Stan wrote Spider-Man, it was his idea. Arguably it wouldn't be what it was without Steve Ditko but it was Stan's original idea, as were many if not most of the other Marvel heroes. But they certainly do deserve equal credit, and Stan gave it to him. If Steve Ditko wanted more than that, he has every right to use his voice and make a statement, or whatever. But he chooses not to do that. As a result, he and Ross have no real right to complain. Ross is trying to demonise Stan here.
I dont understand...Ross asked him "Do you believe that he co-created it?" and Lee said "Im willing to say so." Why is that not sufficient enough credit?
STAN LEE WAS AT KNOTTS SCARY FARM LAST NIGHT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! AGHH!! He was watching the "Zamora the Torture King" show". I was like "OMGAWL. STAN LEE!"..and of course my dumb girlfriend and her friends were like "who's that."
@DeepSouthWrestling1 Lol helped create the plots yes. But who actaully thought of spiderman? with out his idea of that superhero. we wouldnt have a comic or a story
@TheBMAN541 : You need to read the rest of this thread... despite the corporate line regurgitated by Marvel for years, Lee has taken much more credit than he deserves for the creation of all the Marvel characters. Spiderman was a concept initially thought up by Simon/Kirby in the late 50s, called "Silver Spider"... Kirby showed (with Simon's blessing) Lee the unused pages, and Lee tweaked a few things and turned it over to Ditko, after giving Kirby a stab at it... Ditko plotted, Lee scripted...
The Silver Spider concept and Spider-Man share similarities but the Spider-Man name and the idea of Spider-Man as an ordinary teenager was Stan's. A factor in this is the reliability of the various sources. Stan, by his own admission, has a terrible memory, as did Jack Kirby. But Stan claims Ditko had an excellent memory, and Ditko claimed that the Spider-Man idea and name was Stan's and the design elements were his.
@MrLunitunz : Absolutely untrue!! "Spiderman" was SS original name, and he most definitely WAS an average teenager, complete with adoptive aunt and uncle. Refer to Joe Simon's autobio for the whole story. What Stan added was the whole "With great power..." schtick, which was certainly important. However, by Stan's own definition, he did not create the character.
@DeepSouthWrestling1 Silver Spider was an orphan, who gained magic powers through use of a ring, Kirby and Simon's planning eventually became The Fly. Whether Kirby showed Stan these pages, whether Stan was subconsciously influenced by Simon & Kirby's concept cannot be established to a certainty, but aside from being an orphan and having a Spider-motif, they're nothing alike. I'd say Stan and Steve were most directly responsible for Spider-Man, as we know him.
@MrLunitunz :Certainly, Ditko and Lee shaped Spidey into what the strip became, but regardless... by Lee's own definition, the seed was planted by Simon/Kirby. Simon himself pitched the idea to Stan. The strips are definitely dissimilar, but the name alone counts for creation, according to Lee. I don't hate him, I hate that he was so insecure with himself that he stole so much credit for so long...
@DeepSouthWrestling1 You've got to acknowledge that Stan is the common factor in all of these books. He did have a hand in writing, plotting and editing so many books for so long, and he did this mostly by himself, a feat unmatched in today's comics. I think that he deserves credit where credit is due.
And consider the negative. Stan is far more secure than Bob Kane, who not only wouldn't acknowledge Bill Finger as Batman's co-creator, but denied that anybody but himself created Batman.
@MrLunitunz : Of course... Stan's dialogue was the best in the biz at the time and he was an impeccable, canny editor... up to a point. Once Marvel started getting popular, Lee's instincts took over and things started to stagnate... Spidey was moving in real time under Ditko, Lee froze everything. Spidey also got "prettier" once Ditko left. Lee had a tiger by the tail and ended up relying on the tried and true formulas he had been doing for 20 years prior... he specifically told his editors...
@DeepSouthWrestling1 ..."Present the illusion of change without really changing anything." He was willing to be a "visionary" up to an extent. And, as far as credit goes, he was just as selfish with credit throughout the 60s, 70s and part of the 80s as Kane was... comics journalists (Comics Journal) were the ones who initially got word out in fandom that Kirby was the main creative element in those collaborations, not Lee. Lee had been telling untruths for years at that point, untruths Marvel...
@DeepSouthWrestling1 ... was only too happy to turn into their company line. And if they kept Lee happy, there'd be no threat of lawsuits pertaining to ownership. I love those old comics, many of them are burned into my psyche. However, Kirby got a bum deal for the remaining time he was alive. He only started to get the recognition he deserved once he died, which is a shame.
@DeepSouthWrestling1 But Steve Ditko is still alive, and he's given Steve credit, so maybe that partly makes up for his past wrongs.
Stan gave Ditko and Kirby a byline and a steady paycheck, and I assume that they both see royalties from their work, otherwise we'd be hearing about it. Those are two things Bob Kane never gave Bill Finger.
Plus, you've got to realise that longevity and sustainability is key in comics. Stan's 'stagnant' Spider-Man was Shakespeare compared to the book today.
@MrLunitunz : Bob Kane was in no position to give royalties, that would be DC. And they did pay his son when they reprinted his stories. Regardless, Marvel has reaped millions upon millions of dollars from creations Kirby made, creations he didn't get credit for creating until the 80s. And there's the whole original art debacle that happened at the same time. Watch the rest of this doc, Lee STILL has a problem calling Ditko the co creator.
@DeepSouthWrestling1 I never said Bob was in a position to give royalties, but he could've given Bill Finger credit for writing Batman books as well as at least half of the pay he got for producing Batman books, same with everyone else that did all the work while he took the credit. And it's not even a contentious argument like 'Who Created Spider-Man?' is, Bill Finger basically created Batman, everything we know and cherish about him, and he got no credit for it. Stan's not as bad as that.
@MrLunitunz : Stan's not as bad as that because he got caught. Stan didn't just pony up the info that the artists were plotting and creating... journalism that started in the fanzines uncovered the facts. At that point, artists started coming forward, Kirby in particular. But it wasn't always that way... track down a copy of "Origins of Marvel Comics" from the 70s to see Lee's (and Marvel's) company line with regards to who did what was back then. At least Lee did have talent, unlike Kane...
@DeepSouthWrestling1 But whatever Stan claimed to do, Marvel comics were unique in that they had credits, and all of them credited Stan as writer and Jack or Steve or whoever as the artist, and if they plotted the story, Stan credited them with that too. Ralph Macchio stated that he never saw it as 'Stan took all the credit' because he did those credits and he insisted that Ditko's name be alongside his when giving credit for the Spider-Man movie. Macchio said that in this very documentary.
@MrLunitunz The issue was that the artists, mainly Jack because he wanted it, didn't get a fair share of the money, or get their original artwork returned to them, and that stuff, in the beginning at least, wasn't up to Stan, it was up to Martin Goodman, the publisher (and incidentally Stan's cousin). Given Jack Kirby's output was equal to Stan's I'd say he deserved equal money, and he spoke out about it, but Ditko actually turned down royalties, wanting to be left alone.
@MrLunitunz : I don't think anyone accused Lee of not crediting them... Lee took credit for stories he didn't write. The "Marvel Method" put the narrative power in the artists' hand. All Lee had to do was dialogue, after the fact. Kirby FINALLY got plotting credit after awhile, but even that wasn't exactly correct... they usually said "A Lee-Kirby Production" or something like that. Kirby had to ask for this repeatedly. Kirby never got more money for his plotting, either. While, as editor,...
@DeepSouthWrestling1 :... Stan never missed an opportunity to pay himself as editor/writer even on stories others had plotted. Stan only reluctantly gave co-credit to Kirby/Ditko after others pointed out discrepancies in Lee's accountings. So, although Lee is certainly more talented than Kane ever was, I still see them on equal moral grounds. They both made their respective careers out of amplifying their contributions to work they collaborated in, and subsequently made more money than their...
@DeepSouthWrestling1 :... partners. The fact that Kirby's creations generate zillions of dollars for Marvel (now Disney) and Kirby's estate doesn't get one penny from them is shameful on Marvel's part, and shameful on Lee's part. The recent court case only makes Lee look more and more guilty.
@DeepSouthWrestling1 Stan didn't decide the pay. He just did his job. Martin Goodman, the publisher, was the one who paid everybody. If Jack Kirby didn't make his fair share, Goodman was the one to take it up with. And even then it follows a certain kind of logic, Kirby worked on more than a fair amount of Marvel books, but he didn't work on all of them. Stan in the very least dialogued and edited EVERY Marvel book in pulbication during the sixties, it makes sense that he got paid more.
@MrLunitunz : But Stan told Goodman who did what, and he never told him that Kirby was plotting!! Sure, Goodman was certainly a cocksucker, but Lee was too!! And it was BY BOOK!! Lee got more PER ISSUE OF FF than Kirby did. Lee got plotting pay!!! Until Kirby made a big stink about and threatened to quit, which is what eventually happened.
@DeepSouthWrestling1 Yes, they both screwed Kirby, and that's sad, And it's sad that Kirby doesn't get the credit and recognition he deserves, and he didn't get paid what Lee did, and it's all sad. But that doesn't devalue Stan Lee's work. It would be the same if Jack Kirby was the one who got all the credit and made all the money, and Stan did all the work.
And in Stan's defense, he was/is very forgetful. It would be reasonable to assume that he plain forgot to tell Goodman who plotted..
@DeepSouthWrestling1 Like I said, Stan didn't pay himself. Martin paid him. And later those duties were probably taken up by corporate, so it's even less Stan's fault that Jack didn't get the money he deserved.
Stan and Jack had a lot of work to do, and in the beginning at least it seemed like it was a regular writer/artist relationship, so one can reasonably assume that Stan being forgetful or busy wasn't too attentive when Jack started plotting because they were both working on so much else.
@MrLunitunz : Ok, he never forgot to tell Goodman that it was he who was plotting. Once Kinney/Perfect Film bought Marvel and took over, they wouldn't even listen to Kirby, and he left. Guess who didn't speak up for Kirby? Guess who didn't tell his corporate masters who had done so much of the work... hell, the suits at Kinney thought Lee had drawn the strips!!! And, no, Lee's and Kirby's relationship never once resembled a "regular writer/artist relationship"... Lee knew what he had with...
@DeepSouthWrestling1 ... Kirby. And it's preposterous to even think that anyone would "reasonably assume" that Lee was too busy to pay Jack for what he had done. He sure wasn't too busy to take plotting credit and pay. You would think after years of Kirby plotting, Lee might remember to compensate him... but doing so might call attention to who was doing what, eh?
@DeepSouthWrestling1 Kirby got paid a decent amount, $35,000 a year in 1970s dollars, in a business I didn't think was that lucrative to begin with.
Lee stepped on a lot of people over the years, but that doesn't devalue Lee as an artist or him and Jack's work together. Money aside, and that's really what the debate is about, Stan did his best to give Jack fair due and Jack's not exactly innocent when it comes to glory hunting. Stan wasn't always in control when Marvel screwed Jack.
@MrLunitunz : Money was only part of it... Kirby wanted co-creator status. He wanted people to know who did what!! And where do you get Stan did his best...? He took credit for Kirby's work for decades!!! Lee didn't just offer up the info, it was discovered!!! And Lee might not have been totally in control, but he was always close to the top... a word from Lee certainly wouldn't have hurt. But it was in Lee's best interest to keep Kirby's true contributions secret...
@DeepSouthWrestling1 Listen. I love Jack, I love Stan. But if you think that either one wanted equal share of the credit, you're naive. Jack, in an interview taken before his death, asserted that Stan Lee never wrote anything, that Jack did all the plots, dialogued the books came up with the ideas. He took credit for Thor and Fantastic Four and claimed Stan's sole purpose was to get in the way. Now that's definitely not true.
@MrLunitunz : It certainly is not, but you also have to be able to read between the lines... this interview was done in the midst of the whole original art debacle, and after decades of Lee taking credit for everything. Lee told the lie that he came up with everything and magnanimously allowed Kirby/Ditko to illustrate his ideas for years and years. Of course Kirby did that interview and spewed his vitriol that had been backed up for years.
@DeepSouthWrestling1 Yes, Kirby was tired of being dicked around. But it begs the question, what if the shoe had been on the other foot? What if Jack was making Stan's pay, or vice versa. Would Jack honestly care who got credited with what? What if Jack had been the dominant one? Would we hear tons of Stan Lee fans talking about how Stan had been unfairly treated?
The problem with Lee/Ditko was that they were too different. The problem with Lee/Kirby is that they were too similar.
@MrLunitunz : Kirby always played fair with Simon... their partnership lasted longer than his with Lee. And your game of "What if" is impossible to speculate on... but I'm certain that if Kirby took advantage of a business subservient and took credit (and subsequently built a career that made him richer than said business subservient) for things he didn't do, I'm sure fandom would be discouraged as well. You are wrong about Lee and Kirby... miles between the two men, nothing alike.
@DeepSouthWrestling1 Kirby sold Simon out, for Marvel. Simon wanted Captain America back, Kirby fought on Marvel's side to let them keep it. It probably didn't affect their friendship, but it shows you that Kirby didn't always 'play fair'.
Lee/Kirby are exactly alike. Think about it. Jewish upbringing, both had an intimate knowledge of poverty. Both had a strong work ethic, determined to succeed, passionate about their work. The difference is their place on the hierarchy. In other words, MONEY
@MrLunitunz : Not exactly correct... when Simon sued Marvel for the copyright to Cap, he PURPOSELY left Kirby out of the lawsuit because he knew it would present a conflict of interest. To testify on their behalf, Kirby was told that he would be paid what Simon would receive in the settlement, yet Marvel reneged once they won. Kirby was also promised page increases and profit-sharing bonuses that never materialized. And, as far as how similar they are, again, I have to disagree...
