Why I can't stand Stan Lee/Marvel Comics

[huedell]

Oh, and I love this little bit with Alan Moore:

To me, it looks like somebody broke Mr. Moore's happy little bubble.

I've seen that clip before.

More of the same rhetoric fitting the narrative of someone whose self-interest's are entirely served right there.

Pot meet kettle.

[hedrap]

I think his marketing himself as a mascot came with him also championing the medium, trying to get it taken seriously. He was a middle aged guy who wanted some job security and for the public to realize it wasn't just for kids, it's not as ego driven as folks make it out to be.

An alarming trend I've noticed with comic fans is to instantly side with the person who didn't get their due, it gets really good guy/bad guy. Bill Finger by every account I've read was his own worst enemy and it's been proven he ripped off Shadow stories but now he's "St. Finger". Kane's deal with him was honestly no different than one's Lee Falk, Ham Fisher and even Walt Disney (Disney's signature is on millions of comics he didn't draw) but because it's Batman, it needs to be championed. I'd also like to say, I liked seeing Finger's name in the credits on "Batman V Superman", that recognition was absolutely deserved.

I love Jack Kirby to death but his stories changed as he got bitter over the years. I'm not saying he didn't deserve to be, the game changed mid stream and he was one of the major catalysts. Marvel was absolutely screwing him and that has lawyer's written all over it. I'm just saying he said some things out of anger and I'm not sure they're gospel but I've spoken to many a fan who have magically time traveled back to the Marvel bullpen and witnessed it themselves. Having been in a lawsuit between two creative partners, I witnessed one lie on the stand and say "I did it all" when I knew that wasn't true. Although, I never felt he thought he was lying, he believed it.

Personally, I don't worship Stan Lee, in fact I change the channel when he's talking (see Kevin Smith) . I just don't think he's the ego maniacal villain people make him out to be, nor is he a hero, it's something in the middle. He believed the writer is the creator, I'm not sure I totally agree with that but he also went out of his way to credit creative folks in an industry that was largely anonymous.

100% Agreement.

Hard divisions are cropping up all over culture now moreso than in the past, but in regards to Kirby, Evanier was the catalyst for most of it. He went from advocate to agitprop, and it took a legal cross-examination to expose he was a self-appointed expert and most of what he knows is anecdotal conjecture.

For a number of years, I bought into the Dark Stan idea that was more based on agitprop by sites like AICN as my concern was film credit, which is truly where Jack's name should come first in the "created by". Without the visual aesthetic to be adapted, nobody would care what the character story is. When you consider most Marvel movies are based on post-2k chumm, Stan deserves much less little film/tv credit than Kirby and Ditko.

What changed it all for me were three things. First, was reading how Stan approached Ditko for Raimi's Spider-Man. Not just did he go to bat over Ditko's film credit, he personally tried to coax Steve out of retirement so he could get the deserved recognition. It was Ditko's admitted choice to say no. Marvel ownership did not want Ditko's name on the credit roll because itmeant a royalties windfall, and even the much loved Kevin Fiege plays the same game today by not allowing earlier story ideas be used for adaptation for the same reasoning. That's how we ended up with Age of Ultron instead of Masters of Evil.

The second thing was the flood of digital comics which allowed me to read older books I never would have bought. Before and after Stan, solo Kirby came up with Challengers of the Unknown and Forever People. With Stan, it's Fantastic Four and X-Men. Without Stan, it's New Gods and Eternals, with Stan it's Thor and Silver Surfer.

Finally, I read about Joe Simon. It's arguably the same relationship he had with Stan. The difference is Stan's family were in comic books, so even though he wanted to leave the industry like Simon, Stan had no job waiting for him. The guy wanted to move to LA and write TV, but at 35 he was afraid of the risk as comic writer didn't have the value of short story or novel writer.

The irony was Stan being fired by Marvel, having to sue them, then needing fan support to be brought back emeritus and fighting for a film credit!

[MRP]

100% Agreement.



The second thing was the flood of digital comics which allowed me to read older books I never would have bought. Before and after Stan, solo Kirby came up with Challengers of the Unknown and Forever People. With Stan, it's Fantastic Four and X-Men. Without Stan, it's New Gods and Eternals, with Stan it's Thor and Silver Surfer.

