I just watched the most recent episode of "Drawing Me Out With Bill Willingham" on You Tube, which was newly posted in the last couple of days.
I mention it here for the following reason. In this episode Bill Willingham answers a series of questions from fans, some about Fables, some about Elementals, and some about other topics. I didn't have particularly high hopes for this 17 minute episode, but he ended up answering the two questions I would have asked myself, which was great.
One question was about whether he was still working with MHG to publish anything for Mighty Protectors/V&V3e.
My own memory is that 8-9 years ago on the old forums here, right around the time he appeared at GaryCon to run a V&V game (which I still regret that I missed), Bill Willingham suggested that he would take the characters from his 1980s V&V adventures, combine them with some new super hero characters that he had created in subsequent years, and form a "Mount Pelion Universe," which would be 'adjacent' to the MHG Universe and have their own V&V3e publications, including re-publishing "Death Duel" and "Island of Dr. Apocalypse."
I really thought this was great at the time, a combination of 2 of my childhood favorites: V&V and Bill Willingham. But then the lawsuits started, publication of V&V 3e went into limbo for a time, and I never heard more about it (which I took as a bad sign).
In this new episode, Bill Willingham says that he sold MHG the rights to his two V&V adventures for $1, and that they have the full legal right to republish them for Mighty Protectors. That being said, he clearly knew the game was titled "Mighty Protectors" because of issues with the V&V Trademark, but he wasn't aware whether the game had ever been published. So he seems pretty removed from the situation. He further said his own involvement in this would only slow down the project. Since Jeff and Jack are still fulfilling the 2016 Kickstarter Add-Ons, and since I'd never heard anything about this until today, my enthusiasm is very high but my expectations are, to be honest, 'tempered.'
Fingers Crossed!