You thought you knew Batman.  Apparently the billionaire playboy turned crime fighter is a southeastern city in Turkey.  Mayor Hüseyin Kalkan is suing Christopher Nolan, the director of the “The Dark Knight” and “Batman Begins” for infringing on the city’s name.

“The royalty of the name ‘Batman’ belongs to us … There is only one Batman in the world. The American producers used the name of our city without informing us,” said Kalkan to the Do?an news agency.  He claims citizens are not able to use the town name for businesses.

Kalkan likely has no merit, one because he is suing Nolan, not DC Comics, who own the copyright and trademark on Batman, or Warner Bros. who made the movie; and two because local regions cannot be registered as brand names in Turkey.  Though I do think local businesses should be able to use their town name without legal threats from DC (only one account this might have happened), this is more an example of a major overstating intellectual property rights and suing the wrong person.

Annoying brothers and sisters affect even the greatest heroes and villains of comic book world.  These pairs (and quartet) of spandex wearing freaks make sibling rivalry a moral lesson for us all, and page filler until the next battle.  These are the siblings worth watching fight and frolic, no matter the awkwardness.

7. Starmen, Jack and David Knight

The original Starman, Ted Knight, had two loving sons with different take’s on their father’s career choice. David quickly followed his father into super heroics while Jack looked down on the colorful profession. After their father’s old foe, the Mist, murdered David did Jack take over the Starman mantle. With the Cosmic Staff and a pair of goggles, Jack Knight fought crime with the annual assistance of his brother’s ghost, who imparted wisdom from the beyond to help Jack foil the doers of evil.

6. Northstar and Aurora

Canadian super-siblings Northstar and Aurora spent most of their youth separated after their parents’ death. The two coincidently reunited as members of Canadian super-team Alpha Flight, discovering they earn bonus super powers when in physical contact. When the two touched, they emitted a beam of light that made people feel happy and peaceful. How sweet. The power didn’t work on themselves, however, since they had a falling out leading Aurora to augment her powers so she never needed to touch her gay brother again. Homophobe.

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In 1960, DC Comics realized if you add popular characters together, they equal a more popular comic book. With all new versions of their staple characters like the Flash and Green Lantern, DC Comics decided to join them with Superman, Wonder Woman, and Batman for the juggernaut of all super-teams. Gardner Fox wrote the Justice League of America and their adventures fending off foes that each hero couldn’t handle on their own. The result was a massive success leading DC’s publisher Jack Liebowitz to brag to the Martin Goodman, the publisher of Marvel Comics. Goodman then charged write and editor Stan Lee to create Marvel’s own super-team. And well, nothing much came of that.

For decades, Marvel and DC fans loved debating who would win, pitting Superman versus Thor or the Hulk and Batman versus Captain America.  Our dreams came to a reality when Marvel and DC released DC Vs. Marvel in 1996.  Fans could vote on the highest profile battles making the debate all the more real.  The fights, however short (some were only two pages) were fan fodder for years and even spawned the Amalgam Universe where Marvel and DC characters merged in creative and interesting ways.  The saddest part is that because of corporate rivalries, the Amalgam Universe hasn’t been able to continue except for several one shots in 1997.

Campy superhero TV shows fit the 70s like well tailored spandex on a tight behind.  The New Original Adventures of Wonder Woman were nothing different.  The scantly clad feminist warrior spun into television history in 1976 with a popular live-action series running for three seasons (all available on DVD!).  Beauty contest winner and apparent actress Lynda Carter immortalized Wonder Woman, playing up the bullet proof bracelets to the unforgettable spin-transformation.  When secret identity Diana Prince needed to save the, she would spin around at super speed and in a flash of light transform into Wonder Woman.  Sure the dazzling special effects were partly a cost-cutting effort, but even laziness can make for classic TV.

In 1986, DC Comics found sales hurting because readers couldn’t keep track of the dozens of different Supermen and Batmen running around.  Sometimes Superman was old, having fought in World War 2, but other times he was young a vibrant and other times he was a douche.  So to simplify for the pre-Internet generation who couldn’t just Google this stuff, DC Comics destroyed its entire universe and started from scratch.  Marv Wolfman and George Perez teamed to pen the 12 issue mega-series that undid 50 years of history, streamlining origins and events to make the comics more accessible.  The controversial and risky decision arguably paid off with improved sales and a condensed timeline.

