A plot seed for the public

Isn't Owlman an actual DC Comics villain, a member of the alternate-universe 'Crime Syndicate' as an evil counterpart of Batman...?? --C.K.

Not being a big DC fan I wasn't sure, but a simple Google search confirmed this.

I knew there was a "Nite Owl" (Watchmen) and a villain "Owl" (Daredevil villain), but "Owlman" didn't ring a bell.

I didn't know about the "Owlman", but this character was not inspired by him. The two characters should have nothing in common.

It reminds me of the first time I encountered "Harry Potter" in a novel. Harry was a counterfeiter who's cover job was as a Potter, and one of the people who escaped the prison when Max the Vaguely Disputable took his fight against the gods to....

Okay, by now you've probably realised that the book I'm talking about has nothing to do with someone going to Hogwarts. It was also out maybe a decade before the Harry Potter series started.

Or to put it another way, names aren't covered by copyright. If DC trademarked it, then they trademarked it in relations to their character in the comic book. Which means I'm still good...

Which I'd also be if I had created a half bat, half human called "Batman". Trademarks only apply if there is a chance that someone will confused the two.

Anyway, I hope people enjoy the tale of Owlman, where various tails turn red.

DC has a half bat half man character called Man-Bat. (The sheer number of hero/villains between Marvel and DC alone is staggering. And they aren't the only ones with characters!)

But given the genre, I wouldn't worry about getting sued.

Well, I didn't believe that your "Owlman" was inspired by the DC Comics character, since he isn't that well known these days. I recognized the name yet didn't remember much else about him, except that he was obviously inspired by Batman. (It's no coincidence that a bat and an owl are both nocturnal flying and hunting animals.)

Since your "Owlman" is clearly a parody of Batman, while DC's is an evil counterpart of him (albeit in a parallel universe), there might be some unintentional similarities.

You're right about superhero/supervillain names not being copyrighted, for instance both DC and the Marvel Comics Group have characters called "Captain Marvel."

Of course, DC has "Wonder Woman" and "Power Girl," while Marvel has "Wonder Man" and "Power Man"... --C.K.

Ah, but they have that because Marvel let the trademark lapse. Shazam used to Captain Marvel, but now Marvel can't call him that.

That said, a trademark would only apply to comics, or anything else that might cause consumer confusion.

They generally only sue or issue a cease and desist when the stories are used to make profit. Dave Sim who wrote Cerebus the Aardvark once had a character called the Wolverroach, clearly a parody on Wolverine, and Marvel threatened to sue unless he dropped the character, which he did, but he’d also done Captain Cockroach (Captain America) and the Moon Roach (Moon Knight) among others. In fact the entire character of the Cockroach started as an homage to the Batman. It was only when he did Marvel’s most popular character at the time that Marvel threatened legal action. Marvel themselves were threatened with legal action by Disney over Howard the Duck due to his similarities to Donald. They made him wear pants (Donald never has) and problem solved. Mind you, the only thing Howard and Donald had in common was that they were both anthropomorphic bad tempered ducks.