Stan Lee Media

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Stan Lee Media

Type	Public Delisted
Founded	October 1998
Founder(s)	Stan Lee, Peter F. Paul
Headquarters	Beverly Hills, California, USA
Key people	Nelson Thall, Director
Industry	Entertainment
Services	internet animation studio
Subsidiaries	Stan Lee Media Studios

Stan Lee Media (SLM) is an Internet-based creation, production and marketing company founded in 1998, dismissed from Chapter 11 Bankruptcy protection in November, 2006. The company created Stan Lee branded super hero franchises for applications in all media. Its 165-man animation production studio was based in Los Angeles, California from 1998-2001.It won the 2000 Web Award for the best Entertainment Portal on the World Wide Web.

Contents 1 Evolution 1.1 Bankruptcy 2 Productions 2.1 The 7th Portal 2.1.1 Main plot 2.1.2 Characters 2.2 The Drifter 2.3 The Accuser 2.3.1 Plot 2.4 Others 3 Lawsuits 4 References

[edit] Evolution

The company was founded by Stan Lee (Spider Man, X-Men, Iron Man The Hulk, and Fantastic Four co-creator) with his friend, Peter F. Paul (Hollywood entrepreneur, International Lawyer) in 1998 as Stan Lee Entertainment. Stan Lee Entertainment merged with Stan Lee Media, Inc. of Delaware in April 1999. In July 1999, SLM of Delaware acquired Boulder Capital Opportunities, Inc., a publicly traded company, and through its reverse merger Stan Lee Media became a publicly traded company under the symbol SLEE. ^[1]

The company won the Best of Show Web Award in November, 2000, as the best Entertainment Portal on the internet, beating Warner Bros and Disney's portals.

The company launched the first new team of Super Heroes to be created by Stan Lee in thirty years, the 7th Portal, at $1 million a media convergence gala hosted by Dick Clark at Raleigh Studios on February 29, 2000. The first high concept 'webisode' to be broadcast on the internet, 7th Portal's worldwide debut crashed the servers of Macromedia's Shockwave web site with millions of viewers.

The company developed the best flash animation studio in Hollywood, sponsored by IBM, rivaling Disney and Warner Bros' online entertainment websites within six months of its founding. The President of Sony Digital studios was hired away to become the CEO of Stan Lee Media in June, 2000, and a joint venture with the largest anime manga company in Japan resulted in production and distribution deals over the internet, on telkevision and in theme parks in Europe, South America and Asia.

Stan Lee was invited to the People's Republic of China to receive the most prestigious award presented by the Chinese People's Daily to living creative legends, enabling them to work without any restrictions in China. Stan Lee was the first and only Westerner so honored.

SLM used $4.3 million in stock to purchase Conan Properties Inc., owner of Conan the Barbarian. Plans for a third Conan movie and webisodes were made.^[2] With SLM stock price falling below the sale agreement level, Conan Properties, Inc. stock a legal battle ensued between with the previous owners,Baums, LSDC, Arthur Lieberman and the de Camps.^[3]

[edit] Bankruptcy

The company subsequently ran out of operating capital during the dot com meltdown in December, 2000, closing operations entirely by December 19, 2000.^[4]

During the Chapter 11 debtor in Possession proceedings, Stan Lee assigned the major character franchises he created to his new public company, POW! Entertainment, without the knowledge or approval of the Bankruptcy court. Lee and his new partner Arthur Lieberman failed to disclose the existence and value of the Rights Assignment Lee made to the company when he founded it. Those rights were hidden and personally exploited by Lee, Lieberman and Marvel and have become the subject of two multi-billion dollar law suits against Marvel Entertainment and Stan Lee and his new public company, as reported by Barron's in The Rage Offstage,and Motley Fool's Is Marvel a Villainpublished in July, 2008.

The company was taken back by the shareholders after its dismissal from bankruptcy and hired a legal and accounting forensic consultant to review all transactions that occurred during bankruptcy.

The company remained under bankruptcy protection until the US Trustee for the Central District of California moved to dismiss the bankruptcy for failure of the company as Debtor in Possession to comply with basic requirements of filing monthly reports and paying quarterly fees to the Trustee. As of November 1, 2006, all of the officers and directors of the company had resigned or abandoned their positions and the company's lawyers for the Debtors in Possession attempted to obtain court authorization to destroy or dispose of the company's books and records.

