Confessor
CCF Mod Squad
Not Bucky O'Hare!
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Post by Confessor on Jun 30, 2024 13:23:41 GMT -5
Since The Origins of Marvel Comics, Stan had claimed that all the original ideas and concepts were his, he even told those fables about how he came up with the FF, Thor, Spider-Man and even Dr Strange. And Stan as the originator has been the corporate line since then. It doesn't matter if he credits the artists with "helping' him bring the characters to life, he came up with everything! As that quote shows. Sorry if you don't want to accept that as a blatant falsehood, but it just is. Original ideas and concepts is very different than how a character developed as time went on. We have had discussions here about dialog vs plotting as far as that is concerned. There is good give and take on that. But that has nothing to do with who thought it up, who conceived it, and who took credit for it for decades. I don't disagree at all that "original ideas and concepts [are] very different than how a character developed as time went on", but the blatant falsehood here is that "Since The Origins of Marvel Comics, Stan had claimed that all the original ideas and concepts were his". As I noted above (and I'll quote myself)... Nobody is saying that Stan didn't take more credit than he probably should've at times, or that he couldn't be a bit of a c*nt to Kirby or Ditko (like in the "an idea can be given to any artist" quote). But he also did a lot more in the creation of those stories and the development of those characters than "just" the dialogue. There is testimony from impartial bystanders like Flo Steinberg of the hours-long brainstorming sessions for particular comic issues that Lee would have with Kirby or with Ditko -- you don't need an hours-long brainstorming session over an issue of Fantastic Four or Spider-Man if the artist is doing everything and Stan is just adding dialogue (though I'm sure that did happen on occasion too, but not quite as often as some like to suggest). Of course he was! Stan Lee had oodles of great ideas and wrote tonnes of great dialogue over his time at Marvel in the '60s. Did he do it all alone? No, of course not. The artists were at least as important. But to say that Lee wasn't a creator of great ideas is just plain incorrect. Could you name some of those great ideas that were his, not Kirby's or Ditko's or another artist? As I said, dialog is not concept. Read my previous post.
Well, I'm not gonna go through every character because, frankly, I can't be bothered, but let's just look at Spider-Man (which, personally, I regard as Lee's best co-creation). The very name Spider-Man was Lee's idea (inspired by the pulp hero The Spider, who Lee was a fan of as a child, but perhaps also influenced by the fly he watched crawling up the wall one day or however that story goes); it was his idea to make Spidey a teenager, rather than an adult, which was certainly unusual for "long underwear characters" at the time; it was Lee who decided that Peter Parker should have plenty of typically teenage problems to deal with; and it was Lee that gave Spider-Man his wise-cracking characterisation (obviously, as a counter-point to the shy, bookish Peter Parker). That's without going into how Lee developed the character as those early issues went on (with a lot of input from Ditko, of course). Ditko contributed a shed load of design stuff to the creation of Spider-Man, such as Spidey's costume, his web-shooters, the spider signal etc, and Jack Kirby also had some input apparently, such as having Peter orphaned and living with an elderly Aunt. But irrespective of their contributions, clearly Stan had a good many of the basic ideas that make the character who he is. So, for you to say that he "was not the creator of great ideas" is patently false. This is not what happened, this is the Stan Lee Origin's myth. He was not on the brink of leaving comics, Marvel was on the brink of closing down. Which is why I said "supposedly". I've always been a bit suspicious of that story myself, but it is what Stan said pretty consistently for decades. I can't really discuss this further, if we are going to treat the Stan Lee "Origins' myths as if they real. I think you can absolutely consider some of it be real or at the very least rooted in truth (not that I've read it, mind you, but I've heard or read plenty of Stan Lee quotes about the origins of Marvel Comics over the years, so I know what his side of the story is). Thing is, like I said earlier, if your default position is to treat everything Stan Lee said as a lie and everything the artists said as truth, that's not a neutral position from which to posit an alternate, revisionist theory from – which is what you are attempting to do. We must accept that everyone in this story has motives for lying, but equally, everyone probably told the truth as they remembered it a good amount of the time too. |
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Confessor
CCF Mod Squad
Not Bucky O'Hare!