Of course,  not everything made sense Crisis.  Many character origins didn’t make sense in the simplified timeline, so DC has every few years, repeated the Crisis model with Zero Hour in 1994 and Infinite Crisis in 2005 (which may have undone all of Zero Hour and some of Crisis of Infinite Earths).  Thankfully we have Final Crisis this year to undo all the recent undoing and redo the dos that they do so well.

Wikipedia has been a great tool for geeks to finally write down all the crap we used to have to remember.  And now we can share that knowledge with the world wide web.  Wikipedia allows anyone to not only edit articles, but to start their own speciality encyclopedias.  This list ranks the geekiest, most complete wikia dedicated to the topics geeks care most about.  It’s not simply which site has the most articles, but how deep into the subject did it take to find that many articles.  And how geeky those articles are.  That counts.

7. Transformers Wiki

Want to know how more than meets the eye the Transformers really were?  Check out the Transformers Wikia.  There are more than 5,500 articles to transform your thinking about giant robots, from the comics to the cartoons to the movies, in every generation of the series.

6. Doctor Who Wiki

The fan community of the longest running sci-fi series have written more than 7,600 articles about the ten different Doctors and all his enemies and friends.  It’s like time travel without the motion sickness.

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Thank you Superman.  I thank you and geeks around the world thank you.  You have given us decades of joy.  Maybe not from your comics (they sucked from 1960-1986 and then again through the 1990s), but for something more important.  You started the super hero genre.  Yes, you Mr. Modest.  Thanks to you, we have thousands of spandex-clad heroes to idolize and emulate.  From the pleasure of reading our monthly comics to safety pinning a towel as a cape, you have changed our lives.  So thank you for that.  Oh, and for saving the world all those times.  That was nice.

Years of withdrawal after my parents threw out my action figures inspired me, after I ran away from home (to college), to begin collecting again. I started collecting at the early stages of Toy Biz’s Marvel Legends and the already churning DC Direct line. Every few months, about a dozen new and awesome figures earned a place on my shelves (yes, I open them…and play with them). And this went on for a few years until now I have a modest 300 or so figures.

But recently, the wind has left my plastic shell. DC Direct has shrunk their action figure lines to four characters instead of the previous five. When one or two of these figures is Superman and/or Batman, it doesn’t leave room for much variety. And Marvel Legends now under Hasbro have plummeted in quality, loosing most of their articulation and featuring cheap looking sculpts with plain paint jobs.

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Z-Cult FM Comic Community, a popular site specializing in comic book BitTorrents was contacted last week by Marvel and DC Comics to remove torrents of their respective comics. Z-Cult has announced they are complying with the demands of Marvel but have special rules regarding DC Comics.

This move comes a few weeks after Marvel launched its digital comic book service providing online versions of 2,500 comics for one monthly fee. I guess it was only a matter of time before stamping out the competition.

Major comic book companies have been mostly silent about downloading pirated comics. Almost 90 percent of Marvel and DC’s 70 year-plus libraries have been scanned and released on BitTorrent sites and other file-sharing networks.

Z-Cult points out that they are not located in the United States and thus not subject to its laws, but they will work with copyright holders. Z-Cult has also removed SLG’s Disney titles at SLG’s request, but still provides torrents for SLG’s titles with their permission (SLG also has a download site).

To Marvel and DC’s credit, they did not sue Z-Cult, but followed the DMCA and asked that their content be removed. DC, according to Z-Cult, has not responded so as a caution, Z-Cult will not allow new DC Comics until 30 days after being released in stores. Both companies provided phone numbers to remain in contact with Z-Cult and confirm the validity of their copyright claims.

On the downside, it’s worrisome to see Marvel and DC following the lead of other media companies. Marvel and DC could argue there’s lost revenue in downloading free comics, but there’s also tons of publicity to consider. Since new comics come out every month, reading a bunch of older companies might inspire someone to read a new one.

It’s unlikely this will be an isolated incident since there are hundreds of online resources to download pirated comics. Just like the movie and music companies, Marvel and DC might find it somewhat impossible to find all the sources. And for completist comic fans, there is no cost-effective alternative to pirating comics. Marvel’s online offering is minimal at present (and DC’s is non-existent). Trade paperback collections of comics are limited samples and the originals are rare and expensive. I just hope no comic fans get sued for downloading some old Amazing Spider-Man.