@DeepSouthWrestling1 ... Lee was brought up in the lap of luxury compared to Kirby, who had to fight in street gangs to survive in his neighborhood. Lee had a cushy job his whole life, including a bullshit assignment in WW2, while Kirby was on the battlefield, almost losing his feet in the process. Creatively, Kirby was a maverick, defining the superhero genre, creating the popular kid gang and romance genres, constantly changing, refining... Lee was a hack and a copycat "artist" who did...
@DeepSouthWrestling1 ... absolutely nothing of merit before meeting Kirby. He never did anything but repeat himself after Kirby left, either... before becoming a company shill. Kirby never left comics, even when he left comics!! He always had ideas and pages waiting to be published. Captain Victory was done while working for Marvel in the 70s, yet he never showed it to them... instead, he simply sat on the pages until the direct market was up and running. The two men are night and day.
@DeepSouthWrestling1 Stan wasn't brought up in the lap of luxury. He was a poor Jewish kid just like Kirby. His assignment in WW2 wasn't bullshit, he wrote training films for the troops, which were of some importance. Yes, he didn't fight and Kirby did, but he wanted to. Stan did nothing of worth before he met Kirby because he was just a kid, barely twenty. And comics were different in the 40s and 50s, the Comics Code stifled creativity. Marvel was revolutionary for that reason.
@MrLunitunz : He was brought up in the lap of luxury COMPARED TO KIRBY! Kirby's childhood, in addition to being dirt poor, was extremely violent. Lee never had to deal with that. And his WW2 assignment was bullshit compared to Kirby getting shot at, getting frostbitten feet, etc... Both of these life experiences shaped Kirby, and you can certainly see that in his work. This is the defining difference between the two men. Kirby and his work is informed by rage, while Lee certainly is not. And...
@DeepSouthWrestling1 ... Lee worked as EIC at Timely for 20 YEARS before Kirby came back. 20 years, and never once a memorable strip. He was a grown man for most of that 20 years, fyi. The code didn't come into play 'til 55. And was still in use throughout the 60s, 'til it was revised in the 70s. The code had nothing to do with Marvel's success. Marvel was revolutionary because they placed the narrative control of the story in the artist's hands. The "Marvel Method"...
@DeepSouthWrestling1 Stan was told to do strips certain ways, to keep it dumb. It was creatively stifling and soul-crushing and he's not the only one who had such experiences, John Romita SR had a similar time doing Romance comics.
Marvel Comics were revolutionary not just because the artist had more freedom to experiment. They were revolutionary because they weren't afraid to try new and interesting things story-wise, and in the beginning, Stan wrote the stories. Comics aren't just art.
@MrLunitunz : Lee gofered under Simon/Kirby, and that's where he learned to edit. It's doubtful Goodman told Lee anything, content-wise. Lee didn't have to be told what to do as far as the Code went, either... he knew, he was smart enough to edit without being told what to do. The only vague direction he might have been given is to follow trends. Granted, that type of environment would certainly stifle some, but there was plenty of good stuff that came out of the GA and 50s that was coming...
@DeepSouthWrestling1 ... out alongside Lee's material. Fact is, Lee wasn't a very good writer. And I mean plotting, not dialogue... no one was better at dialogue than Lee in mainstream comics. But Lee certainly needed a plotter, because conceptually, Lee wasn't as good as his rep would lead you to believe. Of course comics aren't just art, they are a combination of words and pictures... See, Kirby could do both, Lee couldn't. So much of the "new and interesting things" you refer to came...
@DeepSouthWrestling1 ... directly from Kirby. He didn't just experiment with the art, he was in control of the narrative!! See, that's different than anything that had come before... Lee/Kirby would have a brief discussion, Kirby would go off and draw the comic and Lee would put the dialogue in. No written script. I'm sure Lee made suggestions and contributions, and there's certainly instances where Lee either changed what Kirby meant or just got some things wrong. But the thrust of the...
@DeepSouthWrestling1 ... narrative came from Kirby. Who created what? Who knows? All we have are what each person said, what those around them said and the body of work both left behind. When looking at all of that, I simply don't see how Lee's side of the origin of Marvel story could be believed. I don't think Lee purposely fucked Kirby over, he just didn't step in when it was happening, despite the fact that he had the clout to change the outcome.
@DeepSouthWrestling1 Stan did the plots originally. It was a collaboration, and that's apparent in Stan & Jack/Steve's early work on the books compared to their later work and their non-Marvel/non-Stan Lee work. See both could write, because honestly anyone can write, Image comics was founded by artists who wrote. But their writing and dialogue separate from Lee wasn't as good as the work they did with Lee, look at Mr A or Jimmy Olsen. Marvel was a combination of excellent art and writing.
@MrLunitunz : How come Lee is responsible for 20 years of bad writing previously? How come Lee's stuff with artists like Heck and Leiber is nowhere near as good as his stuff with Kirby/Ditko? How come Lee never created another memorable character after Ditko/Kirby left? How come both Ditko and Kirby still had dozens and dozens of characters left in them? How come Kirby had created dozens and dozens of memorable characters previously? All Lee could possibly do is add to what was already there...
@DeepSouthWrestling1 ... and that's dialogue. He could certainly write snappier dialogue than either Kirby or Ditko. And you are wrong about anyone being able to write... where's Heck's writing? Or Buscema's? Or Romita's? And Image was founded by artists who COULDN'T write! Sold to collectors (instead of actual readers) who didn't read, only invested. To be honest, Image's artists couldn't really draw, either. Finally, Jimmy Olsen was conceptually more interesting than any 5 titles Lee was...
@DeepSouthWrestling1 ... writing at the time. Or any 5 titles he worked on that didn't have Kirby or Ditko as the artist. I'm sure Lee was at least partially responsible for all the Marvel character's personalities, but the plots? I remain dubious with regards to Lee's ability to plot. Or plot stuff like FF, Spidey, etc...
@DeepSouthWrestling1 Being able to write and being able to write well are two different things. You also have to want to write, which Buscema, Heck or Romita obviously didn't want to do. I never said the Image founders were great writers.
Stan did Iron Man, Black Widow, Hawkeye, Daredevil mostly with other people and they were successful.
Writing's a different discipline to art. Pictures are timeless. Writers can struggle to feel relevant in different eras and they burn out. I can name several
@MrLunitunz : I'll give you Romita on not wanting to write... he was always busy and in the office, although I suspect he did want to write. But Buscema in particular was only interested in making as much money in comics as he could... he hated them. If he could make more money by writing (and, remember, it doesn't have to be good) don't you think he would? Same with Heck, though Heck loved comics. We're actually veering into aesthetics now... if you study cartooning, you normally see the...
@DeepSouthWrestling1 :... best stuff is done by someone who can do both. That's really how comics should be done, anyway... the division of talent is only to speed production along, not to actually help make a quality product. Cartooning is a different discipline than either writing or art, and it takes a special artist to be good at it. And you have to be kidding with the examples you listed citing Lee's great material done without Ditko/Kirby... do you honestly think the Marvel Age would...
@DeepSouthWrestling1 :... have ignited and caught on if those strips were as good as it got? And those Image guys weren't writers at all... they were what Capote called "typists"... see the difference?
@DeepSouthWrestling1 Daredevil is one of my favourite comic books to come out of Marvel. Granted, it's not because of Stan Lee, but Stan Lee created the foundation with Everett and Frank Miller built on it. Same with Iron Man, Black Widow, you get the idea. Yes, his best work was with Kirby/Ditko, but you implied that everything else was crap and it's not so.
Not everything done by Lee/Kirby was excellent. They did many books just like Daredevil and Iron Man in their early years.
@MrLunitunz : What Lee did with lesser cartoonists isn't "crap", just pedestrian by comparison... I like that stuff, too... but it wasn't earth-shattering like FF and Spidey. There's a marked narrative difference in the strips Ditko and Kirby worked on and the rest of the Marvel titles. That's because they're coming from a specific point of view. The division of labor in comics dilutes this point of view. However, I can't think of any strips done by Lee/Kirby that were duds... 'til Kirby left...
@DeepSouthWrestling1 You can't think of X-Men? Considered a second-tier book by many until Claremont revived it. The Avengers wasn't great either, I know you'll probably disagree but the Avengers line-up didn't make sense until about 2005/6 when Bendis stepped on and did New Avengers.
@MrLunitunz : Kirby only did the first 10 (or so) issues of each, and they were strong compared to what followed... Werner Roth was a pretty low wattage penciller and the same can be said for Don Heck... that's who followed Kirby, both for pretty long runs. That's why those books were considered second rate. Had Kirby stayed on either, particularly X Men, who knows how popular they might have become? And I haven't read a current DC/Marvel comic in over 20 years, so I don't know about Bendis...
@DeepSouthWrestling1 The problem with both is that they were difficult to write. It's possible that Stan had, plot-wise, ten good issues in him. And the problem with Avengers is that it was a sloppy, rushed counterpart to Justice League. See with Justice League, DC were using characters that had been beloved for years in a team book. Marvel's cast of characters were young and not as beloved and it just felt like a Justice League clone. Only when they put Spider-Man in did it feel higher-tier.
@MrLunitunz : I don't think writing X Men would be particularly hard... integrating them into the rest of the "universe" is the problem. With Avengers, I do think Lee had a lot to do with the creation of the title... it's obviously an attempt at copying JLA. However, the issues Kirby did were quite good. The uncertainty of the Hulk, Kang's intro, Zemo teaming up with the Enchantress and, of course, Cap's reintro... compare these issues to whatever JLA issues were coming out at the same time...
@DeepSouthWrestling1 The Avenger's were basically Martin Goodman's idea. He wanted a book that could go one-for-one with JLA, Stan gave him FF. Martin obviously thought that wasn't good enough so they did Avengers. But, while the stories might've been alright, the Avengers honestly wasn't much of a draw because readers weren't as vested in the young and emerging Marvel stable of characters as they were in Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman etc. And Spider-Man wasn't in it.
@MrLunitunz : I've heard that story, about Goodman playing golf with Donnefield and having the JLA discussion, but Donnefield denied it ever happened, so... and I don't think Goodman was particularly intimate with the actual contents. Only if there was a problem. I imagine Lee came to the Avengers on his own. The title would have done better, of course, if Kirby had remained on and had a good run. As it is, putting Heck on was what hurt the most. Unfortunately, Heck never sold. And I can't...
@DeepSouthWrestling1 ... imagine Spidey in the Avengers, that sounds like a terrible idea. But for all I know, he could be a card-carrying member as we speak, and have been for years. I'm sure most of the characters have been so mucked about by the last couple of generations of Marvel employees, they hardly resemble who Lee/Kirby created. Just fodder for Hollywood, I suppose...
@DeepSouthWrestling1 Wow. You really haven't been reading or following Marvel for years, have you?
Yes, Spider-Man's a member now. And I originally thought it was stupid idea too, because he's a loner character and he works best as a solo character instead of teamed-up with all the other Marvel characters. But it made sense, because Spider-Man is Marvel's most popular character and what made JLA work was having DC's most popular characters team-up. Why do a book with second-rate characters?
@MrLunitunz : No such thing as a second-rate character, only second-rate creators. When the Image artists started their rise, that's when I gave up on DC/Marvel... the Shooter years were bad enough, but at least several good things did come out of that era. I didn't like any of the Image artists, and when every other comic started looking like them, I turned to underground stuff like Love & Rockets and R Crumb... and, honestly, that stuff's better than corporate owned characters...
@DeepSouthWrestling1 Finite books will always be better than long-run comic book characters. But I will disagree with you on the Image artists. Erik Larsen and Jim Lee are very good illustrators. Todd McFarlane forgot how to draw human faces after his first few issues of Spider-Man but aside from that he did some very good things with Spider-Man. Yes, the massive muscles style wasn't necessarily the greatest but all of Image was taking Kirby's lead, for better or worse.
@MrLunitunz : Actually, I don't mind stylization, it's not knowing how to tell a story that irked me... incomprehensible layouts, one-and-two page splashes that did nothing to further the story, general laziness as far as rendering goes, simply not understanding anatomy, architecture, etc... they were horrible. As pedestrian as someone like Buscema was, he could draw rings around every one of those guys. McFarlane's Spidey owed so much to Ditko, it's not funny... after recently flipping thru...
@DeepSouthWrestling1 ... a current ish of JLA, I'm convinced Jim Lee is the most overrated "cartoonist" in existence. What's worse is their lazy ways ultimately played havoc on the entire distribution system... comics are only recently starting to show signs of recovery with the inroads made into the book market.
@DeepSouthWrestling1 You're entitled to your opinion on Lee. Personally I think his work on Batman was excellent.
I've always said that McFarlane owed a lot to Ditko, but that's why I like him. Spider-Man artists post-Ditko were emphasising the 'Man', Ditko/McFarlane focused on the 'Spider'. And McFarlane paved the way for Bagley, who is one of my favourites, and who provided a nice mix between Ditko and Romita's general method of artwork.
@DeepSouthWrestling1 Kirby gave up his and Simon's rights to the character. Both were complaining to Martin Goodman when they created Captain America that they weren't getting paid enough. You're obviously into comics, I don't have to tell you the financial benefits of owning your characters versus doing work for hire for Marvel or DC. That's why, at the end of the day, who did what on the Marvel books is irrelevant, because Marvel owns them and makes most of the money.
@MrLunitunz : But copyright laws are changing... in the 70s the entire work-for-hire situation was challenged in the graphic arts community. That's why Marvel and DC had to give all the original artwork back. And work-for-hire is becoming a thing of the past. Before long, the creators of these comics will get their day. And Kirby didn't "give up" any rights, he testified on Marvel's behalf... well, he didn't give up Simons' rights. He was coerced into giving his own up...