Posts: 10,201
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Post by Confessor on Jun 30, 2024 13:29:42 GMT -5
There have literally been books written about this in recent years that have the proof. That can't be true, otherwise we wouldn't still be talking about this after 48 pages! You'd have produced the proof found in those books on page 1 and then the thread would've died. |
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Post by thwhtguardian on Jun 30, 2024 13:31:28 GMT -5
Input is not coming up with ideas. Of course if he wrote the captions and dialog that shaped the books. The question is not "Stan Lee did nothing" and to continue to argue that people say that, is not discussing what we are saying. We are saying all Stan Lees claims that he came up with the original concept, with no input from anyone, whether it was a fly on the wall, his wife telling him to do something great, his love of the Mandrake comic strip, are all total BS. Yes, certainly Stan Lee did not come up with these ideas from whole cloth, as he claimed, as Marvel/Disney still claims, is objectively false.
There have literally been books written about this in recent years that have the proof.
Literally no one is stating that though, the consensus here is very clearly the claims that Lee did everything were objectively wrong. The pushback you are getting, as I said from the start, is that you are going the completely opposite way and trying to over-correct and minimize his input entirely. As I said, what objective evidence do you have that none of the creative decisions were Lee's? The answer? None. Again, the only objective statement that can be made is that the artists like Ditko and Kirby were definitely cheated from receiving their just dues and that Lee's continued lies over the years about being the sole creator were definitely financially detrimental to the aggrieved parties. More than that though and you venture into the realm of hearsay and subjectivity and again I ask, why do that? What do you gain by going further than what can objectively be proven? |
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Post by kirby101 on Jun 30, 2024 13:41:50 GMT -5
I think, and we can see how this can easily occur, is that we are talking about many different things about concepts and ideas. A person might have one instance in mind. Like Ditko creating Dr Strange and Stan claiming it was his idea. While another will be talking about Daredevil, as we did recently, where this are several people involved in the creation. And without specifics, sometimes people's points are not pertinent to what the other is thinking of. We talk about how the dialog made the characters real. Someone may think that it was the pseudo Shakespeare that made Thor such a great read, and Stan deserves the credit for that. Someone else can think it was all Kirby, thinking about coming up with the original character idea. Both are valid, but they are different aspects.
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Post by kirby101 on Jun 30, 2024 13:48:01 GMT -5
I would like to see the link to Stan having hours long sessions with Kirby and Ditko over issues of FF and Spider-Man.
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Post by thwhtguardian on Jun 30, 2024 14:16:02 GMT -5
I think, and we can see how this can easily occur, is that we are talking about many different things about concepts and ideas. A person might have one instance in mind. Like Ditko creating Dr Strange and Stan claiming it was his idea. While another will be talking about Daredevil, as we did recently, where this are several people involved in the creation. And without specifics, sometimes people's points are not pertinent to what the other is thinking of. We talk about how the dialog made the characters real. Someone may think that it was the pseudo Shakespeare that made Thor such a great read, and Stan deserves the credit for that. Someone else can think it was all Kirby, thinking about coming up with the original character idea. Both are valid, but they are different aspects. I don't really see this as different things being discussed or that there are two valid sides here. I just don't see how minimizing Stan Lee's involvement like you have gets you anywhere and you haven't been able to answer that yourself. It's an objective fact that Stan Lee erroneously claimed he was the prime creator to just about every Marvel character under the sun for years upon years. It's an objective fact that his artistic co-creators were for years robbed of credit for their work and were subsequently denied compensation when the characters took off. However, it's entirely subjective to try and down play what one side or another did or didn't do without any objective first hand evidence and I just don't see a good reason to do that. There is a clear difference between the objective and the subjective here. |
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Post by Cei-U! on Jun 30, 2024 14:26:11 GMT -5
I don't think it's true that Stan Lee thought up the name or the concept of Spider-Man. If we look at Kirby's Spider-Man proposal, it's an obvvious reworking of the Fly character he and Joe Simon created for Archie--same teen-age alter ego, same magic ring, same basic visual--just as he'd earlier suggested using Challengers of the Unknown as the template for the Fantastic Four. It's not hard to imagine Jack showing it to Stan, prompting the latter to rethink the character and recruit Steve Ditko to collaborate on the Spidey we know and love today. Unfortunately, it's almost a certainty that Kirby never received a penny for his contribution.
Cei-U!
I summon the alternate history!
