(beeping)
- [Voiceover] Welcome to another installment Super Suits,
the internet comic book show where we run down
some of the most famous lawsuits in the long
and storied history of superheroes and comic books.
And on today's installment, oh boy do we have a humdinger
of a case for you.
Stan Lee is easily one of the most recognizable
faces in the world of comics,
if not popular culture as a whole.
His resume speaks for itself.
Spider-Man, X-Men, Fantastic Four, Iron Man, Hulk,
and many more.
And while he hasn't actively been writing comics
for the last few decades,
he has worked tirelessly being one of the best
ambassadors for comics and nerd culture
all over the world.
Basically, he is to the world of superheroes
what Walt Disney was to the world of animation,
or Jim Henson was to the world of puppeteering.
Stan has also managed to keep busy over the years
with a number of other business ventures,
and it's one of those ventures that leads us into
our suit for today.
You see, in 1998 he help found Stan Lee Media,
a startup company to help manage a series
of new intellectual properties,
mostly for the internet.
These projects included the animated Seventh Portal,
Lee's first wholly original superhero team of characters
in many years.
A new series from Howard the Duck creator,
Steve Gerber,
and even something featuring the boy band
The Backstreet Boys as cyber-themed superheroes.
You cannot make this stuff up.
The corporate launch of Stan Lee Media,
later renamed Stan Lee Media, Inc., was a huge affair.
Seventh Portal was unveiled at a million dollar gala
hosted by none other than Mr. New Year's Eve himself,
Dick Clark.
But by 2000, the party was over.
The company ran out of money
in the dot com meltdown,
and it was hit with a series of legal investigations
over funding issues.
Stan "The Man" Lee transferred the rights to his
original characters to his new venture,
POW! Media,
and what happened next is where things get really messy.
You see, the company descended into a series of complicated
lawsuits over the various Marvel Studio movies,
and even the legendarily bad,
Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark musical,
claiming that Lee's deal with them made them owners
of his Marvel creations.
So, what we're essentially going to be dealing
with from here is a company that's hemorrhaging money,
and bearing the name of Stan Lee,
but is in actually no way connected to Stan Lee.
In January 2007, Lee sued Stan Lee Media, Inc,
and Jim Nesfield who was running the company
at the time,
claiming they were committing $50 million worth
of trademark infringement.
On March 15th, 2007, Nesfield representing the shareholders
of Stan Lee Media, Inc., filed a lawsuit in New York
against Marvel Entertainment for $5 billion,
claiming that Stan Lee's assignment of all of his
creating rights to Stan Lee Media
made Stan Lee Media, Inc. co-owners of the characters
that Lee created for Marvel.
And this was all just the beginning,
what would follow from here would be years
worth of jaw-dropping, headache-inducing
legal shenanigans.
So, I'll do my very best to give you the abridged version
because we're not even at the best parts yet.
Okay, so Stan Lee Media, again, in 2007
tried to sue Stan Lee saying that he moved
assets including characters that they own
to his new company illegally,
but by 2008 this case was dismissed,
only to be replaced with a bigger similar suit
this time filed in New York.
In 2009, attorney for Stan Lee Media, Inc., Martin Garbus,
decided instead of just suing Stan Lee,
this time they were gonna sue
all of Marvel Enterprises,
which means big power players like Avi Arad,
and Isaac Perlmutter were starting to get involved.
They were looking for over $700 million in profits
supposedly owed to them by Marvel to Stan Lee Media,
since 1998.
This case would continue to rage on in one form
or another,
even after Garbus, fed up with his own clients,
decided to pack it in,
only to be quickly replaced by someone else.
On March 31, 2010, Judge Paul Crotty dismissed
the New York lawsuit against Marvel, Stan Lee,
and the others citing lack of standing,
expiration of statute of limitations,
and other such causes.
And in any normal world this would be the end of things,
but apparently we don't live in a normal world,
apparently we live on pants-on-head-crazy-world,
because you see in a twist worthy of the very comic
books that they're fighting over,
a stranger would come into play.
In 2011, a mysterious investor named
Michael Wolk, organized a group to finance
Stan Lee Media, Inc's legal actions against Walt Disney.
On October 10, 2012, Stan Lee Media, Inc. sued
the Walt Disney Company,
the current owner of Marvel, in Colorado
for billions of dollars over the rights
to the Marvel characters,
claiming that Stan Lee assigned the rights
for his characters to Marvel,
and that Disney never publicly recorded Marvel's
agreement with Lee with the U.S. Copyright office.
In motions to dismiss the lawsuit,
Disney called the suit, quote "frivolous,"
and "wholly improper attempts to revive a claim
"already rejected a staggering three times already."
But, like Wolverine, this case would just refuse to die.
In March 2015, the U.S. Supreme Court declined
to hear Stan Lee Media, Inc's appeal of the Ninth Circuit
decision.
In July 2015, Stan Lee Media, Inc. was ordered
to pay Disney nearly $82,000 in legal fees
in respect to its failed 10th Circuit claim.
And what of this Mr. Wolk,
the largely unknown figure who's supposed to own
Stan Lee Media, Inc?
He fell off the face of the Earth.
According to his people,
he was finger quotes, "sick",
but it gets so much better.
The company's funds, well it seems that they've
been drained, mostly to pay Wolk's own legal fees.
As of writing this, right now in 2016,
he's still in the wind, and is still sought by
Disney's lawyers.
And I mean, really, how annoying must this
be for Stan Lee.
Imagine yourself in his shoes for a second,
a company that bears your name,
that you no longer have any control over,
or interaction with,
continues to sue you and the people you work with
for your own creations.
Well, everyone that will just about do it for me,
and another installment of Super Suits.
As always, for more educational comic book videos
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Excelsior!