Heroes Suited Up for Stealing

Mon., Mar. 19, 2007 8:30 PM PDT by Natalie Finn

Did anyone foresee this one coming?

A husband-and-wife team of artists have sued NBC Universal and the creators of Heroes for allegedly pilfering the artist-who-paints-the-future plotline from a short story they wrote several years ago, an idea they also exhibited in a painting series and in a short film.

In their lawsuit, filed Friday in U.S. District Court, New Yorkers Clifton Mallery and spouse Amnau Karam Eele have accused two people who identified themselves as writers from the NBC procedural Crossing Jordan of taking copies of the couple's work from a 2005 exhibition at NYC's Hunter College.

On Heroes, recovering heroin addict Isaac Mendez (Santiago Cabrera) has discovered that he has the ability to slip into a trance and paint scenes from events that haven't happened yet—a shadowy menace stalking the cheerleader, two lovers sharing a kiss, a nuclear bomb/superhuman-who-can't-control-his-radiation obliterating Manhattan, etc.

According to Mallery and Karam Eele, Isaac on NBC's hit drama is "strikingly similar" to the character they created in their story and artwork—an artist who paints the future, including the destruction of two prominent New York buildings.

Meanwhile, NBC is standing behind Heroes creator and executive producer Tim Kring, whose comic-book-inspired show has become a breakout hit for the Peacock Network and saved it from total scripted-series embarrassment last fall. (Kring is also the creator of and an executive producer on Crossing Jordan.)

"We intend to defend [the lawsuit] vigorously and expect to prevail," NBC said in a statement.

Heroes was also picked on last year by a garbage disposal maker that objected to an alleged depiction of its appliance as a hand-mangling accident waiting to happen.

Emerson, which is based in St. Louis, sued NBC in October after Claire (Hayden Panettiere), anxious to prove her healing capabilities, stuck her hand in an In-Sink-Erator disposal and pulled out a bloody stump. The company stated that NBC didn't have the right to display the trademarked appliance and that the scene cast the disposal in "an unsavory light, irreparably tarnishing the product."

Luckily for Emerson, Claire has since moved on to bigger things, like getting splayed open for an autopsy and then shot in the chest (in unrelated incidents).

Meanwhile, Heroes returns to the airwaves Apr. 23, having left off several weeks ago with Sylar (Zachary Quinto) cutting into Peter's (Milo Ventimiglia) head as Mohinder (Sendhil Ramamurthy), who's been pinned to the ceiling, looks on.