Marvel Comics Creator Stan Lee Suffered From Elder Abuse

There was a sad elder abuse story in AARP The Magazine about Stan Lee, the mastermind behind Marvel Entertainment which produced movies based on Lee’s character which grossed more than $22 billion at the box office.  That’s double the box office of all of the Star Wars movies combined.  Not only was he abused early on in his career—never owning a stake in any Marvel characters but simply earning a salary—later in life he was severely taken advantage of.  The company was sold in 2009 to Walt Disney for $4 billion.  But since Stan didn’t own a stake he had to resort to going to trade shows like Comic Con to sign autographs for $120 each.  The story talks to someone who shot a video of him when at age 95, his handlers had to actually tell him his name and spell it so that he could sign autographs.  Between his assistants, his daughter and others, money quickly evaporated as Lee moved into dementia.  One of his security team reportedly paid himself a management fee of $700K in 2017 while giving Lee $50K.  Another employee apparently forged Lee’s signature and took $4.6 million out of his Merrill Lynch account.  His daughter at the same time was earning $7,000 a month to help brainstorm ideas that might capitalize on her father’s name.  There are a number of court cases pending in this terrible case.

https://www.aarp.org/entertainment/celebrities/info-2020/stan-lee-elder-abuse.html