That's what's happening at Marvel *right now*. The estates of Marvel founder #StanLee and its seminal creator #SteveDitko are suing Marvel to terminate the transfer of both creators' characters to Marvel. If they succeed, Marvel will lose most of its most profitable characters, including #IronMan:

https://www.reuters.com/legal/marvel-artists-estate-ask-pre-trial-wins-superhero-copyright-fight-2023-05-22/

They're following in the trail of the #JackKirby estate, whom Marvel paid millions to rather than taking their chances with the Supreme Court.

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Marvel was always an administrative mess, repeatedly going bankrupt. Its deals with its creators were indifferently papered over, and then Marvel lost a *lot* of the paperwork. I'd bet anything that many of the key documents Disney (Marvel's owner) needs to prevail over Lee and Ditko are either unlocatable or destroyed - or never existed in the first place.

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