Iger has been pulling out all the stops to convince Disney shareholders (given its long history and high profile, Disney has a higher percentage of retail shareholders than most companies) that the company is in the middle of a turnaround, and that Peltz is a “distraction” that will ultimately hurt the company rather than help it. “This campaign is, in a way, designed to distract us, to take our eye off all those balls,” Iger said at a Morgan Stanley conference March 5.

But the endgame (to lean on a Marvel reference) remains uncertain. Iger and the Disney board have lined up a murderers’ row of public supporters, securing letters of support from not only Laurene Powell Jobs, former Disney CEO Michael Eisner and JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon, but also Star Wars filmmaker George Lucas, who disagrees with Iger about the right approach for future films in the sci-fi universe. And Disney secured letters of support from the families of Walt Disney and Roy Disney, including Abigail Disney, who has long critiqued Iger over his pay packages and the company’s treatment of its employees.

But the surprise recommendation from Institutional Shareholder Services on March 21 to vote for Peltz over current Disney board member Maria Elena Lagomasino placed a level of uncertainty over the vote, giving Peltz’s campaign oxygen at a moment when it was on the verge of being snuffed out.