Of course the counter to this is if you look at what Stan did without Jack (or Steve) you get things like Ravage 2099 and a lot more similar dreck. And if you look at Spider-Man with Ditko and Spider-Man post-Ditko there is a complete shift in tone, theme, etc. which reveals how much Steve was influencing/creating the book (or Dr. Strange w/Ditko vs. post Ditko), and the new paradigm after Steve left feels much more Romita-ish than Stan-ish because it jibes with other books Romita was doing, but not with the other Stan-only driven books or even the Spidey newspaper strip that was supposedly more Stan-driven that we have seen in the post-Ditko/Kirby years at Marvel.

I don't think Marvel is Marvel without Stan Lee, but I don't think Stan Lee is Stan Lee without Kirby and Ditko.

-M

[huedell]

I don't think Marvel is Marvel without Stan Lee, but I don't think Stan Lee is Stan Lee without Kirby and Ditko.

I'm going to steal that one and use it whenever I clash with someone over this stuff.

I feel bad appearing as if I'm shortchanging Ditko, Kirby, etc.

Stan was never as good as he was when alongside Kirby (and Ditko, etc. but I think he worked miracles with Kirby specifically).

[MRP]

To add to this, the Kirby stuff sans Lee has the same tone, themes, scope, epic feel and plotting tendencies as the stuff he did with Lee. What's different is polish of the scripting, the "voice" of the characters and a certain amount of humanizing the characters, which is what I think Lee brought to the table that was so important. But without the foundation of ideas that Jack and Steve brought to the party, Stan didn't have a foundation to work with to give a voice and humanity to. It's like looking at the Beatles and the solo material by its members. There is a certain synchronicity when they work together that makes the whole greater than the sum of its parts, but when looking at the individual contributions the balance seems to lean more towards some rather than others in the partnership, but when you look at the solo material of those whom the balance seems to favor, there are certain key elements that separate it from the stuff they produced in concert.

Of course the wild card what if in all of this is Joe Maneely and what the Marvel Age would have looked like if he hadn't died young, as he was one of the artistic cornerstones with Kirby and Ditko that defined the look of Atlas that translated over to the early Marvel Heroes stuff (look at his Black Knight stuff, it is simply gorgeous) and he had that same kind of symbiotic relationship with Stan that Jack and Steve did during that period.

-M

[huedell]

To add to this, the Kirby stuff sans Lee has the same tone, themes, scope, epic feel and plotting tendencies as the stuff he did with Lee. What's different is polish of the scripting, the "voice" of the characters and a certain amount of humanizing the characters, which is what I think Lee brought to the table that was so important. But without the foundation of ideas that Jack and Steve brought to the party, Stan didn't have a foundation to work with to give a voice and humanity to. It's like looking at the Beatles and the solo material by its members. There is a certain synchronicity when they work together that makes the whole greater than the sum of its parts, but when looking at the individual contributions the balance seems to lean more towards some rather than others in the partnership, but when you look at the solo material of those whom the balance seems to favor, there are certain key elements that separate it from the stuff they produced in concert.

Of course the wild card what if in all of this is Joe Maneely and what the Marvel Age would have looked like if he hadn't died young, as he was one of the artistic cornerstones with Kirby and Ditko that defined the look of Atlas that translated over to the early Marvel Heroes stuff (look at his Black Knight stuff, it is simply gorgeous) and he had that same kind of symbiotic relationship with Stan that Jack and Steve did during that period.

Well put!

For a number of years, I bought into the Dark Stan idea that was more based on agitprop by sites like AICN as my concern was film credit, which is truly where Jack's name should come first in the "created by". Without the visual aesthetic to be adapted, nobody would care what the character story is. When you consider most Marvel movies are based on post-2k chumm, Stan deserves much less little film/tv credit than Kirby and Ditko.

Being much more focused on "story", I hate even seeing your point on this.

Agreeing with your point? That's harder.

While superhero popcorn films are more about "visual" than "story" in many facets... I'd say the visual styles have changed over the years in the comics and in the adaptation to the screen almost proportionally to the undercurrent of "story" elements that define the characters. So that kinda EVENS the field.