I am aware of the Marvel method, but it was always Lee scripting the dialogue, which gave him a certain amount of direction and control. He also had the power to change anything he didn't like, which he apparently did often enough to upset Kirby & Ditko. Besides, it was Ditko's fault he ran out of steam and creativity. His departure gave the appearance he had nothing more left to give. Mabey the candle that burns twice as bright burns half as long. Were those villians Lee's or Ditko's creation?
@dustygrady : Again, that's wrong... you can't direct a story if it's already drawn. Lee was basically stuck with what he got. In the case of Kirby and Ditko, that was perfect. And, no he didn't change things with Kirby and Ditko often... Kirby's dispute was based on money and Ditko wanted to tell the story he wanted to tell unencumbered... Lee knew he had the "goose that laid the golden egg" with Ditko, so to speak, so he most often would concede to Ditko's demands... and, as we see with...
@DeepSouthWrestling1 ... the early Spideys, that was the smart thing to do. And, no way on earth did Ditko run out of steam... he went on to do a ton of exciting stuff after Spidey... stuff that bears more in common with the early Spideys than anything Lee did... from characterization, design and just plain bizzareness. When you compare the villains Ditko created to fight, say, the Blue Beetle to the Spidey rogue's gallery, there is a similarity in design and quirkiness... this is absent when...
@DeepSouthWrestling1 ... looking at the somewhat bland villians Lee created with Romita. And, sure, Lee would have us all believe he created all the villians, but I'm not so sure... and, no, Lee was certainly not telling Dikto what to do. They had established the "Marvel method" while working on Amazing Fantasy... with so much to do, Lee knew he could leave both Ditko and Kirby alone to do stories and they'd come back to him correct.
Stan had to draw the line somewhere. He couldn't allow Ditko to tell him what direction the strip was going to go in every circumstance, which is what Ditko wanted. In all fairness he allowed both Kirby and Ditko plenty of latitude. If Ditko was such a loose cannon that he could not remain a team player, there was nothing Lee could do with him. At least he stuck around long enough to lay a solid foundation. But lets face it, Stan had to maintain his appearance as boss...
@dustygrady : He didn't HAVE to... in retrospect, he should have totally given Ditko his head and let him do whatever he wanted... however, any pissing contest between Lee and Ditko was going to be won by Lee. In an article in "Alter Ego", Roy Thomas relates the story of running into Ditko and asking him why he left, and Ditko's terse response was: "Well, when you have a guy working against you..." which says it all, I think.
Any boss worth his salt is not going to be made irrelevant. If Lee were to give Ditko all the creative control he desired this would have made Lee a pushover. Their partnership was a marriage of sorts. There had to be concessions on both sides. It's too bad Ditko didn't have the sense to care about financial security, otherwise he would have never left. Ditko made Romita a rich man.
@dustygrady : No, the "partnership" was unnecessary... a condition inflicted upon the talent by an industry that favored productivity to quality... Lee was smart in a lot of areas (often at the artists' expense), but this is a blunder on his part. It would not have made Lee a "pushover" to concede to Ditko that he knew best, it would have been smart. And someone who didn't let financial stability stand in the way of his morals should be acknowledged, particularly these days...
@DeepSouthWrestling1 ... also, losing Ditko made Lee treat Kirby (and others) differently. It was around this time that Lee was particularly "hands off" with FF and Thor, and the results are literally the best Marvel comics of all time... the extent of Lee's participation in FF and Thor might have been one sentence suggestions to Kirby... for example, Lee's "plot" for FF 48-50 consisted of this : "Have 'em fight God." From those 4 words, Kirby created the Galactus trilogy... I agree that...
As any boss does. Lee wasn't stupid. If Ditko could have his way he would have made Lee completely irrelevant, which wasn't going to happen. It was Ditko's inability to work with others that ultimately dissolved the partnership. Lee was boss for a reason, and Ditko could not respect that. I didn't have a problem with the direction Ditko took the book, but his artwork was definitely an aquired taste, mabey more so than the targeted age group could appreciate.
@dustygrady : Well, sales do not bear that out... sales were steadily climbing by the time Ditko left. And I don't think Lee's authority is what Ditko had a problem with... there was no yelling, screaming fight that led up to Ditko leaving, just a difference of opinion. The two men weren't even talking by that point. Ditko had hit upon something truly special and simply didn't want Lee interfering with typical comic book melodrama. However, back then, comics weren't seen as a place to...
@DeepSouthWrestling1 ... exercise artistic expression. Which is why what Ditko (and Kirby) did was so unique at the time... they were able to go into a field that was void of any real creativity and put their own personal stamp on the genre. Lee knew enough to stay out of their way to a certain extent, but once Ditko really started pushing the envelope, Lee panicked. His "fleece the market" instinct told him to fall back on tried-and-true comic book cliches he had been doing for 20 years...
@DeepSouthWrestling1 ... instead of really, truly doing something innovative. Ditko was innovating the super hero genre with what he was doing with Spidey, and who knows how far he would have gone? Had he remained at the helm, Spidey's story might have actually had an ending, as opposed to dragging it out and rehashing and reinventing that has went on for 50 years now... that's the part that is truly sad to me... instead, Spidey became just another super hero... popular, yes, but conventional.
It was difficult for Stan Lee to keep both Ditko and Kirby happy as far the murky details of dividing up credit was concerned. No matter what neither Kirby or Ditko would be happy if they did not receive the lions share of the credit. That was simply not going to happen.
It certainly didn't help Ditko that he was a reclusive "SHUT IN" who would never even bother to give anyone an interview or be photographed if he could help it. Stan was a terrific spokesman while Ditko hid from all contact
@dustygrady : You are incorrect... Kirby was promised more money and credit by Marvel owner Martin Goodman (Lee's cousin, no less!) and Goodman lied!!! Lee was only too happy to step in and take credit that really wasn't his. Because of nepotism. All Ditko wanted was to be left alone and tell the stories he wanted... Lee's ego would not allow this. So Ditko walked.
Ditko wanted more than that. He wanted at least half the credit(if not more) as a co-creator of Spider-Man. Stan Lee was initially reluctant for years to share the credit. By the time Lee gave in to the idea of sharing credit the damage was already done. Ditko was a fool for leaving Spider-Man when it was already their second highest selling book. Once Romita took over, the book became even more popular and became No. one. They never even missed Ditko because of Romita.
@dustygrady : He wanted half, and deserved it, maybe more honestly... because the reason the original Spidey strip was unique was because of Ditko's unique perspective... his vision is what made Parker a loner, an outcast. That certainly isn't Lee, it's Ditko. Once Ditko left, the strip certainly DID miss his creativity... the strip settled into a more traditional super hero strip. It was nowhere near as innovative, original or fun as when Ditko was doing it... sales only tell part of the story.
@DeepSouthWrestling1 : And, as far as whether Ditko was a "fool" or not for leaving Spidey... well, I wish he had stayed, sure... but he apparently didn't want to. He had had enough of Lee tampering with his stories. He was poisoned by Ayn Rand's influence, true... but this eccentricity is possibly what made him an artist willing to go beyond the limits of his chosen genre and create the way he did... had he not been a little "off", he might not have been as interesting an artist...
Ditko may have deserved up to 60 percent of the credit, but I was never really a fan of his artwork. I found it to be sloppy, quirky & childish looking. His disproportionate artwork of faces and hands often looked silly, disjointed and unprofessional. Almost like some alternate faux version of Picasso. Of course that is just my opinion. That being said I did enjoy many of the comic book covers he did for Spider- Man, but never the interior art. I much more enjoyed Romita
@dustygrady : Romita... feh!!! Everything was picture-perfect in his art!!! The city was clean and bright... everyone was handsome and/or pretty... I found him very bland and boring. Ditko's artwork had personality!!! His cities looked dark and dangerous!! His criminals were ugly, his people looked normal and unassuming. You never mistook a Ditko job for anyone else. However, that is personal... what was important about Ditko was what he was writing... the general tone of the early Spidey...
@DeepSouthWrestling1 ... stories is attributed to Ditko's sensibility. Ditko was a loner and this came thru in the strip, particularly in the form of Peter. Ditko tried to inject the strip with what he thought was logic and realism, which is where his relationship with Lee went astray. Once the Marvel strips had gained popularity, Lee wanted to basically freeze things the way they were. Ditko was moving in real time and after he left, Peter stayed in college for decades, just like any average...
It was difficult to argue with Lee's great marketing skills. He was a master at it. Lee was also the boss, not Ditko, something that Ditko could never come to grips with. I agree that Ditko had a huge influence in Spidey's creation and direction, but I wouldn't say the innovation stopped after he left. Remember Lee's dialogue had a great deal to do with Spidey's direction, especially considering he often gave Ditko the general direction that he wanted the strip to go.
@dustygrady ... once Ditko left, Pete got more handsome, had hot chicks chasing him, got more comic book-y villians (and not many with lasting power like Ditko's) and generally settled into becoming much more like a traditional comic book. It's difficult to gauge how innovative and off-the-beaten-path Ditko's approach was back then. And I'm not sure if it was that Ditko couldn't "come to grips" with Lee's being the boss but rather it was whether he was abusing said position. No creative force...
@DeepSouthWrestling1 ... wants to be taken advantage of. And Lee was indeed a great editor, de-facto art director, talent scout and scripter... the dialogue is certainly one of the main ingredients of what makes early Marvel so much fun... however, for years, the company line (coming from Lee) was that Lee was the main creative force behind the comics, and, in the case of Ditko and Kirby, that simply isn't so. So, given that, I'm not so sure whether it was Lee giving Ditko directions on how...
@DeepSouthWrestling1 ... things would go in the story, or, more than likely, it was Ditko dictating the narrative to Lee... Lee knew that, above all others, Ditko and Kirby could be trusted to plot themselves. He knew about Kirby from as far back as the 40s, and he knew about Ditko from Amazing Fantasy, a title he created specifically for his work with Ditko.
Lee hardly ran out of ideas once Romita took over. I felt the innovation continued. The book's rise in popularity was certainly no coincidence either. Most people loved Romita's new take on The "handsome" Peter Parker. It was a smash hit. People loved that Parker could finally score with the hot chicks rather than remaining the nerdy insecure lonesome loser. It was a breath of fresh air and a relief. The readers had already had enough of the squirley Ditko Parker.
@dustygrady : WHAT!?!? You couldn't be more wrong!!! It's been argued repeatedly that the strip was already on the trajectory of becoming the #1 book before Ditko left... it was going to happen, regardless. And, as far as people having had enough of Ditko's take... you must not understand the character. There were dozens and dozens of heroes who continuously "score with the hot chicks" already on the scene. No one was tired of Ditko's take... after less than 40 issues? Wish it into the...
@DeepSouthWrestling1 ...cornfield!! And what innovations occurred in Spidey after Ditko left? The only one I can think of is when Gwen dies... and Lee didn't write that one.
Oddly enough, even though it was just plain stupid for Ditko to abandon Spidey, it was actually more of a blessing in disguise. Ditko had already done his amazing work and had already laid the groundwork of a well oiled machine. What Ditko never counted on was he that he was shockingly replaceable and even expendable. The book never skipped a beat once he left. Romita's new version of Parker and Spidey was an instant success, another testament to Lee's marketing savvy.
@dustygrady : Not true at all... the early Spideys were never surpassed... so much of what makes the character unique and fun came from Ditko's run... and the entire Bullpen was concerned when Ditko left. Romita didn't want to do it, initially... and, to this day, he still recognizes how much more important Ditko was in Spidey's cosmology... It was obviously painful for Ditko to walk away from Spidey, so I doubt he was giving a single thought to how expendable he was... he had been in the...
@DeepSouthWrestling1 ...biz long enough to realize they would just put someone else on it. Artistic accomplishment and merit have little place in mainstream super hero comics... which makes Ditko's accomplishments all the more amazing (excuse the pun). Ditko was able to make compelling comics out of basically a children's medium. You are correct in saying Ditko laid more solid groundwork than even he knew... too bad he didn't get to share in the profits of said groundwork.
It was Ditkos fault for his lack of vision. He thought the strip was through once Parker was taken out of high school. It was stated clearly in the documentary that I mentioned to you. Why would Ditko think this? He clearly was someone who was not cut out for longevity in this series to give up so easily. He also despised that the identity of the Green Goblin was a regular cast member(Norman Osborne) and not some unknown. Little things like this were enough for Ditko....
@dustygrady : Well, yes... but it's being stated by MARVEL EMPLOYEES who have to tow the company line!! Macchio has even less authority about Lee/Ditko's relationship than Romita. And, again, that goes against everything else written about the subject and the way the strip eventually went... why was Peter in college for over 20 years (or longer for all I know) if it was Ditko who wanted to stop time? And you really don't know what all else Ditko had to go through to get at that point... it's...
@DeepSouthWrestling1 ... been documented that Lee and Ditko were having disagreements about the strip for over a year... Ditko practically had to DEMAND that Lee start giving him plotting credits. And, you are correct that they had disagreements over the identity of the Goblin, but that only shows whose thinking was unconventional and who was falling back into the tried-and-true way of doing comics... having the Goblin be Peter's best friend's dad is melodrama at it's purest... Ditko was...
@DeepSouthWrestling1 ... striving for realism, or at least as much realism as he could get away with. Lee, with 20 years of pure schlock behind him, was in uncharted territory with Marvel's early years... instead of truly pulling the trigger and doing a groundbreaking, unconventional strip all the way, Lee's instincts told him to milk whatever success he was having for as much as he could.
And could you really blame Lee for going with his instincts? After all they have served him so very well? To be fair Lee gave Ditko quite a bit of latitude in the direction of the strip since he was plotting most of it. But that was not enough, Ditko felt he needed to have the final say on everything. Quite unrealistic. After all, who was the boss? Who was he to question Lee on certain plot developments? He never seemed to respect Lee's position and keep his place....
