Emilio Lopez is an independent comic book artist. You can see his work regularly over at the online comic, Terranova. So when it came time to get his cousin a Christmas gift last year, Lopez decided to do something a little different. He began by ordering a simple little Munny action figure.

For those of you that don't know what a Munny is, it's a toy developed by the company Kidrobot. Munnys are small featureless vinyl figures that those with creative tendencies can use as templates to create their own customized super-deformed action figures.

Munny in hand, Lopez set out to create a unique little rendition of Gears of War's resident badass, Marcus Fenix. According to Lopez, it took a total of about three weeks to get the supplies and design the figure. Lopez even went the extra mile and created a custom Gears of War packaging for the gift. Lopez posted pictures of his design on his personal website, so that others could see how much effort was involved. Unfortunately, it would seem that Lopez did a little TOO good of a job for his cousin.

Pictures of the toy spread all over the internet, garnering praise for Lopez and his custom Munny. Eventually, this caught the attention of the legal team over at Epic Games. Lawyers immediately sent Lopez a cease and desist order, accusing the artist of attempting to "trade off the goodwill of the Gears of War trademark". The letter called for Lopez to "remove the Epic trademarks from the doll, the packaging for the doll, and the website, and cease all further use of the Gears of War trademarks", threatening further legal action to seek an injunction and recovery of damages from the artist.

While it's no secret that companies are fiercely protective of their copyrights and trademarks, this was something done by Lopez as nothing more than a gift to his cousin, a fan of the Gears of War game. There was no mention by Lopez of trying to profit off of his work. It was simply created as an homage to a great game, given to a family member for Christmas.

No word yet on any final resolution to the situation. However, with Easter coming up just around the corner, maybe Epic's lawyers have their hands full setting their crosshairs on a certain egg carrying bunny rabbit.