a Hasbro-creation anyway), a mysterious Joe traitor/ally, Cobra's being rounded up in a prison, their escape and the murder of Billy... DDP can hardly be inspired by it, let alone be accused of ripping it off.

[sarcasim]Well thank you Siggy, your professional and educated diagnosis is most appreciated.[/sarcasim]



The first time I thought it was "coincidental" to be honest. But also the timing made me question a few things (nearly a year after since as we all know most comics are published in a time frame shortly under a year).



When did I say or do that??



UMMM OK so how can you say its the samething if you never actually went and posted it anywhere?? I mean that is the striking difference here, I actually did.



UMM, ok how does this relate exactly, other than you say you submitted something, mine is there, click in my sig.



Again something always said in defence, but funny how that keeps happening.



Uncalled for and just killed your arguement wtih attack Ad-homonym (actually did that with the "nuts" remark but I held off).



Actually "collective unconscious" is something else entirely. I can accept the posting ideas get burned thing, but I just want the cred.



For wanting it know that it came from my mind first, how is that deluded. Recognition (and the desire for it) might be self-serving a bit, I grant you that. As far as why I feel slighted, it actually has little to do with my story possibly being copied.




Uh yeah I had that one. Still just saying they changed things up doesn't mean it wasn't. Again I point out, I took down my dios when finaces didn't allow for a website, I put them back up almost EXACTLY ONE YEAR AGO after a two year hiatus. DD doesn't want me to think that, fine, but why is it almost exactly one year after I do something it starts showing up, slightly altered, turned around a bit, but the basic fundemental is there. How many "coincidences" do I witness before I speak up and say "Hey I did it first."

Looking to get the word out, that's all.

You know, I'm usually all up for a round of DD bashing, but a lot of these ideas don't sound all that unique...I don't mean that as an insult, I just think that a lot of them are typical comic plots and/or logical conclusions



I'm really guessing that they got their inspiration for The Coil the same place. The potential plot for the 3rd season of the Sunbow cartoon is pretty well known among the Joe community. I always assumed it was an intentional homage.



I just saw this is a really lame "that unstoppable villain you thought was dead? HE'S NOT!" move, the likes of which appear in every comic at some time (...oh, Sabertooth/Magneto/Ultron/every major villain DIDN'T die? What a surprise...).



I'm really not seeing anything unique about this. Is there some detail in the memorial service that you feel was uniquely yours? Because it seems like a pretty generic thing to do. They did the same thing with Captain America last year.



Well, first off, they never REALLY unmasked Cobra Commander. It turned out that the person everyone thought was Cobra Commander was actually Zartan, and vice versa (they were really circling the drain at that point). Also, unmasking a long-masked villain isn't really unique. And Marvel unmasked CC long before (kinda...he still had his glasses and fake mustache). And as far as hyping, Marvel beat you to the punch there, too

http://www.yojoe.com/comics/joe/joe55.shtml

And I always thought that DD's "Unmasked" was rip-off/homage (depending on how you want to look at it...guess which one I choose) to that issue.




I guess you could make an argument for this one...how much of one you'd WANT to make, considering that it's easily one of the crappiest moments of the DD run, is another issue altogether.



Yeah, but ALL of the 'new recruits' disappeared at about the same time, except Barrel Roll. I chocked it up more to DD finally getting it that fans were sick of roster bloated with so many DD-original characters. And Mariner seems like a fairly logical military name (...I'm not ruling out that that could be that I'm from Washington State, and our baseball team is The Mariners, so I hear that word quite a lot).



Again...do you WANT to take credit for this? It seems like getting up in arms because you had the idea for Han shooting first before Lucas did. This is the only one I really feel there might have been some lifting on. Not on the direct idea (as in, DD read your dios and Hawk's dios and said, "Hehe! Now we don't have to think of something original!") but more that they knew they wanted to kill a major character, saw that the two of you had both killed Jaye in your dios, and decided that, since the fan community hadn't stoned the two of you to death, this was something THEY could get away with, too. They were wrong.



Again, I don't think that Cobra succeeding in doing what they've been trying to do since the beginning of the Joe franchise is an idea that was uniquely yours. Hell, when I was a kid, my friends and I had similar scenarios while playing with our Joes in the back yard.



