Disney has sued the families of Stan Lee, Steve Ditko, Gene Colan, and other creators of some of its most iconic characters this week, hoping to block legal efforts by the artists and writers’ estates that would seek to acknowledge them as, well…the creators of some of the most iconic comic book characters of all time.
This is per THR, which reports that Marvel owner Disney has launched the suits to challenge copyright termination notices that have been, or might soon be, submitted by the estates in question. Notably, the heirs of Spider-Man creator Steve Ditko recently filed one such suit, which would hypothetically, per U.S. copyright law, allow creators who have transferred their copyright to a second party—like, say, a multi-billion-dollar megacorp that’s spent decades profiting mightily off of those same materials—to terminate that transfer after a sufficient amount of time has passed.
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