Marvel Is Being Sued for Allegedly Stealing Iron Man Costume Design
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Ant-Man, and
Avengers films. The lawsuit alleges that the designs were used without consent or compensation to Horizon Comics and the Lais, with the plaintiffs seeking "to put an end to this deliberate and persistent infringement and to order the defendants to pay compensatory and punitive damages to the plaintiff, in addition to Horizon's costs, including solicitor-client costs" per the suit (via
The designs at issue come from the three-volume
Radix series published by Image Comics from December 2001 to April 2002. Per the lawsuit, after the success of the
Radix series, Marvel's now editor-in-chief C.B. Cebulski sought to hire the Lai brothers to work as artists for Marvel based on the series, but they declined. Then, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) copied illustrations for a research grant for the Institute for Soldier Technology in 2002. MIT issued a public apology for using the illustrations without consent, but per the suit, after the incident, Marvel contacted the Lai brothers again and in 2002, they accepted, working on