@dustygrady : Well, certainly I blame Lee... I'm much more interested in what a genuine artist has to say as opposed to a "performer", so to speak. Sure, Lee gave Ditko latitude, but Lee profited from that decision also... moreso than Ditko!!
to become easily discouraged & quit on a great strip. So it is in question if he really had anything more to offer for Spider-Man anyway. He obviously was burdened with demons & personal issues to want to butt heads with Lee so much. He obviously lost that battle. He became mostly irrelevant the day he quit Spider-Man. He also had a great opportunity with Dr. Strange and quit on that too. For what? To work at Charlton? At least Romita stayed on for as long as he could.
@dustygrady : Well, think about that for a minute... it was more important for Ditko to tell his stories unencumbered by editorial interference at Charlton (or Warren also) than continue to work at Marvel... and take a dramatic pay cut as well. So, I doubt he was what you would call "easily discouraged"... he had a vision. And I don't know that you could really call him irrelevant... he is recognized as one of the only cartoonists to bring honest personal vision to super heores....
@DeepSouthWrestling1 ... to this day, very few cartoonists working in so limiting a genre can say they could approach what Ditko did with Spidey. He also had a few more enduring characters... Hawk and Dove, the Question, the Creeper and, probably most interesting of all, Mr A... none of these had the pop culture appeal of Spidey, but he still had a respectable career.
Ditko's insubordinate & destructive attitude was his own undoing. Who says Lee was wrong for chosing Norman Osborne & having Parker go to college? These decisions were hardly the end of the magazine as Ditko thought. If Ditko wasn't such a strange breed he could have had a successful relationship with Lee and stayed on the book for many more years. This way he still could have used his influence plotting the strip and continued to make an impact. All he had to do ....
@dustygrady : Again, I doubt Ditko ever once thought his leaving would end the strip... he'd been around long enough to know they'd keep churning out Spideys come Hell or high water. And, it's not so much that Lee made "wrong" decisions, but hackneyed ones... he liked to pretend that he was on the cutting edge of cartooning with Marvel, but it really wasn't him, it was artists like Ditko and Kirby... and who knows what Ditko might have accomplished had he been allowed to continue where he...
@DeepSouthWrestling1 ... was going? Comics just might have matured quicker, and in a more natural fashion. Ditko was definitely going in a noir direction (a la Batman) but infusing it with angst... not just teen angst, either. He was actually moving Spidey away from that. He never had Peter relating to fashionable "hippies", something that Lee did purely for commercial reasons...
@dustygrady : and, again, it is incorrect to state that it was Lee who wanted to move Peter in real time... that's revisionist corporate history... how Ditko wrote and how Stan wrote (along with the actual history of the strip) show that it was Ditko who moved in real time...
As much as Ditko had an influence plotting much of the storyline, it was always Lee taking the strip in whatever direction he wanted with his diaologue. This gave Lee quite a bit of control & the final say on it's direction. It was still Lee scripting and laying out the general plot before and after Ditko left. So it is not entirely true to say the book took a left turn after Ditko left. The formula still worked quite well. There was the Shocker, The Kingpin, some more..
@dustygrady : Not true at all... you apparently don't understand how the "Marvel" method of writing changed mainstream comics... before Marvel, all writers wrote a script (usually made in conference with the editor) that laid out the entire story for the artist... the "Marvel" method changed all that, it put the narrative control in the artist's hands. Lee was editing AND writing about 12 comics a month, and had been for a long time... the reason he gave Ditko and Kirby so much narrative...
@DeepSouthWrestling1 ... power was to relieve his own burden. Ditko/Kirby never got a written script from Lee when working at Marvel... their working relationship had been established before the Marvel super hero boom on such titles as Strange Tales, Tales to Astonish, Amazing Fantasy, etc... by the time the superheroes came about, Lee barely had to give one sentence instructions to the artists... not even that in Kirby/Ditko's case. You can't write a comic after it's drawn... or, if you do...
@DeepSouthWrestling1 ... the comic is bound to not make much sense... Lee could change actual dialogue, but the story he got from both Ditko and Kirby is the story he was stuck with, unless he wanted another artist to do some major corrective artwork for said issue... and I don't believe he ever did anything like that. There is one instance where Lee changed some of Kirby's original motivation in one of the FF stories (first appearance of "Him", I believe), and the story suffered for it...
@DeepSouthWrestling1 ... finally, I'll give you Kingpin, but the Shocker? How 'bout the Gibbon? Man Mountain Marko? The Prowler? Surely you know these stinkeroos didn't hold a candle to the Lizard, Kraven, Mysterio, the Sandman, Doc Ock, etc... these bizarre villains have Ditko's sensibilities stamped all over them...
interesting storylines with Doc Ock(issues 53-56). True, many of Spidey's greatest villans came during the Ditko era, but wasn't it Lee who created every one of them(or at least most of them) and told Ditko what he wanted done? The general plotting & creation of characters went a long way with Lee. Who really knows how many of those characters were Ditko's? In truth I enjoyed the stories both before and after Ditko, because it was still Lee writing it. That never changed
was to submit to Lee's ocassional wishes on certain plot developments. Certainly not a lot to ask. But this was naturally to much to ask for the loose cannon Ditko, Marvel's wonderful conscientious objector. He felt Spider-man was his baby, and he was obviously proven wrong.
@dustygrady : Well, that all might possibly be true, but when you look at motives, only Ditko was operating with the story's best interests in mind... he was the one who wanted the story to be as good as it could and not fall back on predictable convention.
Ditko wanted Parker to stay in High School forever, which was pretty unrealistic. Lee wanted him to transform into more of a confident young man, especially since he was always fighting dangerous grown men anyway. Parker could gain more respectabilty this way, instead of always remaining a punk high school kid. I felt the strip continued to grow quite nicely with Romita, who was the Norman Rockwell of Spider-Man covers. Lee was still the scripter when the two switched
@dustygrady : That isn't true, either... Ditko was the one who put him in college!! Ditko would have had him graduate in a reasonable time, instead of keeping him frozen in time... that was Lee!!! Ditko wanted to move the strip in real time, a la "Gasoline Alley", unlike Lee, who wanted to freeze the characters in time and milk the success as much as he possibly could... Ditko was thinking of the story. Romita was a completely competent journeyman cartoonist, but Ditko was a storyteller.
According to Romita in one of the different interviews on Youtube here, It was Lee who wanted Parker to move on to college. Matter of fact, it was described as one of the sticking points why Ditko left. I am almost sure of it. I will look for it again to make sure. I cant imagine why you would think that Romita ran the strip straight into the ground. Exactly what new innovative direction would Ditko have taken it? Mabey the reason Ditko left was he was running out of ideas
@dustygrady : Well, with all due respect to Romita, how would he know? By asking Lee? If Lee was so for moving things along in real time, why didn't he? This is one of the most interesting aspects of the original Spidey strip... no strip had started with a high school teenager who graduated to college in just 3 years... every other super hero was frozen at the age they started at. And I certainly don't think Romita "ran the strip straight into the ground"... I actually have a nostalgic...
@DeepSouthWrestling1 ... fondness for Romita's "Spidey"... but, face it, Romita came from DCs Romance dept. Ditko couldn't conform his vision to do that if his life depended on it... Romita can pretty much do whatever he wants, while Ditko can't "turn it on" like that... I find the artist with a vision he has to tell much more interesting than a competent professional doing another job...
It is understood that Ditko was a master plotter of the strip. He was extremely skilled at moving the storyline in his own direction. The reason I feel the book did that much better after Ditko left was the preference of Romita's art over Ditko's. As I have stated before, I think that many fans found Ditko's art to be sloppy, disjointed, and downright childish looking. Many of his simpleton illustrations made me want to cringe. In most cases he simply came across as a poor artist
i never knew this was a controversial thing but no matter how i look at it i think stan lee's right, he did create spiderman, he gave the instructions and steve carried out the orders. they deserve credit for MAKING spiderman and lee deserves credit for CREATING spiderman. he does his best to try and keep everyone happy, but he's unfortunatley pushed into saying it howw it is and it makes him look like the bad guy :(
@jhibbitt1 : You're falling for Lee's public persona... the initial concept for Spider Man was given to Lee by Kirby. Kirby and Simon had created "Silver Spider" several years earlier and the character was never used. Lee liked the character, but made a few changes. He conferenced with Ditko and the final character was decided upon. Ditko designed the costume and powers. Ditko certainly didn't merely "carry out orders". Marvel didn't work that way... artists literally wrote the stories...
@DeepSouthWrestling1 ...and, as far as Lee trying to "keep everyone happy", that's not how it always was... you should track down a copy of "Origins of Marvel Comics" published in the 70s to see how Lee originally split up credit. Only thru years of impartial journalists uncovering the truth is Lee now willing to give at least partial credit to the artists that literally made him a star. And, although he might now give some credit, he sure isn't coming off any of the money he "earned"...
@Redeye1524 He is a huge thief. He robbed millions from the real creators of comics like Kirby, SImon, Ditko. Stan lee would still be working in the mail room if it werent for those artists. Stan lee only wrote dialogue. Marvel or timely as it was back then, sucked and I mean sucked because he was in charge and created a bunch of crap characters. Marvel almost shut down because of him. UNTIL Jack Kirby came around, marvel beacame MARVEL COMICS.
@spiralmc I disagree, Stan Lee played an influential role in Marvel Comics. Without his creative imagination and vision,. the likes of Kirby, SImon and Ditko would also be working in mail rooms! The success behind Marvel Comics, was based upon teamwork and passion.
@Wildfox01 : You are wrong... Lee was a fantastic editor and created a sense of communion within Marvel that was infectious. He had a great eye for talent and was usually smart enough to remain hands off with his creative staff... but the true creative visionaries of Marvel were undoubtedly Kirby and Ditko. Both men (along with Simon) had successful careers in comics both before and after Lee. Kirby in particular. Who did Lee create of substance after these artists left? She Hulk? Please...
@DeepSouthWrestling1 I don't disagree with you! My comment referring to Kirby, SImon and Ditko working in mail rooms, I was actually being sarcastic to a comment I had replied too! Like I said, it was based upon teamwork and passion!
Stan wrote Spider-Man, it was his idea. Arguably it wouldn't be what it was without Steve Ditko but it was Stan's original idea, as were many if not most of the other Marvel heroes. But they certainly do deserve equal credit, and Stan gave it to him. If Steve Ditko wanted more than that, he has every right to use his voice and make a statement, or whatever. But he chooses not to do that. As a result, he and Ross have no real right to complain. Ross is trying to demonise Stan here.
MrLunitunz 1 month ago
I dont understand...Ross asked him "Do you believe that he co-created it?" and Lee said "Im willing to say so." Why is that not sufficient enough credit?
TheNightFusion 1 month ago
I think they should both get equal credit
DDTphoenix 1 month ago
STAN LEE WAS AT KNOTTS SCARY FARM LAST NIGHT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! AGHH!! He was watching the "Zamora the Torture King" show". I was like "OMGAWL. STAN LEE!"..and of course my dumb girlfriend and her friends were like "who's that."
USMartyrMachine119 4 months ago
@USMartyrMachine119 I can't believe I have to explain to anyone of my generation who Stan Lee is, but our trip to Comikaze yesterday tells me I do!
AleeshaWeesha 3 months ago
@AleeshaWeesha ITS PREPOSTEROUS!!!!
USMartyrMachine119 3 months ago
I agree with you Stan.
chailizard 4 months ago
Steve created the image of spider-man. But every story needs a beginning and definality a plot.
TheBMAN541 4 months ago
@TheBMAN541 : He did that, too...
DeepSouthWrestling1 4 months ago
@DeepSouthWrestling1 Lol helped create the plots yes. But who actaully thought of spiderman? with out his idea of that superhero. we wouldnt have a comic or a story
TheBMAN541 4 months ago
@TheBMAN541 : You need to read the rest of this thread... despite the corporate line regurgitated by Marvel for years, Lee has taken much more credit than he deserves for the creation of all the Marvel characters. Spiderman was a concept initially thought up by Simon/Kirby in the late 50s, called "Silver Spider"... Kirby showed (with Simon's blessing) Lee the unused pages, and Lee tweaked a few things and turned it over to Ditko, after giving Kirby a stab at it... Ditko plotted, Lee scripted...
DeepSouthWrestling1 4 months ago
@DeepSouthWrestling1 Not necessarily.
The Silver Spider concept and Spider-Man share similarities but the Spider-Man name and the idea of Spider-Man as an ordinary teenager was Stan's. A factor in this is the reliability of the various sources. Stan, by his own admission, has a terrible memory, as did Jack Kirby. But Stan claims Ditko had an excellent memory, and Ditko claimed that the Spider-Man idea and name was Stan's and the design elements were his.
MrLunitunz 1 month ago
@MrLunitunz : Absolutely untrue!! "Spiderman" was SS original name, and he most definitely WAS an average teenager, complete with adoptive aunt and uncle. Refer to Joe Simon's autobio for the whole story. What Stan added was the whole "With great power..." schtick, which was certainly important. However, by Stan's own definition, he did not create the character.
DeepSouthWrestling1 1 month ago
@DeepSouthWrestling1 Silver Spider was an orphan, who gained magic powers through use of a ring, Kirby and Simon's planning eventually became The Fly. Whether Kirby showed Stan these pages, whether Stan was subconsciously influenced by Simon & Kirby's concept cannot be established to a certainty, but aside from being an orphan and having a Spider-motif, they're nothing alike. I'd say Stan and Steve were most directly responsible for Spider-Man, as we know him.
What's your deal, you hate Stan?
MrLunitunz 1 month ago
@MrLunitunz :Certainly, Ditko and Lee shaped Spidey into what the strip became, but regardless... by Lee's own definition, the seed was planted by Simon/Kirby. Simon himself pitched the idea to Stan. The strips are definitely dissimilar, but the name alone counts for creation, according to Lee. I don't hate him, I hate that he was so insecure with himself that he stole so much credit for so long...