Then.... while we all know that the costume sells the superhero in just about every way... where do you draw the line at WHO the character IS being important as well... not merely who he/she is as far as THIS generation is concerned, but the ORIGINS of what defines that particular character. That comes up a lot here on these boards.... specifically when discussing the recent DCEU movies, and I hate ignoring that factor to ANY extent.

The irony was Stan being fired by Marvel, having to sue them, then needing fan support to be brought back emeritus and fighting for a film credit!

So ironic, I'm not even gonna brush up on my due diligence research on that event at the moment!

[huedell]

I used to enjoy listening to him on Stern or Opie and Anthony but a few years ago, I just started catching him lying or being a Hollywood phony. He built his career on being this honest, candid outsider, somewhere along the line that changed. When I watched that DC special he did, he looked like a pod person to me.

I guess he's just playing the game and getting paid now.

My thoughts on Smith?

Never was into his movies. They just didn't connect with me.

Then I discovered his Q&A series and podcasts and I began to hang on his every word.

Now? Not so much because I feel the same way you do---he seems to be veering a bit from tackling issues head-on.

Maybe it's because he names his daughter after a huge tent-pole for DC (with that same daughter actually being interested in being involved in showbiz) and now he's being cornered into submission so as to keep his world from caving in.

"Criticize DC/WB/the industry too much, you'll bring heat on Harley Quinn Smith. Be a quasi-shill... we all have it easier."

Just my theory.

He HAS changed quite a bit.

I still think he's still a great public speaker though.

[Brazoo]

My main problem with Stan Lee is the writer credit he added for himself in most of his collaborations with Kirby (and Ditko). There's no question Kirby wrote the work along with Lee's input, so that credit should never have been his to take. Lee created the "Marvel Method" as an explanation for how he did not actually write scripts — which was standard practice in comics in most circumstances. He didn't have to write scripts, because Kirby could take any small idea (and often start with their own ideas) and produce 32 pages of plot, action and dialogue with no supervision.

It's inaccurate to say Lee wrote the dialogue - which is what a lot of people mistakenly claim - in most cases he re-wrote dialogue that Kirby wrote in the margins. This is a well established fact. (Lee also added a lot of extra dialogue, which sometimes drives me crazy reading those comics.)

There can often be a fine line between writer and editor, but I think if you follow what Lee says through most of his career you can tell that the "writer" credit meant A LOT more to him personally, so, as the "boss" it was a credit he decided to take. Plus, he was even called out on it. So, I think it's factually inaccurate to say that Kirby credited everyone who collaborated. He spread a lot of credit around, which is cool, but was a bit overzealous and, to me, dishonest about the writer credit — the credit he coveted most.

The business side of things is harder to get into. Lots of back and forth between worker & boss arguments that probably happen in almost any work environment. I don't think Lee has been proven to be a hero or a villain in this stuff. Ethically, he's not necessarily my idol in this stuff, but I think I've made my peace with Lee to some extent in my mind, mainly because from certain aspects it's a bit sad for him too.

I've always been confused by this issue, so maybe someone can clarify it for me.

When you work for a company, doesn't whatever you create during your time under contract belong to that company? Say for example, when Letterman worked at NBC and then left. NBC laid claim to all the stuff Letterman created while he worked for them (such as his trademark Top Ten List). It was NBCs intellectual property because Letterman was under contract with them. Now he fought that and won, but weren't comic artists in a similar situation? At least back then when this was all new? I'm sure artists have learned a thing or two since then, and have different kinds of contracts in place these days.

I don't think that Marvel should have laid claim to Kirby's, or anyone else's, original pieces. But as far as getting creator credit, I'm surprised the artists got any at all.

This is the billion dollar question that got batted around in all those lawsuits. The main issue being that the current Intellectual Property laws, like the ones NBC laid claim to in the Letterman thing, didn't exist in the same form. So, the court had to try to interpret the laws from the 60s and 70s and then try to apply those laws to common practice in the comic industry —*AND to make things even more convoluted, there were changes in Intellectual Property laws during that time.

Most of the Kirby's case had to do with the fact that Kirby was not an actual employee of Marvel — he was freelance. He actually wanted a salaried position, and lots of evidence shows that Kirby thought Marvel would eventually move him into some kind of senior position for all the work he did making them a success, but we know how that went.

