Stan Lee Media: Who Owns Stan Lee?
Stan Lee Media: Who Owns Stan Lee?
Part 5 Of An Ongoing Series Unraveling The Mess That Was
Who Owns Stan Lee’s Copyrights and trademarks? Hopefully this will explain exactly who owns Stan Lee.
When it all ended, Stan Lee had a mere handful of copyrights that he owned outright. He shared the copyright to the 1978 graphic novel The Silver Surfer with Jack Kirby. 1978s How to Draw Comics the Marvel Way was also shared with John Buscema.
He claimed the copyright to the text of the following projects:
Stan Lee presents The Best of the Worst (1980)
The God Project (1990)
Stan Lee's Riftworld Crossover (1993)
Stan Lee's Riftworld :Odyssey (1996)
Secret Identity: The Fetish Art of Superman's Co-creator Joe Shuster (Introduction) (2009)
Respect (2016)
He also shared the copyright with Larry Schultz, to the following twenty-six unpublished texts:
Morphing Man
Teen Dynasty
Monsters At Large movie
HighQ
Best Buddy
Falsetto
War Is Heck
Mumbo Jumbo
Company Town
Haunted Frat House
Monsters At Large
Stronghold
Chameleon
Tomorrow
Raiders of Space
Cosmic Heroes
Cyber Wars
Triple Helix
Mandroid
Scarlet Ninja
Tarantula
Con Man and the Cop
The Power
Tomorrow Man
Hiding Out - Crazy For You
Haywire - The Fixers
Stan Lee, Larry Schultz, Rod Barr and Dan Barr all shared the following copyrights:
Disaster Blasters
Rescuers Extreme Team
The partnership of Stan Lee and Larry Schultz, Lee-Schultz Productions, claimed the following works, all in 2000. They were all concept for television/internet shows:
The Chairman
Raiders Of Space :A New Character Franchise
Talon
The Demolisher
The Cougar: A One Hour Action Series
Brain Dead! A Sci-Fi Mystery-Thriller
The Femizons: Based On The Comic Book by Stan Lee
The Marksman
Ninja Man
Hobson's Choices
The Tarantula: Springboard For A TV Series
The Vindicator: Action Series
Micro-Man
The Mandroid
The Adjuster: A One-Hour Action Series
Planet
Decoy: One Hour Action Series
The Un-Humans
The Lighthouse
The Scarlet Ninja: Action Series
Three Seconds
That was pretty much it. Nobody was lining up to buy anything that Stan had a hand in, post-Marvel Comics, and certainly not post 1980. Leaving aside the argument of who created what and who really wrote what, Stan’s creative peak came from 1961 when Marvel launched The Fantastic Four and ended when he left that title after the publication of Fantastic Four #125 in August 1972. There’s not much, if anything, that Stan had a hand in, in the form of new creations, that any outside organization (film, television etc.) showed the slightest bit of interest in.
Even the meetings that Stan had while trying to sell Stan Lee Media concepts revolved more around people trying to get the rights to Marvel characters. The successful concepts that Stan Lee Media formulated all involved pre-existing outside concepts, such as The Backstreet Boys.
Stan Lee Media’s best-known productions all existed on the internet, and were developed in conjunction with Shockwave, a company and product that is now redundant. The 7th Portal, The Drifter and The Accuser were all popular amongst the Stan Lee Media audience, and showed promise, but only one, The 7th Portal, got past the webisode stage, making it to television in Europe and South America. The concept was sold to Paramount for a proposed $150,000,000 film, but that was soon abandoned.
What Stan Lee Media did was create the word ‘webisode’. The way The 7th Portal was marketed and promoted, and screened (on the internet, via StanLeeMedia.com) was a first. The concept of making original, visual, material available via the internet only wasn’t a new one, but Stan Lee Media was the first to give the practice a name, in 1999.
Also in 1998 things, copyright wise, got a lot messier, and it was all Stan Lee’s own doing. When Marvel cancelled his contract, Stan was out on his own for the first time in his professional life. Stan Lee and Stephen Gordon founded Stan Lee Entertainment, Inc, the precursor to Stan Lee Media. As part of the employment agreement Stan signed for Stan Lee Entertainment, he signed over the rights to the following:
Stan Lee Presents (slogan)
Excelsior! (slogan)
Stan's Soap Box (slogan)
Spider-Man
The Incredible Hulk (comic book creation)
X-Men (comic book creation)
The Fantastic Four (comic book creation)
Iron Man (comic book creation)
Daredevil (comic book creation)
Silver Surfer (comic book creation)
Dr. Strange (comic book creation)
This was done on 15 and 21 October 1998.
