Stan Lee

Stan Lee, creator of such comic book superheroes as Spider-Man and X-Men, has signed an exclusive content deal with Burbank-based Walt Disney Co. Under the multiyear agreement, Walt Disney Studios gets first shot at films, TV shows, books and video games devised by the 84-year-old Lee and his company, POW! Entertainment. Financial terms were not disclosed.

Who's been the most lucrative creative force in Hollywood in this short century? You could make an argument for Stan Lee, the irrepressible P.T. Barnum of comic books who, in the 1960s, put pen to paper and came up with Spider-Man, the X-Men, the Fantastic Four, Daredevil and the Hulk -- a colorful parade of properties that in the last six years has grossed $1.6 billion at the box office.

It's a dark and stormy Tuesday morning in Hollywood, just the kind that draws villains -- purse snatchers, hobgoblins -- from their shadowy lairs to terrorize the gentle citizenry of this vast metropolis. Rain splatters the cavernous soundstages at Sunset Gower Studios and streams off the rooftops, turning sidewalks into rivers. On the street, a green van sputters and turns but won't start. And slowly, quietly, masked and caped men and women arrive.

Peter Paul, who co-founded Stan Lee Media Inc. with Spider-Man creator Stan Lee, on Thursday settled a Securities and Exchange Commission lawsuit accusing him of manipulating the company's stock. Paul, without admitting wrongdoing, agreed to refrain from future securities law violations and not to serve as an officer or director of a public company, the SEC said in a statement.

When the Fantastic Four make their big-screen debut on July 8, nobody will have a bigger smile than their postman, Willie Lumpkin. As readers of Marvel Comics already know, the bespectacled Lumpkin delivers mail to the FF's headquarters -- that would be the world-renowned Baxter Building. In the newest Marvel Comics superhero flick, Lumpkin is played by none other than Stan Lee, who together with illustrator Jack Kirby created the Fantastic Four way back in the early 1960s.

Marvel Enterprises Inc., which holds the rights to 5,000 comic book characters, settled a lawsuit with Spider-Man creator Stan Lee over film royalties and plans to start producing its own movies. The company said it had signed an eight-year agreement with Paramount Pictures, a unit of Viacom Inc., to distribute as many as 10 films, according to a statement Thursday. Merrill Lynch & Co. set up a $525-million credit line to fund production, a loan backed by limited rights to 10 Marvel characters.

Spider-Man creator Stan Lee, who spent two years in court fighting Marvel Enterprises Inc. for royalties from the characters he invented, said he expected to settle the case before a judge decided how much the company owed him. "All I'm looking for is a fair settlement," Lee said in an interview in his Beverly Hills office. "The last thing I would want to do is bankrupt Marvel. I love the company, and I love the people there." U.S.

A federal judge ruled last week that Marvel Comics owes millions of dollars to its longtime writer, Stan Lee, in unpaid profits from movies based on the characters he created: Spider-Man, the X-Men and the Incredible Hulk.