DeepSouthWrestling1 1 month ago
@DeepSouthWrestling1 You've got to acknowledge that Stan is the common factor in all of these books. He did have a hand in writing, plotting and editing so many books for so long, and he did this mostly by himself, a feat unmatched in today's comics. I think that he deserves credit where credit is due.
And consider the negative. Stan is far more secure than Bob Kane, who not only wouldn't acknowledge Bill Finger as Batman's co-creator, but denied that anybody but himself created Batman.
MrLunitunz 1 month ago
@MrLunitunz : Of course... Stan's dialogue was the best in the biz at the time and he was an impeccable, canny editor... up to a point. Once Marvel started getting popular, Lee's instincts took over and things started to stagnate... Spidey was moving in real time under Ditko, Lee froze everything. Spidey also got "prettier" once Ditko left. Lee had a tiger by the tail and ended up relying on the tried and true formulas he had been doing for 20 years prior... he specifically told his editors...
DeepSouthWrestling1 1 month ago
@DeepSouthWrestling1 ..."Present the illusion of change without really changing anything." He was willing to be a "visionary" up to an extent. And, as far as credit goes, he was just as selfish with credit throughout the 60s, 70s and part of the 80s as Kane was... comics journalists (Comics Journal) were the ones who initially got word out in fandom that Kirby was the main creative element in those collaborations, not Lee. Lee had been telling untruths for years at that point, untruths Marvel...
DeepSouthWrestling1 1 month ago
@DeepSouthWrestling1 ... was only too happy to turn into their company line. And if they kept Lee happy, there'd be no threat of lawsuits pertaining to ownership. I love those old comics, many of them are burned into my psyche. However, Kirby got a bum deal for the remaining time he was alive. He only started to get the recognition he deserved once he died, which is a shame.
DeepSouthWrestling1 1 month ago
@DeepSouthWrestling1 But Steve Ditko is still alive, and he's given Steve credit, so maybe that partly makes up for his past wrongs.
Stan gave Ditko and Kirby a byline and a steady paycheck, and I assume that they both see royalties from their work, otherwise we'd be hearing about it. Those are two things Bob Kane never gave Bill Finger.
Plus, you've got to realise that longevity and sustainability is key in comics. Stan's 'stagnant' Spider-Man was Shakespeare compared to the book today.
MrLunitunz 1 month ago
@MrLunitunz : Bob Kane was in no position to give royalties, that would be DC. And they did pay his son when they reprinted his stories. Regardless, Marvel has reaped millions upon millions of dollars from creations Kirby made, creations he didn't get credit for creating until the 80s. And there's the whole original art debacle that happened at the same time. Watch the rest of this doc, Lee STILL has a problem calling Ditko the co creator.
DeepSouthWrestling1 1 month ago
@DeepSouthWrestling1 I never said Bob was in a position to give royalties, but he could've given Bill Finger credit for writing Batman books as well as at least half of the pay he got for producing Batman books, same with everyone else that did all the work while he took the credit. And it's not even a contentious argument like 'Who Created Spider-Man?' is, Bill Finger basically created Batman, everything we know and cherish about him, and he got no credit for it. Stan's not as bad as that.
MrLunitunz 1 month ago
@MrLunitunz : Stan's not as bad as that because he got caught. Stan didn't just pony up the info that the artists were plotting and creating... journalism that started in the fanzines uncovered the facts. At that point, artists started coming forward, Kirby in particular. But it wasn't always that way... track down a copy of "Origins of Marvel Comics" from the 70s to see Lee's (and Marvel's) company line with regards to who did what was back then. At least Lee did have talent, unlike Kane...
DeepSouthWrestling1 1 month ago
@DeepSouthWrestling1 But whatever Stan claimed to do, Marvel comics were unique in that they had credits, and all of them credited Stan as writer and Jack or Steve or whoever as the artist, and if they plotted the story, Stan credited them with that too. Ralph Macchio stated that he never saw it as 'Stan took all the credit' because he did those credits and he insisted that Ditko's name be alongside his when giving credit for the Spider-Man movie. Macchio said that in this very documentary.
MrLunitunz 1 month ago
@MrLunitunz The issue was that the artists, mainly Jack because he wanted it, didn't get a fair share of the money, or get their original artwork returned to them, and that stuff, in the beginning at least, wasn't up to Stan, it was up to Martin Goodman, the publisher (and incidentally Stan's cousin). Given Jack Kirby's output was equal to Stan's I'd say he deserved equal money, and he spoke out about it, but Ditko actually turned down royalties, wanting to be left alone.
MrLunitunz 1 month ago
@MrLunitunz : I don't think anyone accused Lee of not crediting them... Lee took credit for stories he didn't write. The "Marvel Method" put the narrative power in the artists' hand. All Lee had to do was dialogue, after the fact. Kirby FINALLY got plotting credit after awhile, but even that wasn't exactly correct... they usually said "A Lee-Kirby Production" or something like that. Kirby had to ask for this repeatedly. Kirby never got more money for his plotting, either. While, as editor,...
DeepSouthWrestling1 1 month ago
@DeepSouthWrestling1 :... Stan never missed an opportunity to pay himself as editor/writer even on stories others had plotted. Stan only reluctantly gave co-credit to Kirby/Ditko after others pointed out discrepancies in Lee's accountings. So, although Lee is certainly more talented than Kane ever was, I still see them on equal moral grounds. They both made their respective careers out of amplifying their contributions to work they collaborated in, and subsequently made more money than their...
DeepSouthWrestling1 1 month ago
@DeepSouthWrestling1 :... partners. The fact that Kirby's creations generate zillions of dollars for Marvel (now Disney) and Kirby's estate doesn't get one penny from them is shameful on Marvel's part, and shameful on Lee's part. The recent court case only makes Lee look more and more guilty.
DeepSouthWrestling1 1 month ago
@DeepSouthWrestling1 Stan didn't decide the pay. He just did his job. Martin Goodman, the publisher, was the one who paid everybody. If Jack Kirby didn't make his fair share, Goodman was the one to take it up with. And even then it follows a certain kind of logic, Kirby worked on more than a fair amount of Marvel books, but he didn't work on all of them. Stan in the very least dialogued and edited EVERY Marvel book in pulbication during the sixties, it makes sense that he got paid more.
MrLunitunz 1 month ago
@MrLunitunz : But Stan told Goodman who did what, and he never told him that Kirby was plotting!! Sure, Goodman was certainly a cocksucker, but Lee was too!! And it was BY BOOK!! Lee got more PER ISSUE OF FF than Kirby did. Lee got plotting pay!!! Until Kirby made a big stink about and threatened to quit, which is what eventually happened.
DeepSouthWrestling1 1 month ago
@DeepSouthWrestling1 Yes, they both screwed Kirby, and that's sad, And it's sad that Kirby doesn't get the credit and recognition he deserves, and he didn't get paid what Lee did, and it's all sad. But that doesn't devalue Stan Lee's work. It would be the same if Jack Kirby was the one who got all the credit and made all the money, and Stan did all the work.
And in Stan's defense, he was/is very forgetful. It would be reasonable to assume that he plain forgot to tell Goodman who plotted..
MrLunitunz 1 month ago
@MrLunitunz : Yet he never forgot to pay himself for plotting...
DeepSouthWrestling1 1 month ago
@DeepSouthWrestling1 Like I said, Stan didn't pay himself. Martin paid him. And later those duties were probably taken up by corporate, so it's even less Stan's fault that Jack didn't get the money he deserved.
Stan and Jack had a lot of work to do, and in the beginning at least it seemed like it was a regular writer/artist relationship, so one can reasonably assume that Stan being forgetful or busy wasn't too attentive when Jack started plotting because they were both working on so much else.
MrLunitunz 1 month ago
@MrLunitunz : Ok, he never forgot to tell Goodman that it was he who was plotting. Once Kinney/Perfect Film bought Marvel and took over, they wouldn't even listen to Kirby, and he left. Guess who didn't speak up for Kirby? Guess who didn't tell his corporate masters who had done so much of the work... hell, the suits at Kinney thought Lee had drawn the strips!!! And, no, Lee's and Kirby's relationship never once resembled a "regular writer/artist relationship"... Lee knew what he had with...
DeepSouthWrestling1 1 month ago
@DeepSouthWrestling1 ... Kirby. And it's preposterous to even think that anyone would "reasonably assume" that Lee was too busy to pay Jack for what he had done. He sure wasn't too busy to take plotting credit and pay. You would think after years of Kirby plotting, Lee might remember to compensate him... but doing so might call attention to who was doing what, eh?
DeepSouthWrestling1 1 month ago
@DeepSouthWrestling1 Kirby got paid a decent amount, $35,000 a year in 1970s dollars, in a business I didn't think was that lucrative to begin with.
Lee stepped on a lot of people over the years, but that doesn't devalue Lee as an artist or him and Jack's work together. Money aside, and that's really what the debate is about, Stan did his best to give Jack fair due and Jack's not exactly innocent when it comes to glory hunting. Stan wasn't always in control when Marvel screwed Jack.
MrLunitunz 1 month ago
@MrLunitunz : Money was only part of it... Kirby wanted co-creator status. He wanted people to know who did what!! And where do you get Stan did his best...? He took credit for Kirby's work for decades!!! Lee didn't just offer up the info, it was discovered!!! And Lee might not have been totally in control, but he was always close to the top... a word from Lee certainly wouldn't have hurt. But it was in Lee's best interest to keep Kirby's true contributions secret...
DeepSouthWrestling1 1 month ago
@DeepSouthWrestling1 Listen. I love Jack, I love Stan. But if you think that either one wanted equal share of the credit, you're naive. Jack, in an interview taken before his death, asserted that Stan Lee never wrote anything, that Jack did all the plots, dialogued the books came up with the ideas. He took credit for Thor and Fantastic Four and claimed Stan's sole purpose was to get in the way. Now that's definitely not true.
MrLunitunz 1 month ago
@MrLunitunz : It certainly is not, but you also have to be able to read between the lines... this interview was done in the midst of the whole original art debacle, and after decades of Lee taking credit for everything. Lee told the lie that he came up with everything and magnanimously allowed Kirby/Ditko to illustrate his ideas for years and years. Of course Kirby did that interview and spewed his vitriol that had been backed up for years.
DeepSouthWrestling1 1 month ago
@DeepSouthWrestling1 Yes, Kirby was tired of being dicked around. But it begs the question, what if the shoe had been on the other foot? What if Jack was making Stan's pay, or vice versa. Would Jack honestly care who got credited with what? What if Jack had been the dominant one? Would we hear tons of Stan Lee fans talking about how Stan had been unfairly treated?
The problem with Lee/Ditko was that they were too different. The problem with Lee/Kirby is that they were too similar.
MrLunitunz 1 month ago
@MrLunitunz : Kirby always played fair with Simon... their partnership lasted longer than his with Lee. And your game of "What if" is impossible to speculate on... but I'm certain that if Kirby took advantage of a business subservient and took credit (and subsequently built a career that made him richer than said business subservient) for things he didn't do, I'm sure fandom would be discouraged as well. You are wrong about Lee and Kirby... miles between the two men, nothing alike.
DeepSouthWrestling1 1 month ago
@DeepSouthWrestling1 Kirby sold Simon out, for Marvel. Simon wanted Captain America back, Kirby fought on Marvel's side to let them keep it. It probably didn't affect their friendship, but it shows you that Kirby didn't always 'play fair'.
Lee/Kirby are exactly alike. Think about it. Jewish upbringing, both had an intimate knowledge of poverty. Both had a strong work ethic, determined to succeed, passionate about their work. The difference is their place on the hierarchy. In other words, MONEY
MrLunitunz 1 month ago
@MrLunitunz : Not exactly correct... when Simon sued Marvel for the copyright to Cap, he PURPOSELY left Kirby out of the lawsuit because he knew it would present a conflict of interest. To testify on their behalf, Kirby was told that he would be paid what Simon would receive in the settlement, yet Marvel reneged once they won. Kirby was also promised page increases and profit-sharing bonuses that never materialized. And, as far as how similar they are, again, I have to disagree...
DeepSouthWrestling1 1 month ago
@DeepSouthWrestling1 ... Lee was brought up in the lap of luxury compared to Kirby, who had to fight in street gangs to survive in his neighborhood. Lee had a cushy job his whole life, including a bullshit assignment in WW2, while Kirby was on the battlefield, almost losing his feet in the process. Creatively, Kirby was a maverick, defining the superhero genre, creating the popular kid gang and romance genres, constantly changing, refining... Lee was a hack and a copycat "artist" who did...
DeepSouthWrestling1 1 month ago
@DeepSouthWrestling1 ... absolutely nothing of merit before meeting Kirby. He never did anything but repeat himself after Kirby left, either... before becoming a company shill. Kirby never left comics, even when he left comics!! He always had ideas and pages waiting to be published. Captain Victory was done while working for Marvel in the 70s, yet he never showed it to them... instead, he simply sat on the pages until the direct market was up and running. The two men are night and day.
DeepSouthWrestling1 1 month ago
@DeepSouthWrestling1 Stan wasn't brought up in the lap of luxury. He was a poor Jewish kid just like Kirby. His assignment in WW2 wasn't bullshit, he wrote training films for the troops, which were of some importance. Yes, he didn't fight and Kirby did, but he wanted to. Stan did nothing of worth before he met Kirby because he was just a kid, barely twenty. And comics were different in the 40s and 50s, the Comics Code stifled creativity. Marvel was revolutionary for that reason.
MrLunitunz 1 month ago
@MrLunitunz : He was brought up in the lap of luxury COMPARED TO KIRBY! Kirby's childhood, in addition to being dirt poor, was extremely violent. Lee never had to deal with that. And his WW2 assignment was bullshit compared to Kirby getting shot at, getting frostbitten feet, etc... Both of these life experiences shaped Kirby, and you can certainly see that in his work. This is the defining difference between the two men. Kirby and his work is informed by rage, while Lee certainly is not. And...