Stan signed his contract with Stan Lee Enterprises on 20 October 1998. Clause 4 of the contract stated,
In express consideration for the performance of the foregoing obligations of the Company, yow agree as follows:
a) I assign, convey and grant to the Company forever, all right, title and interest I may have or control, now or in the future, in the following: Any and all ideas, names, titles, characters, symbols, logos, designs, likenesses, visual representations, artwork, stories, plots, scripts, episodes, literary property, and the conceptual universe related thereto, including my name and likeness (the ‘Property’) which will or have been in whole or part disclosed in writing to, published, merchandised, advertised, and/or licensed by Company, its affiliates and successors in interest and licensees (which by agreement inures to Company's benefit) or any of them and any copyrights, trademarks, statutory rights, common law, goodwill, moral rights and any other rights whatsoever in the Property in any and all media and/fields, including all rights to renewal or extensions of copyright and make applications or institute suits therefor (the ‘Rights’).
For that, Stan was to be paid $250,000 per annum.
The wording of that clause is clumsy at best. In short, Stan was asked to sign over everything he had ever done or would ever do. As he’d been signing his Marvel work over to Marvel’s various owners since the 1960s, Stan would have known that anything he’d done for Marvel wasn’t his to sell.
Yet he signed over the rights to Marvel characters and slogans. These were not his rights to sell. Stan must surely have known that. He wasn’t mentally infirm; he was well across his rights as a creator having been part of Marvel’s management for decades. So, why did he sign over those characters?
The only one who can definitively answer those questions is Stan Lee. And he’s not here anymore to talk about it. When directly questioned in depositions about the assignment of rights, he never gave a full and proper answer and claimed ignorance.
At the same time that Stan was signing that contract, he was also renegotiating with Marvel for his final contract. That deal with Marvel would allow him to work outside of Marvel, and pay him over $1,000,000 per year, with a 10% share of the gross of any movie made by Marvel.
Both contracts would come back to haunt. In the case of the Marvel deal, they weren’t to know that they were on the cusp of hundreds of millions, if not billions, of dollars. That deal went to court, Stan won a $10,000,000 settlement and a smaller cut of the profits.
Back to Stan Lee Enterprises. In 1999 Stan Lee Media, Inc, was formed and it absorbed Stan Lee Enterprises. Again, Stan Lee and Stephen Gordon were at the forefront of the new company, so the Stan Lee 1998 contract was adopted by Stan Lee Media. When the company went bust, and Stan had left, and Peter Paul was in jail, those who remained believed that Stan Lee Media owned one valuable asset – the October 1998 contract and rights assignment, both signed by Stan Lee, which, on the face, gave Stan Lee Media ownership of everything Stan had done for Marvel.
They were two documents that launched lawsuits, claims and counterclaims that continue to this day.
As for Stan’s other copyrights.
On 31 July 2006, parts of The Drifter and The Accuser were assigned by QED productions, LLC. Everything else at Stan Lee Media was assigned to POW! Entertainment shortly after Stan Lee Media was forced into bankruptcy. The legalities of that rights assignment was shady and was the subject of legal battles.
The visual material for The Drifter, The 7th Portal, The Backstreet Project, The Accuser, Stan 20, Stan’s Evil Clone and Mongorr are still owned by Stan Lee Media.
POW! Entertainment took the rest. Dramatic works, text, visuals – they were all snapped up for nothing by POW!
POW! assigned over 190 titles to Genius Brands International, Inc. on 11 October 2022 as collateral for a loan.
POW! assigned over another 253 titles and texts to China MH Group Ltd, also for a loan, on 20 April 2023.
POW! assigned what was left of the Stan Lee Media/POW! Entertainment/Stan Lee related concepts to Stan Lee Universe, LLC over six dates in 2023/2024
Other than those copyrights listed earlier, when Stan Lee died, he owned very little in the way of copyrights. And, adding insult to injury, he didn’t even own the copyright or trademark to his most famous creation – himself. POW! Entertainment assigned the rights to the name Stan Lee to Stan Lee Universe, LLC, on 23 June 2021.
The saga of the Stan Lee trademark bears exploring.
There is currently thirty-five trademarks bearing the name Stan Lee. POW! Entertainment owns twenty-four, Stan Lee Media owns two and Stan Lee Universe owns the remaining ten.
Other trademarks bearing Stan Lee’s name are:
Smilin’ Stan
Stan 2.0
Stan Lee - A Superhero For The Ages
Stan Lee - The Man And The Legend
Stan Lee Affiliate Network
Stan Lee Collectibles
Stan Lee Comics
Stan Lee Media
Stan Lee Museum Of Art & Comics Excelsior!
