Stan Lee Is Suing His Business Partners For $1 Billion
95-year-old comic book legend Stan Lee isn’t spending his golden years surfing daytime TV and laughing at local lawyer commercials while thinking about finally calling up that number and ordering that Dr. Ho 2-in-1 back relief belt, he’s currently spending his time fighting foes like his name was Spider-Old Man. He accused a former business associate of stealing both his moneyand his blood, denied he was being elder abused, and most recently sued his former business manager Jerardo Olivarez for $1.4 million in allegedly stolen funds.
Stan’s already got one lawsuit on his plate, and according to People, he’s added another.
Stan Lee filed a lawsuit in Los Angeles against his business partners at POW! Entertainment, Shane Duffy and Gill Champion. Stan started POW! Entertainment with Gill back in 2001 (Shane is POW!’s current CEO, Stan is listed as their CCO). Stan claims Shane and Gill took advantage of Stan’s name without his permission, and conspired against him to broker a shady deal to sell POW! to a company in China. Stan alleges that part of the China deal included stealing Stan’s name, image, and likeness to the financial benefit of Shane and Gill only.
Stan cliams in the lawsuit that Shane and Gill’s shady plot went down after his wife Joan passed away in 2017. Stan claims Shane and Gill took advantage of him while he was grieving. They also knew Stan had been diagnosed with advanced macular degeneration (aka vision loss), and they “preyed on his infirmities.”
In May 2017, POW! Entertainment was acquired by Camsing International Holding in China. After the deal was announced, Stan Lee released a statement saying how “enthusiastic” he was. Yeah, behind the scenes? Not so much, as it turns out. Stan claims Shane and Gill needed permission to use his name, which Stan claims he never gave. So how did they get his signature? According to Stan’s lawsuit, Shane and Gill allegedly forged or fraudulently obtained Stan’s signature to give POW! and their new owners the exclusive use of Stan Lee’s name.
Stan Lee takes his name very seriously. When Disney bought Marvel for $4 billion, Stan refused to give Disney the rights to his name.
Stan is suing Shane and Gill for $1 billion. That’s the amount a super villain demands from the mayor, or else they’ll blow up the Statue of Liberty. If Shane and Gill did pull some signature forgery, then they might be in trouble, but they might not. I say this because Stan Lee is 95 with bad eyes and possibly shaky hands. I don’t know how a judge will be able to decide which signature is real and which one is the fake if they both look like drunk snakes squiggling across the paper.
Pic: Wenn.com