DeepSouthWrestling1 1 month ago
@DeepSouthWrestling1 ... Lee worked as EIC at Timely for 20 YEARS before Kirby came back. 20 years, and never once a memorable strip. He was a grown man for most of that 20 years, fyi. The code didn't come into play 'til 55. And was still in use throughout the 60s, 'til it was revised in the 70s. The code had nothing to do with Marvel's success. Marvel was revolutionary because they placed the narrative control of the story in the artist's hands. The "Marvel Method"...
DeepSouthWrestling1 1 month ago
@DeepSouthWrestling1 Stan was told to do strips certain ways, to keep it dumb. It was creatively stifling and soul-crushing and he's not the only one who had such experiences, John Romita SR had a similar time doing Romance comics.
Marvel Comics were revolutionary not just because the artist had more freedom to experiment. They were revolutionary because they weren't afraid to try new and interesting things story-wise, and in the beginning, Stan wrote the stories. Comics aren't just art.
MrLunitunz 1 month ago
@MrLunitunz : Lee gofered under Simon/Kirby, and that's where he learned to edit. It's doubtful Goodman told Lee anything, content-wise. Lee didn't have to be told what to do as far as the Code went, either... he knew, he was smart enough to edit without being told what to do. The only vague direction he might have been given is to follow trends. Granted, that type of environment would certainly stifle some, but there was plenty of good stuff that came out of the GA and 50s that was coming...
DeepSouthWrestling1 1 month ago
@DeepSouthWrestling1 ... out alongside Lee's material. Fact is, Lee wasn't a very good writer. And I mean plotting, not dialogue... no one was better at dialogue than Lee in mainstream comics. But Lee certainly needed a plotter, because conceptually, Lee wasn't as good as his rep would lead you to believe. Of course comics aren't just art, they are a combination of words and pictures... See, Kirby could do both, Lee couldn't. So much of the "new and interesting things" you refer to came...
DeepSouthWrestling1 1 month ago
@DeepSouthWrestling1 ... directly from Kirby. He didn't just experiment with the art, he was in control of the narrative!! See, that's different than anything that had come before... Lee/Kirby would have a brief discussion, Kirby would go off and draw the comic and Lee would put the dialogue in. No written script. I'm sure Lee made suggestions and contributions, and there's certainly instances where Lee either changed what Kirby meant or just got some things wrong. But the thrust of the...
DeepSouthWrestling1 1 month ago
@DeepSouthWrestling1 ... narrative came from Kirby. Who created what? Who knows? All we have are what each person said, what those around them said and the body of work both left behind. When looking at all of that, I simply don't see how Lee's side of the origin of Marvel story could be believed. I don't think Lee purposely fucked Kirby over, he just didn't step in when it was happening, despite the fact that he had the clout to change the outcome.
DeepSouthWrestling1 1 month ago
@DeepSouthWrestling1 Stan did the plots originally. It was a collaboration, and that's apparent in Stan & Jack/Steve's early work on the books compared to their later work and their non-Marvel/non-Stan Lee work. See both could write, because honestly anyone can write, Image comics was founded by artists who wrote. But their writing and dialogue separate from Lee wasn't as good as the work they did with Lee, look at Mr A or Jimmy Olsen. Marvel was a combination of excellent art and writing.
MrLunitunz 1 month ago
@MrLunitunz : How come Lee is responsible for 20 years of bad writing previously? How come Lee's stuff with artists like Heck and Leiber is nowhere near as good as his stuff with Kirby/Ditko? How come Lee never created another memorable character after Ditko/Kirby left? How come both Ditko and Kirby still had dozens and dozens of characters left in them? How come Kirby had created dozens and dozens of memorable characters previously? All Lee could possibly do is add to what was already there...
DeepSouthWrestling1 1 month ago
@DeepSouthWrestling1 ... and that's dialogue. He could certainly write snappier dialogue than either Kirby or Ditko. And you are wrong about anyone being able to write... where's Heck's writing? Or Buscema's? Or Romita's? And Image was founded by artists who COULDN'T write! Sold to collectors (instead of actual readers) who didn't read, only invested. To be honest, Image's artists couldn't really draw, either. Finally, Jimmy Olsen was conceptually more interesting than any 5 titles Lee was...
DeepSouthWrestling1 1 month ago
@DeepSouthWrestling1 ... writing at the time. Or any 5 titles he worked on that didn't have Kirby or Ditko as the artist. I'm sure Lee was at least partially responsible for all the Marvel character's personalities, but the plots? I remain dubious with regards to Lee's ability to plot. Or plot stuff like FF, Spidey, etc...
DeepSouthWrestling1 1 month ago
@DeepSouthWrestling1 Being able to write and being able to write well are two different things. You also have to want to write, which Buscema, Heck or Romita obviously didn't want to do. I never said the Image founders were great writers.
Stan did Iron Man, Black Widow, Hawkeye, Daredevil mostly with other people and they were successful.
Writing's a different discipline to art. Pictures are timeless. Writers can struggle to feel relevant in different eras and they burn out. I can name several
MrLunitunz 1 month ago
@MrLunitunz : I'll give you Romita on not wanting to write... he was always busy and in the office, although I suspect he did want to write. But Buscema in particular was only interested in making as much money in comics as he could... he hated them. If he could make more money by writing (and, remember, it doesn't have to be good) don't you think he would? Same with Heck, though Heck loved comics. We're actually veering into aesthetics now... if you study cartooning, you normally see the...
DeepSouthWrestling1 1 month ago
@DeepSouthWrestling1 :... best stuff is done by someone who can do both. That's really how comics should be done, anyway... the division of talent is only to speed production along, not to actually help make a quality product. Cartooning is a different discipline than either writing or art, and it takes a special artist to be good at it. And you have to be kidding with the examples you listed citing Lee's great material done without Ditko/Kirby... do you honestly think the Marvel Age would...
DeepSouthWrestling1 1 month ago
@DeepSouthWrestling1 :... have ignited and caught on if those strips were as good as it got? And those Image guys weren't writers at all... they were what Capote called "typists"... see the difference?
DeepSouthWrestling1 1 month ago
@DeepSouthWrestling1 Daredevil is one of my favourite comic books to come out of Marvel. Granted, it's not because of Stan Lee, but Stan Lee created the foundation with Everett and Frank Miller built on it. Same with Iron Man, Black Widow, you get the idea. Yes, his best work was with Kirby/Ditko, but you implied that everything else was crap and it's not so.
Not everything done by Lee/Kirby was excellent. They did many books just like Daredevil and Iron Man in their early years.
MrLunitunz 1 month ago
@MrLunitunz : What Lee did with lesser cartoonists isn't "crap", just pedestrian by comparison... I like that stuff, too... but it wasn't earth-shattering like FF and Spidey. There's a marked narrative difference in the strips Ditko and Kirby worked on and the rest of the Marvel titles. That's because they're coming from a specific point of view. The division of labor in comics dilutes this point of view. However, I can't think of any strips done by Lee/Kirby that were duds... 'til Kirby left...
DeepSouthWrestling1 1 month ago
@DeepSouthWrestling1 You can't think of X-Men? Considered a second-tier book by many until Claremont revived it. The Avengers wasn't great either, I know you'll probably disagree but the Avengers line-up didn't make sense until about 2005/6 when Bendis stepped on and did New Avengers.
MrLunitunz 1 month ago
@MrLunitunz : Kirby only did the first 10 (or so) issues of each, and they were strong compared to what followed... Werner Roth was a pretty low wattage penciller and the same can be said for Don Heck... that's who followed Kirby, both for pretty long runs. That's why those books were considered second rate. Had Kirby stayed on either, particularly X Men, who knows how popular they might have become? And I haven't read a current DC/Marvel comic in over 20 years, so I don't know about Bendis...
DeepSouthWrestling1 1 month ago
@DeepSouthWrestling1 The problem with both is that they were difficult to write. It's possible that Stan had, plot-wise, ten good issues in him. And the problem with Avengers is that it was a sloppy, rushed counterpart to Justice League. See with Justice League, DC were using characters that had been beloved for years in a team book. Marvel's cast of characters were young and not as beloved and it just felt like a Justice League clone. Only when they put Spider-Man in did it feel higher-tier.
MrLunitunz 1 month ago
@MrLunitunz : I don't think writing X Men would be particularly hard... integrating them into the rest of the "universe" is the problem. With Avengers, I do think Lee had a lot to do with the creation of the title... it's obviously an attempt at copying JLA. However, the issues Kirby did were quite good. The uncertainty of the Hulk, Kang's intro, Zemo teaming up with the Enchantress and, of course, Cap's reintro... compare these issues to whatever JLA issues were coming out at the same time...
DeepSouthWrestling1 1 month ago
@DeepSouthWrestling1 The Avenger's were basically Martin Goodman's idea. He wanted a book that could go one-for-one with JLA, Stan gave him FF. Martin obviously thought that wasn't good enough so they did Avengers. But, while the stories might've been alright, the Avengers honestly wasn't much of a draw because readers weren't as vested in the young and emerging Marvel stable of characters as they were in Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman etc. And Spider-Man wasn't in it.
MrLunitunz 1 month ago
@MrLunitunz : I've heard that story, about Goodman playing golf with Donnefield and having the JLA discussion, but Donnefield denied it ever happened, so... and I don't think Goodman was particularly intimate with the actual contents. Only if there was a problem. I imagine Lee came to the Avengers on his own. The title would have done better, of course, if Kirby had remained on and had a good run. As it is, putting Heck on was what hurt the most. Unfortunately, Heck never sold. And I can't...
DeepSouthWrestling1 1 month ago
@DeepSouthWrestling1 ... imagine Spidey in the Avengers, that sounds like a terrible idea. But for all I know, he could be a card-carrying member as we speak, and have been for years. I'm sure most of the characters have been so mucked about by the last couple of generations of Marvel employees, they hardly resemble who Lee/Kirby created. Just fodder for Hollywood, I suppose...
DeepSouthWrestling1 1 month ago
@DeepSouthWrestling1 Wow. You really haven't been reading or following Marvel for years, have you?
Yes, Spider-Man's a member now. And I originally thought it was stupid idea too, because he's a loner character and he works best as a solo character instead of teamed-up with all the other Marvel characters. But it made sense, because Spider-Man is Marvel's most popular character and what made JLA work was having DC's most popular characters team-up. Why do a book with second-rate characters?
MrLunitunz 1 month ago
@MrLunitunz : No such thing as a second-rate character, only second-rate creators. When the Image artists started their rise, that's when I gave up on DC/Marvel... the Shooter years were bad enough, but at least several good things did come out of that era. I didn't like any of the Image artists, and when every other comic started looking like them, I turned to underground stuff like Love & Rockets and R Crumb... and, honestly, that stuff's better than corporate owned characters...
DeepSouthWrestling1 1 month ago
@DeepSouthWrestling1 Finite books will always be better than long-run comic book characters. But I will disagree with you on the Image artists. Erik Larsen and Jim Lee are very good illustrators. Todd McFarlane forgot how to draw human faces after his first few issues of Spider-Man but aside from that he did some very good things with Spider-Man. Yes, the massive muscles style wasn't necessarily the greatest but all of Image was taking Kirby's lead, for better or worse.
MrLunitunz 1 month ago
@MrLunitunz : Actually, I don't mind stylization, it's not knowing how to tell a story that irked me... incomprehensible layouts, one-and-two page splashes that did nothing to further the story, general laziness as far as rendering goes, simply not understanding anatomy, architecture, etc... they were horrible. As pedestrian as someone like Buscema was, he could draw rings around every one of those guys. McFarlane's Spidey owed so much to Ditko, it's not funny... after recently flipping thru...
DeepSouthWrestling1 1 month ago
@DeepSouthWrestling1 ... a current ish of JLA, I'm convinced Jim Lee is the most overrated "cartoonist" in existence. What's worse is their lazy ways ultimately played havoc on the entire distribution system... comics are only recently starting to show signs of recovery with the inroads made into the book market.
DeepSouthWrestling1 1 month ago
@DeepSouthWrestling1 You're entitled to your opinion on Lee. Personally I think his work on Batman was excellent.
I've always said that McFarlane owed a lot to Ditko, but that's why I like him. Spider-Man artists post-Ditko were emphasising the 'Man', Ditko/McFarlane focused on the 'Spider'. And McFarlane paved the way for Bagley, who is one of my favourites, and who provided a nice mix between Ditko and Romita's general method of artwork.
MrLunitunz 1 month ago
@DeepSouthWrestling1 Kirby gave up his and Simon's rights to the character. Both were complaining to Martin Goodman when they created Captain America that they weren't getting paid enough. You're obviously into comics, I don't have to tell you the financial benefits of owning your characters versus doing work for hire for Marvel or DC. That's why, at the end of the day, who did what on the Marvel books is irrelevant, because Marvel owns them and makes most of the money.
MrLunitunz 1 month ago
@MrLunitunz : But copyright laws are changing... in the 70s the entire work-for-hire situation was challenged in the graphic arts community. That's why Marvel and DC had to give all the original artwork back. And work-for-hire is becoming a thing of the past. Before long, the creators of these comics will get their day. And Kirby didn't "give up" any rights, he testified on Marvel's behalf... well, he didn't give up Simons' rights. He was coerced into giving his own up...