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Post by commond on Jun 30, 2024 15:22:29 GMT -5
They'd already used the name Spider Man before.  |
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Post by Ricky Jackson on Jun 30, 2024 15:35:35 GMT -5
Just the other night I was watching The King of Collectables show on Netflix. A dealer/comic book store owner, while making a deal to sell a copy of Captain America #1 from 1940, states that Cap was created by "Joe Simon, Jack Kirby and...Stan Lee". God damn it. I immediately said to my wife, "Stan Lee had nothing to do with Captain America's creation, he was a 17 year old office boy". I almost think the dealer threw in Lee's name at the end because mentioning Simon and Kirby was met with blank stares by the potential buyers, who are novices in comic book collecting. Lee creating it all, even characters conceived before he had written his first text story, is gospel
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Post by Batflunkie on Jun 30, 2024 18:50:39 GMT -5
I don't know why the Fourth world books failed. It was Kirby's ultimate masterpiece, I'm thinking maybe the Bi-monthly status affected it. As for Star Wars, many non comic fans bought the book My understanding has always been, through mostly hearsay, that DC's readership wasn't too keen on Kirby's style and thought it look dated |
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Post by Icctrombone on Jun 30, 2024 18:52:41 GMT -5
I don't know why the Fourth world books failed. It was Kirby's ultimate masterpiece, I'm thinking maybe the Bi-monthly status affected it. As for Star Wars, many non comic fans bought the book My understanding has always been, through mostly hearsay, that DC's readership wasn't too keen on Kirby's style and thought it look dated The newsstand shenanigans muddied the waters. |
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Post by kirby101 on Jun 30, 2024 18:56:05 GMT -5
I don't know why the Fourth world books failed. It was Kirby's ultimate masterpiece, I'm thinking maybe the Bi-monthly status affected it. As for Star Wars, many non comic fans bought the book My understanding has always been, through mostly hearsay, that DC's readership wasn't too keen on Kirby's style and thought it look dated Dated? Compared to whom? Curt Swan and Irv Novak. Kirby was doing some of the most exciting art in his career. And again, the Fourth World did not fail because people weren't buying it. There were dozens of moving parts going on, including affidavit fraud and disorder at the top of DC. As I said before, we don't know the numbers, and if it was selling as well as the FF at the time, DC might have thought that wasn't good enough by their standards.
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Post by Icctrombone on Jun 30, 2024 18:57:23 GMT -5
Just the other night I was watching The King of Collectables show on Netflix. A dealer/comic book store owner, while making a deal to sell a copy of Captain America #1 from 1940, states that Cap was created by "Joe Simon, Jack Kirby and...Stan Lee". God damn it. I immediately said to my wife, "Stan Lee had nothing to do with Captain America's creation, he was a 17 year old office boy". I almost think the dealer threw in Lee's name at the end because mentioning Simon and Kirby was met with blank stares by the potential buyers, who are novices in comic book collecting. Lee creating it all, even characters conceived before he had written his first text story, is gospel Stan Lee created throwing the shield and it coming back in a text piece in an Early Cap Story. Maybe he gets the Bill Finger inclusion as co creator.  |
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Post by Hoosier X on Jun 30, 2024 19:47:00 GMT -5
Just the other night I was watching The King of Collectables show on Netflix. A dealer/comic book store owner, while making a deal to sell a copy of Captain America #1 from 1940, states that Cap was created by "Joe Simon, Jack Kirby and...Stan Lee". God damn it. I immediately said to my wife, "Stan Lee had nothing to do with Captain America's creation, he was a 17 year old office boy". I almost think the dealer threw in Lee's name at the end because mentioning Simon and Kirby was met with blank stares by the potential buyers, who are novices in comic book collecting. Lee creating it all, even characters conceived before he had written his first text story, is gospel Stan Lee created throwing the shield and it coming back in a text piece in an Early Cap Story. Maybe he gets the Bill Finger inclusion as co creator. Which issue was that? I’d like to read it. |
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Post by kirby101 on Jun 30, 2024 20:20:21 GMT -5
Stan Lee created throwing the shield and it coming back in a text piece in an Early Cap Story. Maybe he gets the Bill Finger inclusion as co creator. Which issue was that? I’d like to read it. Captain America #3, Captain America foils the traitors revenge. |
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