Who is this Stan Lee you speak of?

Some kind of cup that's become an internet meme recently.

My thoughts, from interviews with people who knew and worked with Lee and Kirby and Lee and Ditko, as well as their own work with Lee; is that, one, Stan had a terrible memory for specific details. So did Kirby. Two, Stan had an ego and fed on the admiration thrown his way, especially from mainstream media, especially while spending a lifetime in an industry which was looked down upon, by mainstream publishing and media. Three, that Stan did try to highlight the contributions of the artists and others; but was more than happy for it to be a small part of the discussion, while he got the lion's share of the credit, in interviews.

With that said, it seems, to me, that Stan's collaborations varied, depending on the partner. The so-called "Marvel Method" was not invented by Stan; it had been in use by the packaging houses in the 40s and 50s and before that, in other realms of publishing, including by prose authors. Alexandre Dumas used assistants to write many of his works, which were first published in serialized form, before being colelcted in novels. As such, he gave them basic plots and outlines and they wrote the completed chapters, which he then edited and submitted for publication. Only he got credit for the writing. Modern writers, like James Patterson and Tom Clancy did similar, as they had writing partners, on certain works, who did the actual hands-on writing, while they acted more as editor, though they provided plots or collaborated on the plot.

Stan was an editor, more than a writer. That was his chief job, going way back. It was the biggest component of his career. However, he was a writer; he wrote full scripts, as well as plots & dialogues, depending on the era. Even in his Marvel collaborations, he developed characterization via his dialogue, which was often in contrast to his artist's plots.

In the cases where the artist was not a strong plotter and creator of original work, Stan seemed to be more involved, providing more detailed plots, plus using people like Kirby to do layouts to guide such artists. With guys like Kirby & Ditko, the might discuss who the villain might be or a setting, and the artist created far more of the story on the page, then Stan reacted to what they drew, based on his understanding of the plot. People like John Romita have remarked that Stan & Jack could discuss the plot of a story and say greatly different things, without realizing they were diverging, because they were basically talking out what was in their head and not really listening to the other. An idea would be thrown out and each took it a separate way, but thought they had agreed on the same direction.

With Ditko, it sounded like it started out like that, but became more and more Ditko on his own, conceiving and plotting his stories, then Stan took his pass, without input on its conception, dur to their deteriorating communication. With someone like Don Heck, who wasn't comfortable plotting superhero stories, Stan was more involved in conception.

In some series, Stan collaborated more than he did in others. Fantastic Four and Spider-Man read like a greater mix of Lee & Kirby and Lee & Ditko, while Thor (and Tales of Asgard) and Dr Strange seem far more Kirby and Ditko. Stan seemed to feed off of those strong plots and it elevated his game. In the absence of that, he fell into cliched villains, Commie menaces, and standard plots. When paired with a strong imagination, he rose to the challenge.

All of that is based on reading the stories and various interviews with various people. I read the Comics Journal interview with Kirby, where he was claiming Stan wrote nothing. That is demonstrably false, but, the interview also came across like Gary Groth feeding that feeling and exploiting Kirby's bad memory and his resentments over credit and remuneration, because of his own agenda to create controversy, to sell the magazine. There is also the problem of defining what Kirby and Ditko meant by "creation" vs what Stan meant.

In the end, I think the truth lies somewhere in a fuzzy middle. Stan wasn't sole creator of these works, nor were Kirby and Ditko and others the sole creators, on these works. They were collaborations of varying degree. the auteur theory is no more true in comics than in film. Various people contribute elements and the finished product is a sum of all of their work and not just one person, unless they write, draw, letter, color, edit, publish and even print the thing themselves. You don't find many, if any who fit that description, 2 or 3 of those jobs, at most (maybe 4, in a pinch).

I do think that Stan's ego has prevented more of the Marvel history from being published to the mainstream and I think the company has been glad to exploit that to minimize the contributions of individuals, who might demand greater compensation and their fair share of the profits of those creations. The fact that few of his collaborators had real animosity towards Stan, compared to someone like Jim Shooter or Julie Schwartz or Robert Kanigher (who often clashed with their artists and/or writers) suggests that most felt they were working in collaboration and Stan was a decent guy; maybe full of himself, but in a lovable way.

He had a darn snazzy mustache.  


This is probably a thread that it's best for me to avoid.  Especially since I'm a known malcontent.  

He claimed to be John Lennon.