What happened to Jacks lawsuit against Marvel?
It is a great urban myth of the business that Jack Kirby sued the Marvel Comics Group. There were a couple of points where he was seriously considering it and talking to attorneys, and there were also other times when he threatened it — to Marvel or in the fan press. Ultimately though, he and Roz decided that neither his health nor bank account could withstand what could have been a very long, expensive and emotional war. Still, one sometimes hears — even from folks who worked at Marvel and should know better — that Kirby sued and lost, sued and won or sued and settled. None of these happened. I think the problem was that Marvel’s lawyers always overreacted. They were constantly trying to strong-arm Kirby into signing this or that, or even threatening to sue him on some trumped-up claim. Whenever he threatened them back, they got hysterical and ran around yelling, “Jack Kirby’s suing us,” even though, at least on those occasions, Jack wasn’t considering the possibility.
