Charcoal (comics)

Charcoal (Charlie Burlingame) is a fictional character appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. The character has been depicted as a member of the Thunderbolts and was created by a comic book fan for a "Create-A-Villain" contest sponsored by Marvel and Wizard Magazine and the alter-ego was created by Kurt Busiek.

Publication history

Charcoal was created to be a villain, by means of a Wizard magazine contest. However, Wizard Entertainment failed to establish certain legal specifics in the language of their contest rules, leaving the ownership of the character's copyright in question (Normally in such a situation, steps would be taken to ensure that, unless otherwise stated, such a character's copyright would legally belong to the comic's publisher). Furthermore, Wizard Entertainment reportedly failed to provide the contest winner with other prizes promised along with the winning character's appearance in a Marvel comic. Feeling undercompensated, Charcoal's creator attempted to legally claim the copyright for the character from Marvel. Meanwhile, writer Fabian Nicieza had decided to kill off Charcoal and resurrect him later on. Because of the legal issues, Marvel told Nicieza it "wasn't worth" bringing the character back.