"Created by William Moulton Marston"

[Darrell D.]

It probably is a legal thing, perhaps part of the deal of selling the character to DC.

[AmiMizuno]

I wonder if Diana will get credits in B/S

[Silvanus]

This came up in regards to the Batman v Superman movie. Since Wonder Woman is in that, I believed there should be a note crediting Marston for creating Wonder Woman--just as there is for Batman and Superman creators. I thought this is a legal thing--because there are many characters who don't get such credits while others do. So it doesn't seem that it comes from the goodness of DC's concrete heart, but rather is something they have to do.

I thought that the requirement to publish WW had gone away. But maybe this is something that simply hasn't been tested. DC might do these things, just to make sure they stay on the good side of creators or their estates/families--they don't want to poke the bear and end up in a legal quagmire.

That's how I always figured the Bob Kane thing worked out--DC could probably challenge the Bob Kane estate and they could probably remove the credit--but that would invite legal action. So they let sleeping dogs lie. The Superman case was different because the creators were fighting to get those rights that Bob Kane and William Marston enjoyed--but it was that case that led to Kane, Marston and other creators getting pro forma credits in comics.

In the Superman/Batman movie, Batman is going to be one of the main characters, so Kane gets credit; Wonder Woman apparently is going to be more of a supporting character, so if it works the same way as in team comics like Justice League, Marston won't. In the Wonder Woman movie, he probably will.

Marston didn't get credit when Wonder Woman guest starred in Superman 19, for example (Siegel and Shuster get credit, and the "By Special Arrangement With The Jerry Siegel Family" tag appears, in Wonder Woman issues where Superman guest stars.) And though Superman creators get credit in Justice League, neither Kane nor Marston get credit in that book--at least, they don't in the issues I just checked, including JL 39 :

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In Superman/Wonder Woman 17, on the other hand, Marston does get a credit, right after Sigel and Shuster's (though without the "by special arrangement with..." acknowledgement of the family, which must be specific to the agreement in the Superman case).

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I guess DC's specific settlement with Siegel and Shuster requires the credit even in a team book, but DC apparently doesn't have the same kind of agreement with the Kane or Marston families, so they only give those creators credit in books where their character is the lead or one of the main leads or title characters, not just part of an ensemble. (ETA--I notice that It comes right after "Created By Wiliam Moulton Marston.")