Stan Lee Presents
Stan Lee's Comic Universe
Stan Lee's I, Werewolf
Stan Lee's Mighty 7
Stan Lee's Superhero Kindergarten
Stanlee
Stanzine
The Stan Lee Foundation
The Stan Lee Museum
The Stan Lee Studios
The Stan Lee Tradition
Therealstanlee
Even Stan’s expressions were trademarked:
Excelsior! (POW! owns all five trademarks. The first trademark for Excelsior was filed by Marvel Enterprises and assigned to POW! Entertainment in December 2001)
'Nuff Said! (POW! owns all three trademarks)
Stan's Soapbox (POW! owns four trademarks, Stan Lee Media owns one)
True Believer (POW! Entertainment)
The majority of the trademarks are owned by POW! Entertainment, with Stan Lee Media and Stan Lee Universe sharing the rest.
Stan Lee’s name was trademarked for goods and services as varied as on-line retail stores, books, non-fiction books, comic books, downloadable images, MP3 recordings, clothing, cardboard products, DVDs wireless communication services and (my favorite) ‘Credit card, charge card, and debit card payment processing services; electronic credit card, charge card, and debit card transaction services; Issuing of credit cards, charge cards, and debit cards; providing of cash and other rebates for credit card use as part of credit loyalty program.’
You’ve read that right; the name Stan Lee was trademarked for financial services. When you consider what happened with Stan Lee Media, the irony becomes apparent.
Most of these trademarks bear the status of ‘Dead’. To understand what this means, I’ll now defer to Michael Kondoudis, who is a small business Trademark Attorney.
A Dead Trademark happens when a trademark is abandoned by its owner, canceled by the USPTO, or invalidated by a Court.
When a trademark is “dead,” it means that anyone can use it without fear of legal repercussions from the original trademark owner.
A Dead Trademark is generally available for anyone else to register, making it an opportunity to take ownership of an old, inactive logo or phrase. Taking ownership of a Dead Trademark is a popular method for businesses to gain a new brand without starting from scratch.
(If you’re even remotely interested in trademarks, Michael’s site is well worth a read. He breaks it all down into very simple terms. And, oddly enough, there’s a lot of dead trademarks out there just waiting to be snatched up. Just saying.)
The Dead Trademarks with Stan Lee’s name are:
Excelsior!
'Nuff Said!
Stan 2.0
Stan Lee
Stan Lee - A Superhero For The Ages
Stan Lee - The Man And The Legend
Stan Lee Affiliate Network
Stan Lee Collectibles
Stan Lee Comics
Stan Lee Media
Stan Lee Museum Of Art & Comics Excelsior!
Stan Lee Presents
Stan Lee's Comic Universe
Stan Lee's I, Werewolf
Stan Lee's Mighty 7
Stan Lee's Superhero Kindergarten
Stanlee
Stan's Soapbox
Stanzine
The Stan Lee Foundation
The Stan Lee Museum
The Stan Lee Studios
The Stan Lee Tradition
True Believer
Before anyone rushes to file a claim for a Stan Lee trademark, be aware that, just because a trademark is Dead, doesn’t mean another trademark bearing the same name is not in existence. The bulk of the Dead marks are generally useless ones. The live ones are for books, websites and the like. Do your due diligence before filing for a Trademark.
POW! Entertainment assigned the bulk of its Trademarks to Stan Lee Universe in June 2021. Stan lee Media assigned some of its Stan Lee trademarks to POW! Entertainment in December 2001.
As an aside, Stan Lee Media owned the trademarks and copyrights to the entire Conan the Barbarian properties from 27 September 2000 to 28 December 2000. The current owners of Stan Lee Media dispute the re-assignment and are still trying to claim Conan today.
Unlike Billy Joel, who trademarked his name and still owns it, when Stan Lee passed away, he didn’t own the name that he had given himself back in the Timely days. If POW! Entertainment had so desired, they could have ordered Stan Lee to stop using his own name. Even J.C. Lee, Stan Lee’s daughter, cannot use her father’s full name – her trademark (registered August 2015 and now dead) was J. C. Lee - Stan's Daughter Publishing. The grab for Stan Lee’s name began in earnest in June 1999 and continues to this day. Even his signature was trademarked.
Such were the machinations that surrounded Stan Lee and his name. Such was Stan Lee’s legacy.
This is not to say that people should feel sorry for Stan Lee. He went into all of these transactions with eyes wide open. He had independent legal advice on hand. And he was paid handsomely for his rights.
He knew what he was doing.
This article is copyright 2024 Daniel Best and cannot be reproduced or reprinted without the express permission of the author.