If only the Man of Steel were real that he could reverse the Earth's rotation, turn back time and settle this squabble before it ever started. The epic battle for Superman's rights has been dragging on for years now, as DC Comics, the longtime publisher of Superman comic books, and its parent Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc., appealed a district court's 2008 partial summary judgment decision.

The newest issue in the case hit newsstands Tuesday when a three-judge 9th Circuit panel ruled in favor of Warner Bros. and DC Comics in its declaratory judgment action against the comic book character's creators' heirs and their attorney.

For more than a decade, copyright attorney Marc Toberoff has represented Jerome Siegel and Joe Shuster, the heirs to Superman's creators. Warner Bros. alleges that Toberoff induced the heirs' families to nix their previous rights agreement with the comic company, as DC Comics was worried that it would lose the publishing rights to Superman when some of the rights to Clark Kent reverted to the estates of Siegel and Shuster. (The heirs already own half of the rights—the rest are due to revert to them in 2013.)