Marvel Settles Fight Over Spider-Man, Doctor Strange Rights; The Hollywood Reporter, December 8, 2023

Ashley Cullins, The Hollywood Reporter; Marvel Settles Fight Over Spider-Man, Doctor Strange Rights

"It looks like Marvel won’t be bringing its battle over the rights to Spider-Man and Doctor Strange into the new year. Attorneys for the company and the estate of Steve Ditko on Wednesday notified the court that they’ve reached an amicable settlement and expect a stipulation of dismissal with prejudice to be filed in the coming weeks.

This all started back in 2021, when Marvel filed a series of lawsuits in response to copyright termination notices from Larry Lieber and the estates of Gene Colan, Steve Ditko, Don Heck and Don Rico. A very long list of characters were at issue, including Iron Man, Captain America, Black Widow, Hulk and Thor. In June, all but one of the matters settled."

The Giddy Cosmic Spectacle of “Doctor Strange”; New Yorker, 11/4/16

Richard Brody, New Yorker; The Giddy Cosmic Spectacle of “Doctor Strange” :

"If I were an activist looking for a meme to mock the denial of free expression in China, I’d have found a potent one in “Doctor Strange”—a shot of Wong (played by Benedict Wong), fierce keeper of the great library of mystical knowledge, putting a book in chains and hoisting it onto a high shelf, out of reach. I don’t at all suspect the movie’s director, Scott Derrickson—even less, its producer, Disney—of having had such pointed intentions while making the film, but the beauty of movies is the free-floating power of moments that burst the bonds of dramatic intent, and “Doctor Strange” is full of them."