I wanted to continue some of the discussion on "public domain" and originality that started on Dr. Poison's "favorite character not from public domain" thread, so I thought I'd start a thread where this would be on-topic.
I did a little googling on "public domain" characters, and I found an explanation that I thought made sense. Basically, while a mythological character's name and any back story that carries over from myths is public domain, everything else is subject to copyright. So, are the characters themselves public domain? I think it's a semantic question that depends on how you define "character." If Strife, for example, is defined just by her name and a few basic facts (daughter of Zeus and Hera, etc.) then she's public domain; but to me, the Strife who appears in Wonder Woman defined by her look and by her dialogue and actions in this book (e.g., "split happens.") So no, I wouldn't call her a public domain character.
On a site called World of Mythology, a guy who says he studied business and entertainment law in college breaks down the question of whether Marvel can coopright Loki:
So, if this guy's right, 'Zeus,' for example, is public domain only in the obvious sense, which I think we all agree about: anyone can publish something about someone named Zeus, or about someone with the prior history established by mythology. But DC's original character designs for, and story elements about, their Zeus are not public domain.Originally Posted by http://worldofmythology.tumblr.com/post/37719054239/the-god-name-loki-now-belongs-to-marvel
Does not having a copyright-eligible name make a character less original in a meaningful sense of the word "original? Not to me. What's in a name? Nothing's 100% original, and even if a character's name isn't borrowed, some other aspects of the character may be. Cheetah, Marston said, was inspired by "double identity" characters like Dr. Jekyll/Mister Hyde. Dr. Psycho, according to historian Jill Lepore, was inspired by a psychologist Marston knew and disliked at Harvard. To me, Azz and Chiang's Ares is a more original character that Johns' and his artist's Cheetah, because Ares was transformed more from the mythical version and from previous WW versions than Cheetah was from previous WW versions.
I realize that some people aren't saying the so-called "public domain" characters are of less interest in general than characters whose names are original to DC, but only that there should be variety and DC should use WW's whole legacy. I've got no problem with that and I don't completely disagree, though as a matter of personal preference, DC's mythology-based characters than most other WW characters. I'm just saying that using so-called "public domain" characters isn't necessarily any less (or more) original than using old Wonder Woman characters, depending on HOW each character is used.