[edit] Productions

Some of Stan Lee Media's most important projects included the animated Web series The 7th Portal (where Stan Lee himself voiced the character Izayus), The Drifter, and The Accuser. The 7th Portal characters were licensed to an interactive 3-D movie attraction in four Paramount theme parks.^[5]

[edit] The 7th Portal

The 7th Portal, co-created by Stan Lee and his partner, Peter F. Paul, became the first ever web animation series to succeed as a 3D ride attraction and to be developed for a $150 million dollar movie by Paramount with producer Mark Canton.

The 7th Portal premiered on the new animation hub Shockwave, on February 29, 2000 when its global launch overwhelmed Macromedia's servers.^[6] It became the most successful web originated animated series, being picked up by Fox in mid run, for distribution on TV in South America and Europe.^[7] Twenty-two episodes were made,^[8] of which the first twenty were shown on-line before the website went bankrupt. The final two episodes were only visible on television.

[edit] Main plot

The 7th Portal told the story of Izayus when he approaches a group of young beta testers. He claims to have a game that will let them fight real monsters, which he projects holographically using the CD-ROM he claims contains the game. The game's premise is that there are six other dimensions, all of which have been conquered by the evil Lord Mongorr, and the players need to take the form of a superhero in order to stop him from opening the portal to the seventh universe, their own.

After they have chosen their form, half of them are sucked into the computer screen, where in time they learn that they've been transported for real into a parallel universe. However, their forms are still subject to the rules of the game, such as spending Life Points to use their superpowers. They are eventually captured and brought to The Bloodzone, a gladiator-like arena consisting of floating platforms over a bottomless pit.

Meanwhile, the other half of the beta testers are mystified by their friends' disappearance. Suddenly, they are transported into cyberspace to meet Izayus. He reveals to them that the CD was actually a device called The Artifact^[9], which allows for transportation between their dimension and Darkmoor, the realm of Lord Mongorr.

The first group discover that they must fight some Nullifiers (as Mongorr's select group of minion's call themselves) to the death if they want to leave the Bloodzone. When Peter (one of the heroes) loses all his Life Points, transforming back into a regular human being, Izayus appears and allows himself to be captured so that they can escape with The Artifact. The Nullifiers try to stop them, when the heroes are saved by the second group of beta testers, now in their superhero forms.

They take the name Data Raiders for themselves and hide in a basement. A fight breaks out among them because Peter had transferred Roberto's Life Points to his own, leaving Roberto at zero points. Peter is knocked out and Roberto leaves. The others, however, notice that Peter's Life Potins are increasing, and hypothesize that if they get something to eat they'll be able to increase their Life Points even faster. When they return with the food, they discover an ambush, and are forced to surrender.

Mongorr creates a portal and sends them back to Earth, since he now has The Artifact. Shortly afterwards he proceeds to send an army through it to destroy several of the Earth's landmarks. However, Izayus sends some energy through the portal, returning the Data Raiders' powers to full strength, and they return through the portal. They combine forces and defeat all the Nullifiers, and Izayus assures them that now he will fix all seven dimensions to be as if Mongorr had never existed. As a reward, the Data Raiders get to keep their powers.

[edit] Characters

Data Raiders
Name	Country of origin	Superhero form	Superpower	Voice actor	Other Info
Ozubo Monduma	South Africa	Conjure Man	Psychokinesis	Joseph Motiki	N/A
Greta Brecht	Germany	Gossamer	floating, traspassing walls and becoming invisible	Christina Gordon	N/A
Anna Nehue	India	Imitatia	Shapeshifting	Ellora Patniak	N/A
Roberto Diaz	Brazil	Oxblood	superhuman strength	Carlos Diaz	N/A
Rikio Minamoto	Japan	The Streak	Super-Speed	Jovanni Sy	N/A
Peter Littlecloud	United States	Thunderer	A voice powerful enough to literally blow people away	Gordon Wolvett	N/A
Izayus			Psychokinesis	Stan Lee	The final episode reveals Izayus to be Mongorr's brother (a fact already hinted by Mongorr when he captured Izayus in The Bloodzone), suggesting Izayus may in fact be from one of the parallel universes.

