Does it even matter if they came up with the idea independently?

It would have been interesting to see Marvel's reaction if the situation were reversed.

And Michelle Obama herself even parodied the fist-jab thing on The View.

Seems to.

Exactly. The general public and the mainstream media have short attention spans, short memories and usually not much awareness that Marvel and DC aren't the only comic book publishers.

I'm not sure what you're driving at, Joe.

That people are stupid and don't think in the long-term. How he works this into the lack of contributions writers and artists are willing to make to Marvel and DC's stable of characters, I couldn't tell you.

Just that, it occurred to me it's fairly common practice for people in marketing and advertising to reuse, recycle, and swipe marketing gimmicks, this one just had a limited window of opportunity. And even if Marvel did get the idea from the Dragon cover, they had to have figured it wouldn't be a big deal outside of a few comics fans, and beyond being a dick move it isn't illegal and the general public who were the intended target of the stunt, won't ever know. Again that's assuming the worst.

Oh, okay.

Thank god.

Maybe Marvel stole the idea from Erik. However, since (by report) Barack collects Spidey comics, there's no reason not to have him in the book, especially if it will sell some more comics and bring us a few more casual readers. Maybe ALL comics should have Barack Obama on their cover, in part to atone for past sins. Remember, comics used to portray African Americans like this: