In 2021, the Steve Ditko estate filed suit against Marvel Comics for copyright claims on Spider-Man, Doctor Strange, Iron Man, and associated characters. In effect, in conjunction with other creators like Stan Lee’s brother Larry Lieber among others, they terminated the copyright agreements with Marvel for the characters. The suit was resolved this week in a settlement between the families of Steve Ditko and Disney, allowing Marvel Comics to retain the copyrights.
It could have been a big problem for Disney Marvel, with the characters they’ve used based on Steve Ditko’s works for decades without paying royalties to the character’s creator. Spider-Man has generated several blockbuster films as well as a franchise of merchandise, which would prove costly if the Ditko family’s claim of co-ownership was established.
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Marvel wouldn’t have lost the right to publish or use the characters, but the Ditkos were asking for a share of the revenue, which would have at least given Disney some heartburn.
Steve Ditko never pursued such action, and Marvel Comics has always maintained these were “works for hire” to which Ditko never had any rights. Such contracts were near standard in the comic industry for decades, with creators getting screwed out of their creations while the publishers raked in the profits. Ditko, over the years, published numerous rants about Stan Lee and his theft of Spider-Man in particular, which Ditko claimed Lee never gave him proper credit for creating.
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He backed up his claims with evidence from the sketches he drew, and the prompts Stan Lee gave him for the creation of the character, but still, the families only wanted a co-creator status for the property. Steve Ditko died still at odds with Smilin’ Stan over matters, and legend has it he even refused to cash checks from the Spider-Man movies because he felt he wasn’t given proper credit.
The claim posed a risk to Marvel because it not only claimed the rights to Amazing Fantasy and Strange Tales, where two very successful Marvel I.P.s originated, but also claimed “any character, story element, or indicia reasonably associated with the Works.”
Marvel replied to the original suit, saying the claims were baseless as they had work-for-hire contracts with Ditko. Still, judges have proven increasingly friendlier to creators against corporations in recent decades because of the mistreatment of artists from the time.
However, what might have resulted if this went to trial is moot, as both parties reached what they call an amicable settlement, turning in their papers to the court. The settlement terms are confidential, with both parties being held to non-disclosure as to what they agreed upon. With the settlement, the court will likely file a dismissal without prejudice in the coming weeks.
In all likelihood, Disney Marvel offered Steve Ditko’s family money to go away, though we can’t know what occurred behind closed doors. Fandom Pulse reached out to the Ditko Estate for comment but received none as of the time of writing this article.
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What do you think about this settlement from Marvel Comics over the Spider-Man and Doctor Strange properties created by Steve Ditko? Let us know in the comments!
If this happened in the 1980s, I would have been a lot more inclined to want to defend Marvel’s right to keep IP rights on the characters. I would have been confident that the Marvel brand would produce more interesting material with these characters. By now, they’ve simply allowed everything to burn out and so I don’t really care. I’ll always say that Marvel should have retired most of its characters in 1986-1995 and seriously launched a new generation of characters. Without that, things were bound to fizzle over time.
As far as the Ditko family is concerned, hopefully they’re satisfied with the terms of settlement. But I won’t worry too much about it. It would have been smarter if Marvel, from the very start, made a policy of paying out some share of royalties to past employees whenever a movie was made. That would have strengthened their reputation as an employer, and they could have still kept the whole royalty process limited within bounds. Today, no matter what the Ditko family may feel about this settlement, I doubt that a new generation of prospective employees will ever take the Marvel Bullpen all that seriously.
Since Sony, not Disney, owns the film rights to Spiderman; how does this affect future Spiderman productions?
I assume Ditko’s family was just going for money and yeah, Marvel probably paid them to go away. Ditko deserved more but he was a man of integrity and fully admitted that he had been paid for his work, so he never tried.
Agreed