DeepSouthWrestling1 1 month ago
I am aware of the Marvel method, but it was always Lee scripting the dialogue, which gave him a certain amount of direction and control. He also had the power to change anything he didn't like, which he apparently did often enough to upset Kirby & Ditko. Besides, it was Ditko's fault he ran out of steam and creativity. His departure gave the appearance he had nothing more left to give. Mabey the candle that burns twice as bright burns half as long. Were those villians Lee's or Ditko's creation?
dustygrady 6 months ago
@dustygrady : Again, that's wrong... you can't direct a story if it's already drawn. Lee was basically stuck with what he got. In the case of Kirby and Ditko, that was perfect. And, no he didn't change things with Kirby and Ditko often... Kirby's dispute was based on money and Ditko wanted to tell the story he wanted to tell unencumbered... Lee knew he had the "goose that laid the golden egg" with Ditko, so to speak, so he most often would concede to Ditko's demands... and, as we see with...
DeepSouthWrestling1 6 months ago
@DeepSouthWrestling1 ... the early Spideys, that was the smart thing to do. And, no way on earth did Ditko run out of steam... he went on to do a ton of exciting stuff after Spidey... stuff that bears more in common with the early Spideys than anything Lee did... from characterization, design and just plain bizzareness. When you compare the villains Ditko created to fight, say, the Blue Beetle to the Spidey rogue's gallery, there is a similarity in design and quirkiness... this is absent when...
DeepSouthWrestling1 6 months ago
@DeepSouthWrestling1 ... looking at the somewhat bland villians Lee created with Romita. And, sure, Lee would have us all believe he created all the villians, but I'm not so sure... and, no, Lee was certainly not telling Dikto what to do. They had established the "Marvel method" while working on Amazing Fantasy... with so much to do, Lee knew he could leave both Ditko and Kirby alone to do stories and they'd come back to him correct.
DeepSouthWrestling1 6 months ago
@DeepSouthWrestling1
Stan had to draw the line somewhere. He couldn't allow Ditko to tell him what direction the strip was going to go in every circumstance, which is what Ditko wanted. In all fairness he allowed both Kirby and Ditko plenty of latitude. If Ditko was such a loose cannon that he could not remain a team player, there was nothing Lee could do with him. At least he stuck around long enough to lay a solid foundation. But lets face it, Stan had to maintain his appearance as boss...
dustygrady 6 months ago
@dustygrady : He didn't HAVE to... in retrospect, he should have totally given Ditko his head and let him do whatever he wanted... however, any pissing contest between Lee and Ditko was going to be won by Lee. In an article in "Alter Ego", Roy Thomas relates the story of running into Ditko and asking him why he left, and Ditko's terse response was: "Well, when you have a guy working against you..." which says it all, I think.
DeepSouthWrestling1 6 months ago
@DeepSouthWrestling1
Any boss worth his salt is not going to be made irrelevant. If Lee were to give Ditko all the creative control he desired this would have made Lee a pushover. Their partnership was a marriage of sorts. There had to be concessions on both sides. It's too bad Ditko didn't have the sense to care about financial security, otherwise he would have never left. Ditko made Romita a rich man.
dustygrady 6 months ago
@dustygrady : No, the "partnership" was unnecessary... a condition inflicted upon the talent by an industry that favored productivity to quality... Lee was smart in a lot of areas (often at the artists' expense), but this is a blunder on his part. It would not have made Lee a "pushover" to concede to Ditko that he knew best, it would have been smart. And someone who didn't let financial stability stand in the way of his morals should be acknowledged, particularly these days...
DeepSouthWrestling1 6 months ago
@DeepSouthWrestling1 ... also, losing Ditko made Lee treat Kirby (and others) differently. It was around this time that Lee was particularly "hands off" with FF and Thor, and the results are literally the best Marvel comics of all time... the extent of Lee's participation in FF and Thor might have been one sentence suggestions to Kirby... for example, Lee's "plot" for FF 48-50 consisted of this : "Have 'em fight God." From those 4 words, Kirby created the Galactus trilogy... I agree that...
DeepSouthWrestling1 6 months ago
@DeepSouthWrestling1 ... Ditko made Romita a financially stable man, and, most tellingly, Romita says the exact same thing.
DeepSouthWrestling1 6 months ago
@DeepSouthWrestling1
As any boss does. Lee wasn't stupid. If Ditko could have his way he would have made Lee completely irrelevant, which wasn't going to happen. It was Ditko's inability to work with others that ultimately dissolved the partnership. Lee was boss for a reason, and Ditko could not respect that. I didn't have a problem with the direction Ditko took the book, but his artwork was definitely an aquired taste, mabey more so than the targeted age group could appreciate.
dustygrady 6 months ago
@dustygrady : Well, sales do not bear that out... sales were steadily climbing by the time Ditko left. And I don't think Lee's authority is what Ditko had a problem with... there was no yelling, screaming fight that led up to Ditko leaving, just a difference of opinion. The two men weren't even talking by that point. Ditko had hit upon something truly special and simply didn't want Lee interfering with typical comic book melodrama. However, back then, comics weren't seen as a place to...
DeepSouthWrestling1 6 months ago
@DeepSouthWrestling1 ... exercise artistic expression. Which is why what Ditko (and Kirby) did was so unique at the time... they were able to go into a field that was void of any real creativity and put their own personal stamp on the genre. Lee knew enough to stay out of their way to a certain extent, but once Ditko really started pushing the envelope, Lee panicked. His "fleece the market" instinct told him to fall back on tried-and-true comic book cliches he had been doing for 20 years...
DeepSouthWrestling1 6 months ago
@DeepSouthWrestling1 ... instead of really, truly doing something innovative. Ditko was innovating the super hero genre with what he was doing with Spidey, and who knows how far he would have gone? Had he remained at the helm, Spidey's story might have actually had an ending, as opposed to dragging it out and rehashing and reinventing that has went on for 50 years now... that's the part that is truly sad to me... instead, Spidey became just another super hero... popular, yes, but conventional.
DeepSouthWrestling1 6 months ago
Comment removed
dustygrady 6 months ago
Comment removed
dustygrady 6 months ago
Comment removed
dustygrady 6 months ago
Comment removed
dustygrady 6 months ago
It was difficult for Stan Lee to keep both Ditko and Kirby happy as far the murky details of dividing up credit was concerned. No matter what neither Kirby or Ditko would be happy if they did not receive the lions share of the credit. That was simply not going to happen.
It certainly didn't help Ditko that he was a reclusive "SHUT IN" who would never even bother to give anyone an interview or be photographed if he could help it. Stan was a terrific spokesman while Ditko hid from all contact
dustygrady 7 months ago
@dustygrady : You are incorrect... Kirby was promised more money and credit by Marvel owner Martin Goodman (Lee's cousin, no less!) and Goodman lied!!! Lee was only too happy to step in and take credit that really wasn't his. Because of nepotism. All Ditko wanted was to be left alone and tell the stories he wanted... Lee's ego would not allow this. So Ditko walked.
DeepSouthWrestling1 6 months ago
@DeepSouthWrestling1
Ditko wanted more than that. He wanted at least half the credit(if not more) as a co-creator of Spider-Man. Stan Lee was initially reluctant for years to share the credit. By the time Lee gave in to the idea of sharing credit the damage was already done. Ditko was a fool for leaving Spider-Man when it was already their second highest selling book. Once Romita took over, the book became even more popular and became No. one. They never even missed Ditko because of Romita.
dustygrady 6 months ago
@dustygrady : He wanted half, and deserved it, maybe more honestly... because the reason the original Spidey strip was unique was because of Ditko's unique perspective... his vision is what made Parker a loner, an outcast. That certainly isn't Lee, it's Ditko. Once Ditko left, the strip certainly DID miss his creativity... the strip settled into a more traditional super hero strip. It was nowhere near as innovative, original or fun as when Ditko was doing it... sales only tell part of the story.
DeepSouthWrestling1 6 months ago
@DeepSouthWrestling1 : And, as far as whether Ditko was a "fool" or not for leaving Spidey... well, I wish he had stayed, sure... but he apparently didn't want to. He had had enough of Lee tampering with his stories. He was poisoned by Ayn Rand's influence, true... but this eccentricity is possibly what made him an artist willing to go beyond the limits of his chosen genre and create the way he did... had he not been a little "off", he might not have been as interesting an artist...
DeepSouthWrestling1 6 months ago
@DeepSouthWrestling1
Ditko may have deserved up to 60 percent of the credit, but I was never really a fan of his artwork. I found it to be sloppy, quirky & childish looking. His disproportionate artwork of faces and hands often looked silly, disjointed and unprofessional. Almost like some alternate faux version of Picasso. Of course that is just my opinion. That being said I did enjoy many of the comic book covers he did for Spider- Man, but never the interior art. I much more enjoyed Romita
dustygrady 6 months ago
@dustygrady : Romita... feh!!! Everything was picture-perfect in his art!!! The city was clean and bright... everyone was handsome and/or pretty... I found him very bland and boring. Ditko's artwork had personality!!! His cities looked dark and dangerous!! His criminals were ugly, his people looked normal and unassuming. You never mistook a Ditko job for anyone else. However, that is personal... what was important about Ditko was what he was writing... the general tone of the early Spidey...
DeepSouthWrestling1 6 months ago
@DeepSouthWrestling1 ... stories is attributed to Ditko's sensibility. Ditko was a loner and this came thru in the strip, particularly in the form of Peter. Ditko tried to inject the strip with what he thought was logic and realism, which is where his relationship with Lee went astray. Once the Marvel strips had gained popularity, Lee wanted to basically freeze things the way they were. Ditko was moving in real time and after he left, Peter stayed in college for decades, just like any average...
DeepSouthWrestling1 6 months ago
@DeepSouthWrestling1 ... comic book/strip of the time. Ditko was innovating during his tenure on Spidey. Once he left, the innovation stopped.
DeepSouthWrestling1 6 months ago
@DeepSouthWrestling1
It was difficult to argue with Lee's great marketing skills. He was a master at it. Lee was also the boss, not Ditko, something that Ditko could never come to grips with. I agree that Ditko had a huge influence in Spidey's creation and direction, but I wouldn't say the innovation stopped after he left. Remember Lee's dialogue had a great deal to do with Spidey's direction, especially considering he often gave Ditko the general direction that he wanted the strip to go.
dustygrady 6 months ago
@dustygrady ... once Ditko left, Pete got more handsome, had hot chicks chasing him, got more comic book-y villians (and not many with lasting power like Ditko's) and generally settled into becoming much more like a traditional comic book. It's difficult to gauge how innovative and off-the-beaten-path Ditko's approach was back then. And I'm not sure if it was that Ditko couldn't "come to grips" with Lee's being the boss but rather it was whether he was abusing said position. No creative force...
DeepSouthWrestling1 6 months ago
@DeepSouthWrestling1 ... wants to be taken advantage of. And Lee was indeed a great editor, de-facto art director, talent scout and scripter... the dialogue is certainly one of the main ingredients of what makes early Marvel so much fun... however, for years, the company line (coming from Lee) was that Lee was the main creative force behind the comics, and, in the case of Ditko and Kirby, that simply isn't so. So, given that, I'm not so sure whether it was Lee giving Ditko directions on how...
DeepSouthWrestling1 6 months ago
@DeepSouthWrestling1 ... things would go in the story, or, more than likely, it was Ditko dictating the narrative to Lee... Lee knew that, above all others, Ditko and Kirby could be trusted to plot themselves. He knew about Kirby from as far back as the 40s, and he knew about Ditko from Amazing Fantasy, a title he created specifically for his work with Ditko.
DeepSouthWrestling1 6 months ago
@DeepSouthWrestling1
Lee hardly ran out of ideas once Romita took over. I felt the innovation continued. The book's rise in popularity was certainly no coincidence either. Most people loved Romita's new take on The "handsome" Peter Parker. It was a smash hit. People loved that Parker could finally score with the hot chicks rather than remaining the nerdy insecure lonesome loser. It was a breath of fresh air and a relief. The readers had already had enough of the squirley Ditko Parker.
dustygrady 6 months ago
@dustygrady : WHAT!?!? You couldn't be more wrong!!! It's been argued repeatedly that the strip was already on the trajectory of becoming the #1 book before Ditko left... it was going to happen, regardless. And, as far as people having had enough of Ditko's take... you must not understand the character. There were dozens and dozens of heroes who continuously "score with the hot chicks" already on the scene. No one was tired of Ditko's take... after less than 40 issues? Wish it into the...
DeepSouthWrestling1 6 months ago
@DeepSouthWrestling1 ...cornfield!! And what innovations occurred in Spidey after Ditko left? The only one I can think of is when Gwen dies... and Lee didn't write that one.
DeepSouthWrestling1 6 months ago
@DeepSouthWrestling1
Oddly enough, even though it was just plain stupid for Ditko to abandon Spidey, it was actually more of a blessing in disguise. Ditko had already done his amazing work and had already laid the groundwork of a well oiled machine. What Ditko never counted on was he that he was shockingly replaceable and even expendable. The book never skipped a beat once he left. Romita's new version of Parker and Spidey was an instant success, another testament to Lee's marketing savvy.
dustygrady 6 months ago
@dustygrady : Not true at all... the early Spideys were never surpassed... so much of what makes the character unique and fun came from Ditko's run... and the entire Bullpen was concerned when Ditko left. Romita didn't want to do it, initially... and, to this day, he still recognizes how much more important Ditko was in Spidey's cosmology... It was obviously painful for Ditko to walk away from Spidey, so I doubt he was giving a single thought to how expendable he was... he had been in the...
DeepSouthWrestling1 6 months ago
@DeepSouthWrestling1 ...biz long enough to realize they would just put someone else on it. Artistic accomplishment and merit have little place in mainstream super hero comics... which makes Ditko's accomplishments all the more amazing (excuse the pun). Ditko was able to make compelling comics out of basically a children's medium. You are correct in saying Ditko laid more solid groundwork than even he knew... too bad he didn't get to share in the profits of said groundwork.
