Fawcett creates Captain Marvel
Mike Anglo creates Marvelman, a british Captain Marvel rip-off
DC sues Captain Marvel for being a Superman rip-off
Fawcett goes out of business and DC buys up the rights
DC doesn't use Captain marvel until the 70s so Marvel creates their own Captain marvel in the 60s
Warrior Magazine hires Alan Moore to do a gritty reboot of Marvelman in the 80s
Morrison sells a 5 page Miracleman story to be put in as a back-up but Moore takes offense to this and sends Morrison a letter threatening him to never touch Miracleman or else he will ruin his career; the story is never published and the Moore vs. Morrison fued begins
Warrior goes under and Eclipse buys rights from Warrior to continue and republish the run
Marvel sues Eclipse to the Marvelman name saying it's infringing on their Captain Marvel/Marvel trademark
Eclipse/Moore change name to Miracleman; Moore and Eclipse share rights to the character
Moore's run ends and sells his share of the rights to Gaiman who continues the run with Eclipse
Eclipse goes under before Gaiman ever finishes the run
Todd MacFarlane co-creates Image Comics, which is a creator owned publisher where any creations are owned by the creators
MacFarlane hires big time writers to do some Spawn issues to hype up Spawn as a big deal; gets Gaiman to write an issue wherein he creates the character Angela; that MacFarlane continues to use throughout the run
MacFarlane buys Eclipse’s character rights
MacFarlane makes a Miracleman toy which alerts Gaiman who has a problem with this since Gaiman owns half the rights and has been wanting to finish his run for years
Gaiman creates the Miracle Foundation, a company whose sole purpose is to get the rights back from MacFarlane so Gaiman can finish his run
Gaiman does a bunch of marvel comics, specifically 1602 and Eternals, for Marvel where all the money he made goes straight into the Miracle Foundation