[hedrap]

Of course the counter to this is if you look at what Stan did without Jack (or Steve) you get things like Ravage 2099 and a lot more similar dreck.

I don't think Marvel is Marvel without Stan Lee, but I don't think Stan Lee is Stan Lee without Kirby and Ditko.

-M

I don't think you can point to Ravage or anything that far down the timeline. I didn't strap Satan's Six to Kirby because he was a shadow of his creative self by that point. The Spidey comparison is fair.

...Of course the wild card what if in all of this is Joe Maneely and what the Marvel Age would have looked like if he hadn't died young...

-M

That's the Edith Keeler scenario of all comics. Joe and Jack were both at Atlas in mid-50's, but in '57, Jack left to co-create Challengers as Atlas imploded. Joe then dies in June '58. Jack, on his fourth major blowout, leaves DC in fall '58 and begrudgingly goes back to Atlas...but he's only hired because Maneely is dead and Stan is pressed by Marie Severin and others to bring him back since he could work at near the same pace as Joe did.

If Joe was alive, the odds are Stan would not have brought Kirby back, or at least not as soon, and most certainly wouldn't have trusted him with "superhero team" idea. It comes down to the FF synopsis. If it's all Stan, we get something resembling the FF we know but Maneely's art. Without Jack, does that work? I don't see it.

Solely my belief...what happened was someone "suggested" to Stan he needs to knock-off JLA. Stan originally thinks of reviving All-Winners in super-team form, (Cap/Mr F, Namor/Thing, Toro/Torch) as Jack has just come back on board. Jack tells Stan he has a boatload of discarded Challenger story-ideas that are ready to go. Stan looks at Challenger books and the Marvel super-team transforms into a mix of different Timely/Atlas characters. Eventually, they settle on the synopsis which is why Stan typed it up; so Jack would understand who made the final call as Kirby had a long track record by this point of bucking every collaborator. Jack relented as he needed the work and would be free to use his Challenger material.

[MRP]

There's a comic scholar out there who has broken down the art for FF #1 and firmly believes it is 2 unused Atlas monster/sci-fi stories Kirby had already drawn that were reworked by Kirby to mash them together with the same set of characters and become FF #1. I followed the thread he led on a classics comic forum I was on about 2 ears back and would have to really do some digging to find the thread, but he breaks down the backgrounds vs. figure work of the FF characters to point out some stylistic differences that had evolved in Kirby's work over the few years between his return to Atlas/Marvel and the launch of FF #1 and artistic differences between FF #1 and the handful of issues afterwards which leads him to believe the bulk of the pages for FF#1 were drawn and then not used right around the time Kirby returned to Atlas, but were then revised with panels and figures redrawn with stuff added to make 2 disparate stories with different characters work as 2 part s of the same story.

It's a compelling argument, and there are quite a few other "experts/scholars" who agree with him or at least think the analysis is credible. I am still a bit skeptical, but if true, it muddies the origins of the FF idea/creation even more.

Oh and the difference between Ravage and Kirby's Topps stuff is that Stan was actually doing Ravage, the Topps stuff was unused ideas, sketches and half drawn pages Kirby did that were then taken and "finished/continued" by others. It is not Kirby work per se, whereas Ravage was supposed to be Stan's big return to writing a monthly comic and all Stan. But it's neither here nor there.

However, it you look at Kirby's output post-Lee, the ideas never stopped coming. If you look at Lee's output post-Kirby, there really is a dearth of new ideas-if Lee was coming up with all this stuff and the others just executing his ideas, why did the flow of new ideas stop when Kirby and Ditko weren't involved?

-M

[MRP]

More Kirby video...Jack drawing circa 1983-his subject matter Doom removing his mask to reveal his scars as Kirby intended it...

https://youtu.be/Z6hX21EYFyY

https://youtu.be/Z6hX21EYFyY

-M

[thunderbolt]

Reading Daredevil Masterworks now and whenever I read a non Kirby or Ditko Lee story, there sure seems to be a lot more melodrama regarding romance with the main character and the love interest pining over each other in thought balloons.