DeepSouthWrestling1 6 months ago
@DeepSouthWrestling1
It was Ditkos fault for his lack of vision. He thought the strip was through once Parker was taken out of high school. It was stated clearly in the documentary that I mentioned to you. Why would Ditko think this? He clearly was someone who was not cut out for longevity in this series to give up so easily. He also despised that the identity of the Green Goblin was a regular cast member(Norman Osborne) and not some unknown. Little things like this were enough for Ditko....
dustygrady 6 months ago
@dustygrady : Well, yes... but it's being stated by MARVEL EMPLOYEES who have to tow the company line!! Macchio has even less authority about Lee/Ditko's relationship than Romita. And, again, that goes against everything else written about the subject and the way the strip eventually went... why was Peter in college for over 20 years (or longer for all I know) if it was Ditko who wanted to stop time? And you really don't know what all else Ditko had to go through to get at that point... it's...
DeepSouthWrestling1 6 months ago
@DeepSouthWrestling1 ... been documented that Lee and Ditko were having disagreements about the strip for over a year... Ditko practically had to DEMAND that Lee start giving him plotting credits. And, you are correct that they had disagreements over the identity of the Goblin, but that only shows whose thinking was unconventional and who was falling back into the tried-and-true way of doing comics... having the Goblin be Peter's best friend's dad is melodrama at it's purest... Ditko was...
DeepSouthWrestling1 6 months ago
@DeepSouthWrestling1 ... striving for realism, or at least as much realism as he could get away with. Lee, with 20 years of pure schlock behind him, was in uncharted territory with Marvel's early years... instead of truly pulling the trigger and doing a groundbreaking, unconventional strip all the way, Lee's instincts told him to milk whatever success he was having for as much as he could.
DeepSouthWrestling1 6 months ago
@DeepSouthWrestling1
And could you really blame Lee for going with his instincts? After all they have served him so very well? To be fair Lee gave Ditko quite a bit of latitude in the direction of the strip since he was plotting most of it. But that was not enough, Ditko felt he needed to have the final say on everything. Quite unrealistic. After all, who was the boss? Who was he to question Lee on certain plot developments? He never seemed to respect Lee's position and keep his place....
dustygrady 6 months ago
@dustygrady : Well, certainly I blame Lee... I'm much more interested in what a genuine artist has to say as opposed to a "performer", so to speak. Sure, Lee gave Ditko latitude, but Lee profited from that decision also... moreso than Ditko!!
DeepSouthWrestling1 6 months ago
@DeepSouthWrestling1
to become easily discouraged & quit on a great strip. So it is in question if he really had anything more to offer for Spider-Man anyway. He obviously was burdened with demons & personal issues to want to butt heads with Lee so much. He obviously lost that battle. He became mostly irrelevant the day he quit Spider-Man. He also had a great opportunity with Dr. Strange and quit on that too. For what? To work at Charlton? At least Romita stayed on for as long as he could.
dustygrady 6 months ago
@dustygrady : Well, think about that for a minute... it was more important for Ditko to tell his stories unencumbered by editorial interference at Charlton (or Warren also) than continue to work at Marvel... and take a dramatic pay cut as well. So, I doubt he was what you would call "easily discouraged"... he had a vision. And I don't know that you could really call him irrelevant... he is recognized as one of the only cartoonists to bring honest personal vision to super heores....
DeepSouthWrestling1 6 months ago
@DeepSouthWrestling1 ... to this day, very few cartoonists working in so limiting a genre can say they could approach what Ditko did with Spidey. He also had a few more enduring characters... Hawk and Dove, the Question, the Creeper and, probably most interesting of all, Mr A... none of these had the pop culture appeal of Spidey, but he still had a respectable career.
DeepSouthWrestling1 6 months ago
@DeepSouthWrestling1
Ditko's insubordinate & destructive attitude was his own undoing. Who says Lee was wrong for chosing Norman Osborne & having Parker go to college? These decisions were hardly the end of the magazine as Ditko thought. If Ditko wasn't such a strange breed he could have had a successful relationship with Lee and stayed on the book for many more years. This way he still could have used his influence plotting the strip and continued to make an impact. All he had to do ....
dustygrady 6 months ago
@dustygrady : Again, I doubt Ditko ever once thought his leaving would end the strip... he'd been around long enough to know they'd keep churning out Spideys come Hell or high water. And, it's not so much that Lee made "wrong" decisions, but hackneyed ones... he liked to pretend that he was on the cutting edge of cartooning with Marvel, but it really wasn't him, it was artists like Ditko and Kirby... and who knows what Ditko might have accomplished had he been allowed to continue where he...
DeepSouthWrestling1 6 months ago
@DeepSouthWrestling1 ... was going? Comics just might have matured quicker, and in a more natural fashion. Ditko was definitely going in a noir direction (a la Batman) but infusing it with angst... not just teen angst, either. He was actually moving Spidey away from that. He never had Peter relating to fashionable "hippies", something that Lee did purely for commercial reasons...
DeepSouthWrestling1 6 months ago
@dustygrady : and, again, it is incorrect to state that it was Lee who wanted to move Peter in real time... that's revisionist corporate history... how Ditko wrote and how Stan wrote (along with the actual history of the strip) show that it was Ditko who moved in real time...
DeepSouthWrestling1 6 months ago
@DeepSouthWrestling1
As much as Ditko had an influence plotting much of the storyline, it was always Lee taking the strip in whatever direction he wanted with his diaologue. This gave Lee quite a bit of control & the final say on it's direction. It was still Lee scripting and laying out the general plot before and after Ditko left. So it is not entirely true to say the book took a left turn after Ditko left. The formula still worked quite well. There was the Shocker, The Kingpin, some more..
dustygrady 6 months ago
@dustygrady : Not true at all... you apparently don't understand how the "Marvel" method of writing changed mainstream comics... before Marvel, all writers wrote a script (usually made in conference with the editor) that laid out the entire story for the artist... the "Marvel" method changed all that, it put the narrative control in the artist's hands. Lee was editing AND writing about 12 comics a month, and had been for a long time... the reason he gave Ditko and Kirby so much narrative...
DeepSouthWrestling1 6 months ago
@DeepSouthWrestling1 ... power was to relieve his own burden. Ditko/Kirby never got a written script from Lee when working at Marvel... their working relationship had been established before the Marvel super hero boom on such titles as Strange Tales, Tales to Astonish, Amazing Fantasy, etc... by the time the superheroes came about, Lee barely had to give one sentence instructions to the artists... not even that in Kirby/Ditko's case. You can't write a comic after it's drawn... or, if you do...
DeepSouthWrestling1 6 months ago
@DeepSouthWrestling1 ... the comic is bound to not make much sense... Lee could change actual dialogue, but the story he got from both Ditko and Kirby is the story he was stuck with, unless he wanted another artist to do some major corrective artwork for said issue... and I don't believe he ever did anything like that. There is one instance where Lee changed some of Kirby's original motivation in one of the FF stories (first appearance of "Him", I believe), and the story suffered for it...
DeepSouthWrestling1 6 months ago
@DeepSouthWrestling1 ... finally, I'll give you Kingpin, but the Shocker? How 'bout the Gibbon? Man Mountain Marko? The Prowler? Surely you know these stinkeroos didn't hold a candle to the Lizard, Kraven, Mysterio, the Sandman, Doc Ock, etc... these bizarre villains have Ditko's sensibilities stamped all over them...
DeepSouthWrestling1 6 months ago
@DeepSouthWrestling1
interesting storylines with Doc Ock(issues 53-56). True, many of Spidey's greatest villans came during the Ditko era, but wasn't it Lee who created every one of them(or at least most of them) and told Ditko what he wanted done? The general plotting & creation of characters went a long way with Lee. Who really knows how many of those characters were Ditko's? In truth I enjoyed the stories both before and after Ditko, because it was still Lee writing it. That never changed
dustygrady 6 months ago
@DeepSouthWrestling1
was to submit to Lee's ocassional wishes on certain plot developments. Certainly not a lot to ask. But this was naturally to much to ask for the loose cannon Ditko, Marvel's wonderful conscientious objector. He felt Spider-man was his baby, and he was obviously proven wrong.
dustygrady 6 months ago
@dustygrady : Well, that all might possibly be true, but when you look at motives, only Ditko was operating with the story's best interests in mind... he was the one who wanted the story to be as good as it could and not fall back on predictable convention.
DeepSouthWrestling1 6 months ago
@DeepSouthWrestling1
Ditko wanted Parker to stay in High School forever, which was pretty unrealistic. Lee wanted him to transform into more of a confident young man, especially since he was always fighting dangerous grown men anyway. Parker could gain more respectabilty this way, instead of always remaining a punk high school kid. I felt the strip continued to grow quite nicely with Romita, who was the Norman Rockwell of Spider-Man covers. Lee was still the scripter when the two switched
dustygrady 6 months ago
@dustygrady : That isn't true, either... Ditko was the one who put him in college!! Ditko would have had him graduate in a reasonable time, instead of keeping him frozen in time... that was Lee!!! Ditko wanted to move the strip in real time, a la "Gasoline Alley", unlike Lee, who wanted to freeze the characters in time and milk the success as much as he possibly could... Ditko was thinking of the story. Romita was a completely competent journeyman cartoonist, but Ditko was a storyteller.
DeepSouthWrestling1 6 months ago
@DeepSouthWrestling1
According to Romita in one of the different interviews on Youtube here, It was Lee who wanted Parker to move on to college. Matter of fact, it was described as one of the sticking points why Ditko left. I am almost sure of it. I will look for it again to make sure. I cant imagine why you would think that Romita ran the strip straight into the ground. Exactly what new innovative direction would Ditko have taken it? Mabey the reason Ditko left was he was running out of ideas
dustygrady 6 months ago
@dustygrady : Well, with all due respect to Romita, how would he know? By asking Lee? If Lee was so for moving things along in real time, why didn't he? This is one of the most interesting aspects of the original Spidey strip... no strip had started with a high school teenager who graduated to college in just 3 years... every other super hero was frozen at the age they started at. And I certainly don't think Romita "ran the strip straight into the ground"... I actually have a nostalgic...
DeepSouthWrestling1 6 months ago
@DeepSouthWrestling1 ... fondness for Romita's "Spidey"... but, face it, Romita came from DCs Romance dept. Ditko couldn't conform his vision to do that if his life depended on it... Romita can pretty much do whatever he wants, while Ditko can't "turn it on" like that... I find the artist with a vision he has to tell much more interesting than a competent professional doing another job...
DeepSouthWrestling1 6 months ago
Comment removed
dustygrady 6 months ago
Comment removed
dustygrady 6 months ago
This has been flagged as spam show
@DeepSouthW
It is understood that Ditko was a master plotter of the strip. He was extremely skilled at moving the storyline in his own direction. The reason I feel the book did that much better after Ditko left was the preference of Romita's art over Ditko's. As I have stated before, I think that many fans found Ditko's art to be sloppy, disjointed, and downright childish looking. Many of his simpleton illustrations made me want to cringe. In most cases he simply came across as a poor artist
dustygrady 6 months ago
i never knew this was a controversial thing but no matter how i look at it i think stan lee's right, he did create spiderman, he gave the instructions and steve carried out the orders. they deserve credit for MAKING spiderman and lee deserves credit for CREATING spiderman. he does his best to try and keep everyone happy, but he's unfortunatley pushed into saying it howw it is and it makes him look like the bad guy :(
jhibbitt1 7 months ago 6
@jhibbitt1 : You're falling for Lee's public persona... the initial concept for Spider Man was given to Lee by Kirby. Kirby and Simon had created "Silver Spider" several years earlier and the character was never used. Lee liked the character, but made a few changes. He conferenced with Ditko and the final character was decided upon. Ditko designed the costume and powers. Ditko certainly didn't merely "carry out orders". Marvel didn't work that way... artists literally wrote the stories...
DeepSouthWrestling1 6 months ago
@DeepSouthWrestling1 ...and, as far as Lee trying to "keep everyone happy", that's not how it always was... you should track down a copy of "Origins of Marvel Comics" published in the 70s to see how Lee originally split up credit. Only thru years of impartial journalists uncovering the truth is Lee now willing to give at least partial credit to the artists that literally made him a star. And, although he might now give some credit, he sure isn't coming off any of the money he "earned"...
DeepSouthWrestling1 6 months ago
"and on the seventh day, i rested". I knew he was god.
CalumR993 7 months ago 11
Stan's not God. Stan created God.
R8erNation636 5 months ago
@R8erNation636 : Kirby created God, Stan stole the credit...
DeepSouthWrestling1 5 months ago
Why do some people hate stan lee?
Redeye1524 7 months ago
@Redeye1524 He is a huge thief. He robbed millions from the real creators of comics like Kirby, SImon, Ditko. Stan lee would still be working in the mail room if it werent for those artists. Stan lee only wrote dialogue. Marvel or timely as it was back then, sucked and I mean sucked because he was in charge and created a bunch of crap characters. Marvel almost shut down because of him. UNTIL Jack Kirby came around, marvel beacame MARVEL COMICS.
spiralmc 7 months ago
@spiralmc I disagree, Stan Lee played an influential role in Marvel Comics. Without his creative imagination and vision,. the likes of Kirby, SImon and Ditko would also be working in mail rooms! The success behind Marvel Comics, was based upon teamwork and passion.
Wildfox01 7 months ago
@Wildfox01 : You are wrong... Lee was a fantastic editor and created a sense of communion within Marvel that was infectious. He had a great eye for talent and was usually smart enough to remain hands off with his creative staff... but the true creative visionaries of Marvel were undoubtedly Kirby and Ditko. Both men (along with Simon) had successful careers in comics both before and after Lee. Kirby in particular. Who did Lee create of substance after these artists left? She Hulk? Please...
DeepSouthWrestling1 6 months ago
@DeepSouthWrestling1 I don't disagree with you! My comment referring to Kirby, SImon and Ditko working in mail rooms, I was actually being sarcastic to a comment I had replied too! Like I said, it was based upon teamwork and passion!
Wildfox01 6 months ago