Nullifiers
Name	Description	Voice actor
Bearhug	Dwarfish-looking man with enough strength to suffocate someone by embracing them	Lawrence Bayne
Krog	A huge, indestructible, blue monster made of rock	Tony Daniels
Lord Mongorr	The human-looking emperor of six dimensions, possesses psychokinetic powers	Richard Eden
Slyme	A man that can control a bunch of green slime he carries around on a shovel, and a "bag of souls"	Tony Daniels
Vendetta	Mongorr's daughter, who dresses like a snake and also possesses psychokinetic powers	Julie Lemieux
Vultura	A woman with a webbing between her arms and feet, which enables her to fly	Shannon Lowsan
Whipsaw	A Rawyan with a scarred face that can has a great control of his green whip even with his mind. The whip has a sharp point at the end.	Peter Wildman

[edit] The Drifter

This section requires expansion.

The Drifter was about a character called "The Drifter" who can travel through time with the aid of a device called the decoder, which resembled a black semisphere with colored buttons. Viewers of the series were called true believers.^[10]

[edit] The Accuser

This section requires expansion.

The Accuser starred a character who took justice into his own hands.

[edit] Plot

At the first chapter starts, we see a recently hospitalized Dan Mason recalling his past as the best criminal defense attorney money could buy. He usually didn't care about whose money was buying him and taught himself not to know what his clients do after being acquitted. At the cost of his own wife, Lucia, Dan learns the underworld's gratitude isn't long-lasting.

One of his clients, upset that he agreed to defend Lucas Cortex, tried to have him killed. As a result, Dan is now a wheelchair-bound widower. In the hospital, Dan said he'd give his soul in exchange for a chance to bring justice. A mysterious entity accepts the deal and gives Dan a special wheelchair that can be converted into a special armor that will move his legs for him. What Dan doesn't know is that his mysterious benefactor is evaluating him for some unknown agenda.

[edit] Others

Other productions included the Evil Clone —a purported attempt to clone Stan Lee as a cartoon that wackily criticized many aspects of the media, including happy endings, the StanLeeMedia.net website—, and The Backstreet Project, a project including the Backstreet Boys. Different editions on The Backstreet Project comic books were released on the market. Six webisodes were also released in 1999 via StanLeeMedia.net.

[edit] Lawsuits

Near the end of 2000, investigators began an informal reveiw of stock transactions by Paul and corporate officer Stephan Gordon.^[11] Stan Lee as Chairman of Stan Lee Media placed it into Chapter 11 Bankruptcy Protection on February 11, 2001 after Paul moved to São Paulo, Brazil.^[12][13] Paul was extradited back to the U.S., after the US Attorney in New York indicted him for violating a securities regulation. Paul pleaded guilty to violating SEC Rule 10b-5 in connection with trading of his stock in Stan Lee Media.^[14][15] Paul was sentenced to 10 years in prison as of June 2009. Lee was never charged, but in 2003, as a defendant in a 2001 federal shareholder class action suit, settled for $6 million.

On March 15, 2007, Stan Lee Media, represented by Wall Street whistleblower Jim Nesfield, filed a lawsuit against Marvel Entertainment for $5 billion, claiming that the company is co-owner of the characters that Lee created for Marvel.^[16]

On June 9, 2007, SLM filed suit against POW Entertainment, Stan Lee, and other former staff members of Stan Lee Media now working at POW for looting assets from the company to start a new company in 2003, POW Entertainment. ^[17]

On January 20, 2009, American Legal Icon Martin Garbus]held a press conference in New York announcing his filing a new shareholders' suit by Stan Lee Media against Marvel, Stan Lee and others for recovering more than $750,000,000 in profits owed by Marvel to Stan Lee Media since 2003 for Spider Man, X-Men and Ironman revenues.

On January 27, 2009 Judge Stephen Wilson ruled in the California suit between Stan Lee and SLM shareholders that Lee and POW Entertainment illegally transferred assetsfrom Stan Lee Media while in Bankruptcy protection, without the knowledge or consent of the Bankkruptcy Court.

[edit] References