I get being frustrated, but even if they did steal your ideas, it's not like they had a responsibility to show up at your door with a bag of money. They would just fall back on the fact that your stories were made up almost entirely of their copyrighted characters, vehicles, and general universe. It's like months back I made a 25th Major Bludd custom and posted it here. About a month later, Hasbro unveiled their Major Bludd, which was very very similar in construction and look to mine. Now, I DO NOT in any way, shape, or form believe that Hasbro ripped me off or even saw my custom, I think that they did the same thing I did (look at the existing 25th parts, select the most "major bludd" appropriate ones, try to match the v1 paint scheme). But even if I did believe that they 'ripped me off,' I wouldn't really have a leg to stand on...I was using the parts they designed and manufactured to recreate a character they own the rights to. It's the same thing with dio stories and fan fiction. But again, I don't think that the similarities you listed indicate that they were stealing from you. And don't get me wrong, I definitely enjoyed reading your dios, but a lot of the ideas in your dios (and just about everyone else's dios, and the DD comics, and the Marvel comics) are ones used in countless comics/movies/tv shows, or natural progressions of the characters and elements provided by Hasbro. There's nothing wrong with that, and they can still make for great stories, but when two writers start with the same characters, in the same universe, not only is it possible and plausible for them to end up going some of the same places, it's likely.

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And Now You Know...

why the Mattel Lawyers were jerks back in the day: they don't accept unsolicited ideas because they don't want to be accused of stealing other people's ideas if they ever release a product that by coincidence happens to be similar to a fan idea. Hence, the great lengths hey went to isolate the kid's letter from themselves.

I'm with Darko, in that we're basically playing in someone else's sandbox when we do dio stories, fan fiction, and the like.

As for copyright protection for any of these things. You're likely to hit a pretty big roadblock in that you'd need to be licensed by Hasbro to use these characters in your stories in the first place.

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You know everyone is really twisting that statement around. So let me make it clear

I'M NOT ASKING FOR MONEY!!!!!

Never did, made a statement in relation to a typical arguement.




But I changed mine to NOT be that way never NOT admiting where it came from (From Tomax and Xamot to Serpantor and Overlord). What are the odds of that same switch happening.



Actually in my Joeverse the whole "Granade incident" never happened. No uber bad guy was thought dead, everyone knew he was out there, but not where he was. DD never acknoledged it, begging the question why?



Maybe but when you start making a stack, eh you get it.



Reread my statement:





Context. different situation I set up.



Actually no, Firewall stayed around as I recall. and my remark wasn't to the name nessessarly, it was the joke I made about it and how he fell off the face of the earth after that.



Shortening this to get to the point-I never killed off Jaye.

Here in lies my point, You are totally unaware of what I am talking about. I never said I killed Lady Jaye. Read what I said and we won't have this confusion.

This is where the money issue comes in, You read that one tidbit and go off about me asking for money, which I never did and never would, repeatedly said again that I wouldn't nor had any intention, still its the only thing people repeat. Please, re-read carefully, every word. I didn't kill Lady Jaye, nor am I asking for money.



Really, then why all over me then, cause yes I am frustrated, VERY. I quit dios cause of this crap for a while (before money became an issue). But then 5 years or so later, when I see one thing getting it the same way again, I finally have enough and I speak up but I am picked apart. My statements half read and taken out of context or chopped up. Why?

Seriously Why?



UMM then again I never said I wanted copywrite protection. I am saying professional writers should have more ideas.

But still I think the Jaye comment personifies my utter frustration. People don't even care enough to notice I never killed Lady Jaye nor that I never said I did. I mean seriously the level of contempt for me to say that "saw that the two of you had both killed Jaye in your dios," to me, when I never did just shows exactly why I never said anything before, cause those who would care wouldn't notice and those who would notice wouldn't care.

Of course why write that, no one will read it.

Good God...could it be that there are about two billion dio stories out there that all kind of bleed together? You wrote a little mini-comic with action figures. So sorry that I couldn't keep it separate from everyone else's little action figure mini-comics. Get off the cross and stop acting like you wrote a Pulitzer-prize winner and that everyone who didn't commit it to memory is committing some grievous affront to you. And maybe people got the idea that you were wanting money because you mentioned several times that you were having money problems and you couldn't afford a website and that your kids were basically extras in a Sally Strother's commercial while DD was making money off of 'your ideas.'

It would be one thing to be frustrated that you're coming up with the same ideas that other people are getting paid to come up with, but this little "You don't understand! They stole from me! No one understands!" temper tantrum is getting more than a bit ridiculous. You're not a tortured artist. You, like the rest of us, are a grown man playing with action figures.

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