Stan Lee Slaps Former Company POW! Entertainment With $1 Billion Lawsuit

It’s a crazy year for Marvel comic book legend Stan Lee. Over the past months, Lee has been subject to various alarming news about his health and elder abuse and accused of sexual harassment—all of which the King of Marvel refuted. Following the death of his wife, Joan, last year, Lee’s life has been a bit of a concern for many fans and artists. But given the various things that Lee had to go through, the comic book icon remains as robust as before and juggling different cameos for the MCU here and there.

Now, however, Lee is in another legal battle as the icon just filed a $1 billion lawsuit against his former entertainment company, POW! Entertainment. According to The Hollywood Reporter, the suit alleges that the company used Lee’s “identity, name, image, and likeness as part of a nefarious scheme benefit financially at Lee’s expense.”

Lee alleges that he was blindly tricked into signing a contract that gives away his brand to POW! Entertainment for use in various products and marketing efforts internationally. The comic book icon also says that he has no recollection of anyone handing him a document about the deal and claims that although his signature in the paper is present, he has no memory of ever signing something like it.

Adam Grant, Lee’s attorney, claims that either POW! CEO Shane Duffy and co-founder Gill Duffy and other parties involved “forged Lee’s signatures, lifted Lee’s signature from another document and imposed it on the Illegitimate Document, or someone, likely one of the Defendants, induced Lee to sign the Illegitimate Document by using a bait and switch tactic—telling Lee it was something else.”

Lee founded POW! (Purveyors of Wonder) Entertainment with Champion and Arthur Liberman in 2001. It is a production company who produced various TV shows and movies from Lee’s chest of ideas, including the superhero reality TV show, “Who Wants to Be a Superhero?”