Superheroes are among the most valuable fictional property ever created, and the fights over who owns them have produced some of the most instructive copyright and trademark law on the books. This research article explains how a drawn character becomes protectable property, why copyright and trademark guard a hero from two different directions and expire on two different clocks, and why creators and their heirs keep returning to court generations after a character is born. It walks through the defining disputes: the Superman termination wars between the Siegel and Shuster heirs and Warner/DC, Marvel's work-made-for-hire victory over Jack Kirby's estate, the Ninth Circuit's holding in DC Comics v. Towle that the Batmobile is itself a copyrightable character, the Gaiman-McFarlane joint-authorship fight over Spawn, and the 2024 default cancellation of Marvel and DC's jointly held "Super Hero" registrations. It then treats public-domain reversion after Klinger and the Dastar limit, costume separability after Star Athletica, and fan works and fair use after Andy Warhol Foundation v. Goldsmith. The piece closes with a creator's playbook, a plain-English FAQ, and cross-references to related UpLaw resources.