Malibu's The Protectors Universe

[Kaine322]

This just occurred to me. These characters were reimaginings of Centaur characters from the 40's which had fallen into public domain. However, were these reimaginings part of Malibu's sale to Marvel? Or did they drop back into the public domain? Thanks.
K322

[Digifiend]

Marvel should own the reimagined versions, but if the originals were public domain, they were and still are.

[MajorHoy]

The old stories from Centaur would still be public domain.

However, I'm assuming the versions used by Malibu/Marvel would not be.
A company like, say, Dynamite who reuses many of the older public domain characters could probably still use the original (pre-Malibu) versions of the characters, but would probably want to alter the character names to avoid possible legal issues with Marvel.

[Hypestyle]

so... just who are the Protectors?

[MajorHoy]

so... just who are the Protectors?

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protectors_(comics)

[Michael Watkins]

was Siren a Malibu character? my only knowledge of her was that she's one of the people who have seen Taskmaster under the mask.

[Digifiend]

Siren was originally an Ultraverse character, but her comic which you're referring to was indeed published under Malibu. It was set in Earth-616, apparently she was trapped in the Marvel Universe for some reason.
https://marvel.wikia.com/wiki/Siren_Vol_1_1
https://marvel.wikia.com/wiki/Jennif..._(Earth-93060)

so... just who are the Protectors?

https://marvel.wikia.com/wiki/Protectors_(Earth-1136)

Roster was Airman, Amazing Man, Arc, Aura, Chalice, The Ferret, Gravestone, Man of War, Mighty Man, Night Mask, Witch, Prince Zardi, The Eternal Man.

Earth-616 has a Protectors team too, which is completely unrelated. That team is from the Totally Awesome Hulk series.

[Ultramorph]

Can’t say I’m familiar with the Protectors, but I’d say there’s a better chance of seeing them, based on the public domain status, than ever seeing the Ultraverse characters again. Man, this will probably send me back down the Malibu rabbit hole.