Marvel Enterprises has filed suit against NCSoft Corp. of South Korea and Cryptic Studios Inc. of San Jose, California, alleging that the massively multi-player online roleplaying game City of Heroes violates Marvel's trademarked characters.  Specifically, the suit alleges that the game allows players to create characters that are too similar to Marvel's, and that the players can also use Marvel's characters' names in the game.  Because the game takes place on City of Heroes' servers and uses its character creation engine, Marvel alleges that the game's manufacturer is responsible for any infringement. 

 

According to the suit, the game has over 180,000 subscribers. 

 

Marvel's suit asks for damages and an injunction against he companies.  Marvel has its own MMORPG's in development, by Vivendy Universal (see 'Marvel Licenses MMORPG').