Marvel CEO Ike Perlmutter says a lab did not match his wife's DNA to emails accusing a fellow billionaire of child molestation, according to new reports.

Marvel CEO Ike Perlmutter's "accomplishments" read like a laundry list of insane 1%er behavior: feuding with rival Marvel executive Kevin Feige over control of the company's films, eliminating some of Marvel's most popular characters from the company's merchandising lines as part of a bizarre grudge with another corporation, being a toy bigot, thinking women can't lead superhero movies, allegedly saying no one would notice if Don Cheadle replaced Terrence Howard in Iron Man because "black people look the same," allegedly threatening female employees, and, of course, donating one million dollars to Donald Trump. In December, news of another of Perlmutter's weird obsessions began to receive mainstream attention, though it's actually been public knowledge ignored by the mainstream press for a long time: his feud with fellow billionaire Harold Peerenboom over the Sloan's Curve Tennis Club in their Florida neighborhood. At that time, we wrote:

According to Harold Peerenboom, who you know is absurdly rich just from looking at his name, Perlmutter unfairly lorded over the Sloan's Curve Tennis Club, and when Peerenboom complained, Perlmutter engaged in an email campaign to defame him, telling Peerenboom's friends and business associates that Peerenboom is a child-molesting murderer who supports Hitler's Final Solution. No, we're not making that up; technically, Peerenboom might be making it up, but honestly, why make up something so batshit insane unless you are writing the script to a goofball eighties comedy? Peerenboom has subpoenaed Marvel emails to gather evidence about Perlmutter, and Perlmutter is firing back, claiming that Peerenboom is trying to harass him through his workplace and alleging that Peerenboom attempted to steal Perlmutter's DNA, presumably to frame him in this insane case, but possibly to combine it with the DNA of history's other greatest ultra-rich lunatics to clone a new Cobra Emperor. The jury is still out - literally. The case may go to civil trial in the summer.

Well, the case has started to pick up steam, as The New York Times covered it earlier this week, providing further details on the content of the alleged letters sent by Permutter to defame Peerenboom:

Befitting a Palm Beach imbroglio, the dispute began over a local tennis pro. Now, at least three lawsuits later, a neighbor of Mr. Perlmutter has accused him and his wife of sending slanderous letters, unsigned, that say the neighbor "sexually assaulted" an 11-year-old "at knife-point" and murdered a local couple. The hate-mail campaign, which included more than a thousand letters sent to the neighbor's friends and business associates, is said to be part of an effort by Mr. Perlmutter to pressure the neighbor, Harold Peerenboom, to leave the gated community where they both own homes. One of the letters started, "Today I write you to warn you about Harold Peerenboom of 8 Sloans Curve Road who is a sexual predator."

Other fascinating details from the Times report include more information about the original dispute, which The Times says started when Peerenboom attempted to renegotiate the contract of Perlmutter's favorite Tennis instructor. It also reveals that Perlmutter allegedly sent threatening letters to inmates at a local prison, purporting to be from Peerenboom, including "Hebrew slang and vulgarities." The report went on to say that Peerenboom's legal team had matched DNA from one of the letters to Laura Perlmutter, Ike Perlmutter's wife.

Today, Bleeding Cool has a statement from Perlmutter's camp, with whom Johnston is super best friends, refuting that last claim:

There is no evidence of a match with the Perlmutter's DNA on any of the hate mail. Peerenboom retained a DNA lab in Nevada and the lab director along with his staff, after extensive testing, excluded both Ike and Laura Perlmutter as donors of the DNA found on the hate mail. The Perlmutters are very troubled that their DNA, as well as that of at least 10 other Palm Beach residents, was secretly collected by Harold Peerenboom without their consent in an attempt to gain an improper advantage in his spurious lawsuit against them.

Well, of course their DNA wasn't on that mail! Do you think billionaires like Ike and Laura Perlmutter, if they were allegedly going to send hate mail accusing a fellow billionaire of raping an eleven year old, would lick the envelopes themselves?! There are unpaid interns to handle that kind of labor.

"They tell me, Vlad, lick one thousand envelopes containing slanderous accusations about Harold Peerenboom," unpaid Marvel mail licking intern Vlad Kozinkerov told The Outhouse. Allegedly. "So that is what I do."

Kozinkerov went on to say that, though his sister's family back in Russia struggles to afford eating each week, often subsisting solely on the money Vlad sends back after winning DC Comics' yearly March Madness brackets, he doesn't hold a grudge against Perlmutter for squandering millions on a bizarre tennis vendetta. "This is what makes America great," Kozinkerov explained. "I hope one day, if I work hard enough, I can have money to accuse neighbors of murdering local couple in hopes of gaining control of a local sports club. This is American dream."

Undoubtedly, this saga will continue for many months to come, as both parties are rich enough to sustain the ongoing legal battle indefinitely. The New York Times suggests that the scandal could begin to affect Perlmutter's value to Disney, but honestly, if none of the other weird crap he's done (allegedly) has affected his standing, why would any of this?

Marvel has a blockbuster movie coming out in May and a comics super-mega-crossover event this Summer. If you want to help support poor Ike Perlmutter wage his 1%er war against Harold Peerenboom, be sure to buy lots of copies and lots of tickets. We'll keep you updated.