The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit has affirmed Marvel Comics' copyright interest in lucrative characters such as "The Incredible Hulk," "The X-Men" and "Spider-Man" drawn by Jack Kirby, rejecting arguments by Kirby's children who tried to assert ownership rights.
The dispute began when Kirby's children sought to capture the renewal copyrights to the characters drawn by their father, who died in 1994. Two weeks after the Walt Disney Co. announced in 2009 that it was buying Marvel for about $4 billion, the Kirbys served Marvel with termination of rights notices.
