I LOVE Mysterio! His M.O., his look. Even though some great stories were written around it, I kind of hate that they made him into a loser type.

With the exception of the first issue, I don't think early DD is that good.

Wasn't John Romita doing most of the plotting at that point?

Stan has a long history of having ghost writers while he is credited as writer. This was true for at least half the run of the Spidey newspaper strips for instance, and for a large chunk of the stories put out by Timely/Atlas in the period between the "Golden" and "Silver Age." Stan did write his fair share of stuff, but a credit to Stan Lee as writer is no guarantee that Stan actually wrote it. And even a lot of stuff he did actually script, he did not plot. But in the days of the classic studio systems who packaged materials for publishers, this was pretty much standard operating procedure, the most marketable name got the credit no matter who did the actual work, so it's not surprising to see it carry over into publishers through the Silver Age.


-M

On the Stan Lee topic, I was always interested in his own words back in a letter to Jerry Bails (publisher of the Comic Reader fanzine) back in January 1963. Obviously a lot of years between then and 1968 where we are currently in this thread, and also not to suggest that creative work attributed to him was not performed in part or full by others in cases as mentioned above, but more I thought his version of how things operated during those early days was of note. Here are a couple of excerpts:

"FF is easily our favorite book here at the Marvel bullpen. It's my baby and I love it. People have asked for original scripts- actually, we don't even HAVE any. I write the story plot - go over it with Jack- he draws it up based on our hasty conferences- then, with his drawings in front of me, I write the captions and dialogue, usually right on the original art work! It seems to work out well, although it's not a system I'd advise anyone else to try."

Also, earlier in the letter:

"Actually, we have a very small staff-- quite unlike the NATIONAL COMICS GROUP. If one of our men gets ill, or if a new mag is suddenly scheduled, it throws everything into haywire. We seem to exist from crises to crises-- not that we'd want it any other way! As for Jack starting strips and then turning 'em over to less talented artists-- well, it's not quite that simple. The poor guy only has two hands, and can draw with only ONE! I like to have him start as many strips as possible, to get them off on the right foot, but he cannot physically keep 'em all up- in fact, I sometimes wonder how he does as much as he does do. At present he will concentrate on FF and our new war mag, SGT. FURY-- as well as pinch-hitting for other features if and when needed. AND he does almost all of our covers of course."

And also the following:

"You can't possibly imagine how rushed we are. It isn't a question of can't our artists do better (or can't I write better)--- it's more a question of how well we can do in the brief time alloted to us? Some day, in some far distant Nirvana, perhaps we will have a chance to produce a strip without a frantic deadline hanging over us...and then, brother, you'll see script and art work that'll put EVERYBODY to shame!"

I feel like he is conceding that they were moving fast and loose with the creative process, and even mentioning (again, his version) that he only plotted and hastily discussed FF stories with Jack before Kirby effectively produced the storytelling through the art, is somewhat telling. The more controversial part would be how much of that "hastily" discussed plot really originated from Stan versus what Jack came up with (or was involved with at all in the case of actual ghost writing). Still definitely aspects of "Stan the promoter" of course, but didn't feel like, at least in this letter, he was making it out to be all about him either.

Hate to break it to you. FF 83 was all Kirby, by this time Stan was doing scripts only after Kirby turned in the finished pages. Thor as well. Probably the same with Spider-Man, the "story conference " with Romita was probably no more than him telling Stan he was doing a Kingpin story.
Stan wrote the words, he didn't write the story.
Silver Surfer was Stan and Buscema working together, with the plot somewhat worked out in the beginning.

I didn't know Kirby had written Spider-Man - was he one of Stan Lee's ghosts?

Here's what John Buscema said about Silver Surfer #4 in Jack Kirby Collector #18: