Stan Lee's Former Company Sues Walt Disney

According to “Stan Lee Media sues Disney for billions over Marvel characters” by Ben Fritz of LA.Times, “Stan Lee Media… has filed a multibillion-dollar lawsuit against Walt Disney Co”. As the title states the complaint is over the millions made from movies about Marvel characters. Stan Lee, the Marvel Comics writer and creator of many characters, is not involved in the suit. He co-founded Stan Lee Media  but is “no longer an officer of the company”. The complaint “claims that a contract signed by Lee in 1998 assigned his rights to all of his comic book creations, including Spider-Man, the X-Men and most members of super-team Avengers, to Stan Lee Media”. However, “two weeks later, Lee signed a contract with Marvel assigning the same rights to the then-independent comic book company” (Marvel is now owned by Walt Disney Co.).

The article states that Stan Lee Media has had many litigation issues in the past years but the company is certain that their contract signed with Stan Lee is valid and thus, they are owed billions from hit movies such as “Iron Man 2”, “Thor” and “The Avengers”.  The ownership of Stan Lee’s characters has been fought over before – “A 2009 suit filed Stan Lee Media shareholders against Marvel and Lee in New York federal court over ownership… was dismissed”. The company must think they have a better chance at claiming ownership than their shareholders, especially since they waited until after Marvel movies have racked in billions since 2009.