Money matters: Reuters reports that Marvel has posted a fourth-quarter profit, but claimed a slight drop in revenue because of a decline in sales of Spider-Man movie merchandise. Ah, well. More fuel for the lawsuits against Sony, I suppose:

"Marvel, known for comic strips made into movies like The Hulk, reported net income of $13.5 million, or 18 cents a share, compared with a loss, after preferred stock dividends, of $48.7 million, or $1.03 a share, a year earlier. Before preferred dividends totaling more than $55 million, it earned $7.2 million in the prior year's fourth quarter.

"Fourth-quarter revenue slipped to $85.7 million from $86.5 million in the year-ago period, which was boosted by the hit movie Spider-Man."

The Business Wire has Marvel's official press release, along with more complete breakdowns, for all of you numbers junkies. Of course, you have to put up with corporate-speak like this, courtesy of President and CEO Allen Lipson:

"As our corporate and character brands have grown in value for our licensing and media partners around the globe, we continue to prudently exploit them via an extremely efficient business model focused on generating cash with relatively minimal capital risk or investment. As each Marvel brand is introduced into mainstream popular culture via a variety of media including film, TV, comics, video games and DVD, we are creating a growing portfolio of attractive licensing franchises. This has a long-term layering effect which builds the value of the Marvel brand and provides the 'content clout' necessary to continue increasing shareholder value."

I'm going to look over the numbers later today to see whether I can make any sense of them.