Marvel Battles Kirby Estate

Marvel is suing to keep the rights to superheroes including The Hulk, the Fantastic Four and X-Men.

The federal lawsuit filed Friday in Manhattan asks a judge to invalidate notices sent by the heirs of artist Jack Kirby to try to terminate Marvel’s copyrights. The heirs sent notified several companies last year that the rights to the characters would revert from Marvel to Kirby’s estate.

Jack Kirby contributed to the creation of most of Marvel’s best known characters including Hulk, Iron Man, The Fantastic Four, The X-men, Captain America, Thor, Silver Surfer, and many more.  The lawsuit was reported by The Hollywood Reporter, which misidentified Spider-Man as one of the characters in the suit. Spider-man was created by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko and is not affected by the Kirby suit.