Peter David introduced a "comic-within-a-comic" in his Blasters Special from DC's Invasion crossover series. Snapper Carr, now idiotically given the super-power, excuse me, ahem, metagene enhancement to teleport whenever he snaps his fingers, is shown reading a comic that I have since wished I could read in the real world...

"Ben Steel and His Bear, Hans."

Just on the face of it, that would be a much better comic than, say for instance, the Blasters Special.

Directly relating to the question asked: Anything contained within a copyrighted story can be deemed the intellectual property of the copyright holder. It would be extraordinarily unwise of me to try to publish "Ben Steele and His Bear Hans" and claim that DC had never specifically published such a title themselves, but merely mentioned it in passing. Especially since I've posted this and "admitted" where I got the idea.

Besides, why draw that kind of fire? I'll have at least as good a creative experience working on my own title, "Chang the Korsov: Mighty Reverse!"

Also, for those interested in the "comics-within-comics" concept, Marvel did publish a "skip-week" series of books called "Marvels Comics Group" which purported to be the Marvel characters as they were published within the Marvel Universe itself. Spider-Man was a horrific creature. Thor was a Science-God who espoused the belief that science and magic were no different from one another (Hey...), and, amazingly, Codename: X-Men was a hate-tract condemning all X-Men as criminals, some of whom the government gave the chance to redeem themselves by going on suicide missions and "dying as men" rather than living as contemptible Muties... The Fantastic Four was the only "approved" book in the line and operated a lot like Tiger Beat Magazine, with pin-ups, short, breezy interviews with the celebrity super-heroes, and approved for publication accounts of their recent adventures.

Way too into the navel-gazing, but I did pick up a couple for the creators involved. I believe the FF issue had some Paul Smith artwork. John Romita Sr. if I'm not mistaken doubled for "Steve Rogers" who, in the continuity of his own comic, used to draw Marvel's in-universe Captain America book. "Steve" was guest-pencilling that month's issue.

On a related topic, I've been interested lately in In-Universe TV Shows in the Marvel and DC continuities and the "stars" who've appeared in them. Clearly there's a David Letterman show in the Marvel Universe, while DC may or may not at some point develop a "David Endochrine" program, as shown in Dark Knight. Superman used to pal around with lookalike actor Gregory Reed who once starred as Superman on a TV show about him. Both appeared on the "Johnny Nevada" show.

Aside from the talk show circuit though, I'm interested in shows like the soap opera "Secret Hearts" on which Linda Danvers starred as embattled heroine Margo Hatton. Or "Space Trek: 2020" which featured Beast Boy Gar Logan doing his own special effects as space alien crewmember Tork. How about Simon Williams' appearances as "Mr. Muscles" on the "Uncle Elmer Show?" In one issue of Marvel Two-In-One, Ben, angry that the Hulk has his own TV show and he doesn't, goes to shake down Hollywood and demand a program of his own. He is less than thrilled with the show they come up with: "A Thing In the Family" featuring a version of him as Meathead in a thinly veiled rip-off sitcom. Surely that can't have been much worse than "Fred and Barney Meet the Thing," though, can it?

Can anyone think of any others? If this represents too great a thread drift, Anthony, I'll be happy to move it to a thread of its own.

Brian Hague wrote: Snapper Carr, now idiotically given the super-power, excuse me, ahem, metagene enhancement to teleport whenever he snaps his fingers

Wait...what?

   My impression of the character, though I never read the comics in which he appears, was that he was one of those civilian supporting characters you might see in an issue or two of the superhero comics, but who does little more than react to a situation he/she witnesses involving said hero.  Chalk one more up to John's "fanboy turned pro" examples.

   On topic, I'm kind of curious about how people might lift elements from literature into comicbook stories.  I'm even guilty of it a little bit myself -- one antagonist that I developed for a group of characters is based on the cover of King Crimson's 1969 debut LP, named the Crimson King, no less.  Along with other characters like the Yellow Jester, the Black Queen, and the Fire Witch, he took influences from some of the visual imagery that I thought of when listening to the lyrics of the title track from that album.

   The most notable example I can think of from themes like this is the character Sauron from the pages of the X-Men comics, who was quite openly written as describing himself influenced by the literary character of JRR Tolkein's stories.  Granted, he was a "non-mutant variant" whose powers had nothing to do with godlike beings, but the reference used by Roy Thomas and Neal Adams was quite interesting.

I recall an issue of the 1980's Dial H for Heroes feature (in Adventure Comics, I think), where one of the main characters, Chris King, was reading an issue of New Teen Titans.  I wondered at the time who the characters might be, and what an interesting story that might make.

Carmen - Re;Sauron- Roy Thomas uses a lot of literary references in his characters and stories, Young All-Stars alone probably had as many as League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.

Thanks, Anthony!

Carmen, Snapper was a teen beatnik and the League's unofficial biographer, keeping a log of all their adventures, ala' "Pieface" in Green Lantern. In one issue, when souvenirs mysteriously appear in their trophy room from adventures that never "really" occured, he complains that he's never going to be able to keep a complete record if the League doesn't share their stories with him. Snapper rarely was involved directly with the League's cases.

His post-"Invasion" career as leader of the Blasters was short-lived, and fairly nonsensical, given that his schtick in those early League stories was that he would snap his fingers incessently whenever excited. If the character were portrayed true to his original self, he'd be teleporting dozens if not hundreds of times a day, often in very rapid succession. Attaching his power to his annoying habit really only meant that he'd have to stop and only snap when the situation called for it.

It would be akin to casting a tap dancer as your lead and then only allowing him to tap-dance when he needed his powers... Over the course of his history, Snapper's betrayed the League, headed his own super-group, had his hands cut off and restored, served as a "Rick Jones" style advisor to the time-lost android Hourman and a mentor to the Young Justice team. He's been shown to be a sleeper agent for the Checkmate organization. There is no room in comics for "ordinary" people. Oh, well... I suppose being a low-level secret agent going on kill missions is better than winding up as a powder-blue Abomination clone named "A-Bomb."

Other "comic-within-comic" appearances would be Jay Garrick's appearances in comic book form in the Flash. The stories explain that somehow Gardner Fox (and presumably, those other writers who wrote the original Flash) were somehow able to "tune in" to Earth Two while they slept and "dream" the adventures taking place there, translating them into comic books for their Earth One readers. Issue #267 features Barry at a comic convention battling theives who are trying to steal a particular issue of a Golden Age Flash comic. The cover, featuring Barry battling Earth Two heroes Wildcat and Green Lantern for possession of the comic, is extremely misleading since those characters don't actually appear except as costumes worn by the thieves to the convention. Bad guys dressed up as Earth Two characters would later play a more tragic role in #276's death of Iris.

Also in an early FF (#6?) Johnny is shown reading a comic about the Hulk and saying how he reminds him of somebody. Ben tries punching Johnny out for comparing him to a "comic book monster." This was presumably before the idea of a homogenous, interconnected Marvel continuity had evolved. Later, when the FF are called in to tackle the Hulk, Reed says something about being surprised the creature actually exists.

In the Invaders comic, Roy Thomas wrote his friend and fellow fan Biljo White into the proceedings as a comic book creator whose comic book "Captain Victory" mirrors the events of Captain America's origin so closely he's kidnapped by the Nazis to find out what he knows about the stabilizing "Vita Rays" used to "lock" the effects of the Super-Soldier Serum into place.

I'm less certain of this next one: Wasn't General Glory from the Bwa-Ha-Ha era of the League shown to have his own Golden Age comic? I have vague memories of seeing such a thing, but wouldn't be able to lay hands on the issue if I had to.