Marvel Comics has opened lawsuits to maintain control over several members of the Avengers.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, the Marvel lawsuits are against the heirs of legendary comic book creators such as Steve Ditko, Stan Lee and Gene Colan, with the suits seeking declaratory relief stating iconic characters including Spider-Man, Iron Man, Doctor Strange, Ant-Man, Black Widow and more are ineligible for copyright termination pertaining to works for hire.
The estate of Steve Ditko filed a notice of termination with the United States Copyright Office in August, in regards to Marvel's copyrights on Spider-Man and Doctor Strange. Ditko co-created both characters, with his family attempting to use a right introduced in the 1975 Copyright Act that allows creators to terminate copyrights of works previously assigned to other people or entities. Larry Lieber, the brother of Stan Lee, filed a similar notice of termination in May. If the termination notices were to succeed, Marvel would lose rights to these characters in June 2023.
Marc Toberoff, who is representing the heirs of the comic book legends in the Marvel suits, also unsuccessfully represented Superman creators Jerry Siegel and Joe Schuster during their termination suit against DC. Dan Petrocelli represented DC, and is now doing the same for Disney/Marvel and has lawsuits open against Larry Lieber, Don Heck, Patrick Ditko, Don Rico and Keith Dettwiler.
The "Marvel Method" is brought up as a focus on the proceedings, which centered on creators workshopping ideas with the publisher before the artists put a greater focus on the details. "Marvel had the right to exercise creative control over [Stan Lee's] contributions and paid [Stan Lee] a per-page rate for his work," one of the complaints reads.
An important detail on the 1976 Copyright Act pertains to the work-for-hire status of comic book creators at publishers such as Marvel and DC. Under typical work-for-hire contracts, the entity is considered the originator of the copyright, eliminating a comic book creator to request termination.
When Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster created Superman, the Man of Steel was already written out and drawn when the duo agreed to sell it to National Allied Publications (now DC). Therefore, Siegel and Shuster assigned their rights to National Allied/DC. Eventually, DC (and its current owner, Warner Bros.) had to work out deals with the Siegel and Shuster estates to maintain copyright on Superman.
If any of the heirs win their cases against Marvel, it is expected that Disney would at least maintain co-ownership, meaning the company would have to share profits.
Source: The Hollywood Reporter