Stan Lee sues former company
The comic-book creator claims POW! executives brokered a ‘sham deal’
Famed Marvel superhero creator Stan Lee is seeking more than $1 billion (Dh3.67 billion) in damages from his former company POW! Entertainment, alleging that he was tricked into signing a document giving away rights to use his name and likeness.
The comic-book legend, who is 95, is suing POW!, its co-founder Gill Champion and CEO Shane Duffy, alleging they brokered a “sham deal” to sell POW! to a China-based company, Camsing. Duffy is also the vice president of Camsing Entertainment.
The lawsuit also claims Champion and Duffy “conspired ... to fraudulently steal Lee’s “identity, name, image and likeness as part of a nefarious scheme to benefit financially at [his] expense”.
The claim states that since 2015 Lee has been suffering from advanced macular degeneration, meaning he has been unable to read or drive on his own. The deal with Camsing went through when Lee’s wife of almost 70 years, Joan Lee, was dying, say his lawyers, and the comics writer was “in a state of total devastation”.
“Duffy and Champion were incentivised to get a deal between POW! and Camsing done because each of them would benefit financially,” claims the suit, and that the pair “never disclosed the actual terms of the deal to Lee before closing it”.
Lee, it is argued, would not have knowingly signed a document providing the exclusive right to use his identity.