So, this question is not about copyright, it's about trademark.
Trademark is just that - a mark in trade, some graphic you stick on your products to let people know you made it. Could be the company name, the product name, or a ... graphic character.
Everybody here knows about the NAMEs "Captain Marvel" and "Daredevil" being used originally by Golden Age comic publishers Fawcett and Lev Gleason, respectively. After the NAMES weren't used any more, Marvel comics developed their own character and called them Captain Marvel and Daredevil, thus establishing trademark on the NAMES.
Trademarks of product (or character names) can be abandoned, then taken up by another company. Fine, got it.
Let's say you had a graphic character like this cute little guy (only, you know, distinctive - I'm not concerned with whether this guys could actually be trademarked, he's just a symbol of a graphic character who COULD be trademarked).
So, he's a comic character in use during the 1940s, company goes belly up, the trademark on the GRAPHIC CHARACTER is abandoned. Someone comes along in 2013 and uses the image in a comic about the character. Does that person's use of the imagery of the character create a trademark that means others cannot use the imagery?
I found some articles on the subject:
http://www.ivanhoffman.com/characters.htmlhttp://www.hg.org/article.asp?id=18088But I"m not clear on whether the imagery of the graphic character can be reasserted as the name can.
That is, when AC Comics started reprinting PD comics, and featured graphic characters like the Black Terror and Daredevil on covers, did that revived trademark on the graphic characters (i.e. the visual depiction of Black Terror and Daredevil)? And, if so, then could they sue others (like Dynamite Entertainment, say) for trademark infringement of the GRAPHIC CHARACTERS?