Shareholders from the ill-fated .com enterprise, Stan Lee Media, are seeking $750 million in profits made from films and other works based on characters created by Stan Lee.  High-powered attorney Martin Garbus, who has argued four major cases before the Supreme Court, has filed a suit on behalf of a number of Stan Lee Media stockholders including Jose Abadin and Nelson Thall, claiming that they were harmed when Marvel and Lee transferred ownership of Lee’s creations from Stan Lee Media to Marvel in a 1998 agreement, which was supposedly signed a month after Lee had assigned his rights to Stan Lee Media.  Lee’s 1998 agreement with Marvel was the basis for a 2002 lawsuit by Lee against Marvel, which was settled confidentially in 2005.

.

Marvel reacted to the new suit by claiming that it simply reiterates the “baseless claims” that Stan Lee Media has been pressing against Marvel for 2 years—a reference to a $5 billion suit filed against Marvel in March of 2007 (see “Stan Lee Media Slaps Marvel With $5 Billion Suit”).  Garbus countered Marvel’s response by telling the AP: “It’s a very different lawsuit.  It’s different money.”  

Whatever the merits of the Stan Lee Media lawsuits, there can be no doubt that the investors in Stan Lee Media, which could function as a poster child for the sleazy excesses of the .com boom (see “SEC Probing Stan Lee Media”), were bamboozled by executives at the company (not Stan).  The new suit specifically names Lee along with former Marvel movie exec Avi Arad and Marvel CEO Isaac Perlmutter. 

Lee has countersued Stan Lee Media claiming that the company has impeded the development of a number of newer projects that he is trying to establish through his new company POW! Entertainment, with Disney, Virgin Comics and others.