Marc Toberoff, a tightly wound man with thinning hair and an expansive grin, is an attorney who specializes in suing movie studios on behalf of artists and writers. For 11 years he has represented the heirs of the late Jerome Siegel and Joe Shuster, the creators of Superman, in a campaign to regain the rights to the original superhero from Warner Bros.
In 2008, Toberoff won an astounding victory for the Siegels, granting them 50 percent of Superman as he first appeared in Action Comics No. 1, meaning they would be entitled to a percentage of the U.S. profits from Man of Steel, which opens on June 14 and stars the pensive British actor Henry Cavill. The legal decision meant that the family had claims to much of the intellectual property defining Superman, including his blue tights, red cape, secret identity, and other traits.
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