Posted on 07/02/2008 6:20:06 PM PDT by doug from upland
Marvel, Spider Man, Stan Lee and the Wrath of Peter Paul
Marvel Faces Wrath of Peter Paul
Baron’s feature story June 28, “The Rage Offstage At Marvel” written by its senior editor William “Wild Bill” Alpert, starts off saying,
“THE COMIC BOOK’S SPLASH page would show a close-up of Peter F. Paul brooding about Marvel Entertainment, its creative force Stan Lee and the Clintons.”
With that comic book flair, Baron’s reluctantly accepted the bona fides of the historic law suit filed by Stan Lee Media in 2007 against Marvel Entertainment for 50% of the copyright profits from Spider Man, The Incredible Hulk, Ironman and all of Stan Lee’s creations for Marvel.
Then Baron’s wrote another story, Marvel Stock Drops After Barons Warning, taking credit for its original story causing Marvel investors to be so concerned about Stan Lee Media’s legal fight that Marvel’s stock dropped in price. This second story was also designed to further attack the messenger of Lee-Marvel misdeeds. Peter Paul in a way the original Barons editor shied away from.
Baron’s online and magazine publications nevertheless provided the first major Wall Street validation of the substance to Stan Lee Media’s claims of ownership of Stan Lee’s co-creators rights to his Marvel characters, hidden by Lee and Marvel for years, after Lee’s first rights assignment away from Marvel was made to capitalize Lee’s dot com start up, Stan Lee Media, in October, 1998.
The article dramatized the titanic struggle between Stan Lee Media and Marvel by focusing on Peter Paul’s efforts to expose the frauds he witnessed by various parties connected with Stan lee Media, including Bill Clinton, short sellers, Stan Lee and Marvel Entertainment. Much was made of the fact that Paul is “spearheading” the whistleblowing effort while he remains under house arrest on the SEC 10(b)5 violation he has pled guilty to in connection with the misuse of margin accounts under the supervision and control of Merrill Lynch.
What is particularly interesting about Marvel’s conduct in defending against Stan Lee Media ’s complaint is that it is using the Clinton playbook to attack the messenger, Peter Paul, and mischaracterize the message. Marvel’s public explanations of the case to the reporter that wrote the story and in a letter to Baron’s in response to the story, continue to mislead the public and shareholders about the facts in the record regarding Stan Lee’s claims and ownership of co-creator’s rights in Marvel’s copyrights of Lee’s characters, thereby continuing a pattern of 10(b)5 violations detailed in Jim Nesfield’s SEC 13D filing in August 26, 2007.
Baron’s pointed out that while Stan Lee swore in his complaint against Marvel in 2002 that he made a conditional assignment of his rights to his world famous characters to Marvel in November, 1998 with the expectation he would participate in the profits derived from their exploitation of his characters, he and Marvel now say (after a sealed settlement of Lee’s suit was made by Marvel for more than $10 million) that Lee’s characters were work for hire in which he never had any rights! If that isnt a claim to his Marvel characters, its hard to imagine what is. See Paragraphs 13, 14 and 39 in the Complaint.
The ongoing misrepresentations to Marvel shareholders and lenders by spokesmen and principals of Marvel, along with the numerous examples of misconduct by Lee and Marvel Chairman Perlmutter, detailed in Jim Nesfield’s 13D that has remained unchanged on the SEC’s web site since August, 2007, portend a very rocky road for the House of Ideas and those who have used villainous conduct to pillage shareholders and lenders. And for Peter Paul, charged with causing his company with Stan Lee to collapse leaving shareholders with nothing, there well could be a vindication of Paul’s efforts to save the company through his stock manipulations while it was being wrested away from him and shareholders by the Super Villains that Stan Lee brought to life.
STAN LEE AND BANKRUPTCY FRAUD??? - http://youtube.com/watch?v=apFBsck2eK4
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