[hedrap]

There's a comic scholar out there who has broken down the art for FF #1 and firmly believes it is 2 unused Atlas monster/sci-fi stories Kirby had already drawn that were reworked by Kirby to mash them together with the same set of characters and become FF #1. I followed the thread he led on a classics comic forum I was on about 2 ears back and would have to really do some digging to find the thread, but he breaks down the backgrounds vs. figure work of the FF characters to point out some stylistic differences that had evolved in Kirby's work over the few years between his return to Atlas/Marvel and the launch of FF #1 and artistic differences between FF #1 and the handful of issues afterwards which leads him to believe the bulk of the pages for FF#1 were drawn and then not used right around the time Kirby returned to Atlas, but were then revised with panels and figures redrawn with stuff added to make 2 disparate stories with different characters work as 2 part s of the same story.

It's a compelling argument, and there are quite a few other "experts/scholars" who agree with him or at least think the analysis is credible. I am still a bit skeptical, but if true, it muddies the origins of the FF idea/creation even more.

I can see that as it dovetails into Challengers, and the synopsis does imply all he and Stan agreed upon were the main characters.

Oh and the difference between Ravage and Kirby's Topps stuff is that Stan was actually doing Ravage, the Topps stuff was unused ideas, sketches and half drawn pages Kirby did that were then taken and "finished/continued" by others. It is not Kirby work per se, whereas Ravage was supposed to be Stan's big return to writing a monthly comic and all Stan. But it's neither here nor there.

However, it you look at Kirby's output post-Lee, the ideas never stopped coming. If you look at Lee's output post-Kirby, there really is a dearth of new ideas-if Lee was coming up with all this stuff and the others just executing his ideas, why did the flow of new ideas stop when Kirby and Ditko weren't involved?

-M

For me, it didn't matter who was working on what at Topps, those ideas are all Jack's to own or else Topps wouldn't have bothered. Jack had a lot of muddled ideas post-Marvel, but thanks to reinterpretations of those characters starting in the 80's, they've taken a much more hallowed place. As for Stan, I guess his fame could have made it so he finally had total book control during 2099 and DC Reimagine, but I was always under the belief they were also the Marvel Method. It doesn't change both stunk.

As for ideas, it's a matter of position. When Marvel takes off, Stan has a lot of people he trusts working on the titles so the method was for him to come up with some treatments or just work as editor at different moments. Would co-writer make more sense on a lot of stories? Sure, but where and how does that end using the method that finally made the company a huge success? Spidey is the perfect example; I believe Jack had a lot to do with Spidey's creation for a few reasons, but the end result is obviously Stan and Ditko. Marie Severin is much more responsible for the Hulk we know than Jack's work. What I see is Marvel offered a zero-sum deal to all hired talent: you get credit for what you were hired for, or all credit goes to the Bullpen and Stan is listed as Editor. Form '71 on, Stan was trying to keep a growing company with constant ownership changes afloat and Jack was consistently shooting himself in the foot and blaming other people. So Stan's ideas move to his real interests, TV and film, while Jack kept trying to capture lightning in a bottle.

I see the quintessential acts of both guys in two scenarios. Stan has nothing to do with the creation of the Punisher, except having the clarity to simplify his name. Without Stan's rename of Romita's rework, we don't get one the most iconic characters in Marvel. Jack builds this amazingly complicated tapestry called Fourth World and it goes nowhere until Alan Burnett comes along and starts to streamline so it works in concert with the rest of DC. Without Jack's unfathomable labor, it wouldn't be DCU, it would DC Planet.

[Brazoo]

Reading Daredevil Masterworks now and whenever I read a non Kirby or Ditko Lee story, there sure seems to be a lot more melodrama regarding romance with the main character and the love interest pining over each other in thought balloons.

That's interesting. Is it the Wally Wood stuff? I wonder, because my guess is that Wood seemed to enjoy drawing pretty women more than those other guys.

[thunderbolt]

That's interesting. Is it the Wally Wood stuff? I wonder, because my guess is that Wood seemed to enjoy drawing pretty women more than those other guys.

Romita in the second masterworks. Foggy pretending he's DD to get in Karen's pants and more nonsense. Lots of thought balloon mooning over each other, too.