More surprised than most by the event's success is Stan Lee - the 87-year old co-creator of Spiderman and Iron Man comic books.
VOA: standard.2010.07.23
Comic writer Lee assigned the rights to his superhero characters to Marvel in 1998, but after StanLee Media collapsed, minority shareholders of the company claimed that Lee had previously assigned those rights in a written agreement to a predecessor company of StanLee Media.
According to Wolk, the prior legal efforts by some shareholders of StanLee Media to pursue ownership rights of the superhero characters were stymied because the claims were brought derivatively, with minority shareholders of StanLee Media trying to stand in the shoes of the company without its authorization, against both Marvel and Lee.