WHAT IF: Stan Lee wasn't working at Marvel/Atlas Comics in 1961? 2 2

[gunsmokin]

we could beat each other's brains in over each others opinions. Everyone is pretty set in their ways. Kirby created the art and plotted pretty much everything initially. Lee fleshed out the characters personalities. Lee had a very competent artist in Maneely that he could have done this with if they were truly Lee's characters. Their most popular output was Ms. Lyon's cubs.

[Prince Namor]

On 2/23/2024 at 2:23 AM, Dr. Haydn said:

Stan had a couple of speed demons in Kirby and Ditko. (Later, Gene Colan and John Buscema were just as fast, turning out as much as 60 pages a month). He had the good sense to stay out of everyone's way, more or less. (Plus, he could dialogue a story in a couple of days, if necessary.)

Later editors at Marvel, it seems to me, meddled a lot more, causing ruffled feelings and a lot of departures to rival DC.

His editing style isn't what's at question here anyway. That's just a deflection by the usual people when it's brought up that Stan Lee stole credit and PAY from these men, and claimed to have created everything.

[Prince Namor]

On 2/23/2024 at 5:18 AM, gunsmokin said:

we could beat each other's brains in over each others opinions. Everyone is pretty set in their ways. Kirby created the art and plotted pretty much everything initially. Lee fleshed out the characters personalities. Lee had a very competent artist in Maneely that he could have done this with if they were truly Lee's characters. Their most popular output was Ms. Lyon's cubs.

Lee didn't show any signs of fleshing out characters outside of what Kirby and Ditko gave him. His contribution was to dumb down stories for the slow reader, and use his Millie the Model wise guy dialogue. 

The most boring, most cliched, repeated stories of the Silver Age were the Daredevil and Iron Man comics, two characters that Kirby and Ditko had the least to do with after they were launched. And they just stewed in mediocrity for most of the first 15 years they existed. 

[gunsmokin]

On 2/22/2024 at 8:42 PM, Prince Namor said:

Lee didn't show any signs of fleshing out characters outside of what Kirby and Ditko gave him. His contribution was to dumb down stories for the slow reader, and use his Millie the Model wise guy dialogue. 

The most boring, most cliched, repeated stories of the Silver Age were the Daredevil and Iron Man comics, two characters that Kirby and Ditko had the least to do with after they were launched. And they just stewed in mediocrity for most of the first 15 years they existed. 

And after the Sentinels story ark, same with the X-men 

[Prince Namor]

On 2/22/2024 at 11:26 PM, shadroch said:

The claim was that Stan claimed ownership and sole creator status in the fireside book era, not what he felt he was entitled to after multiple contracts were signed two decades later.  Lee and his people thought the contracts signed in the 1990s gave him an ownership stake.

In the Fireside book, Stan lays out 'his' version of the state of comics (he makes it sound as if the whole industry was in ruins - DC, Archie and Dell were killing it at the time) and then how his wife gave him the idea to 'do a comic HIS way' and then Martin wanted a superhero team and told Stan to put it together, and then... "It was natural for me to choose Jack Kirby to draw the new superhero book that we would soon produce."

Stan is claiming he came up with the idea. He chose Jack to draw it.

Yes, in specific terms he didn't 'claim ownership'. Goodman and Kirby were still alive at the time. He did it under handed the same way as he got rid of Goodman's son Chip at Marvel.

The same as he is laying the groundwork for sole creator status by the way he words the 'origin'.

Stan's goal from the 50's - and he thought he'd have to get there through newspaper strips - was to find an artist to latch onto - get popular, like Denis the Menace or Casper the Friendly Ghost (two he copied) - and ride it out. He saw the creativity Jack brought and latched on as the 'writer'.

(Stan also lies and says he and Jack were doing the Monster books together. Not one single Jack Kirby monster story from that era has Stan's signature on it - and Stan signed everything he did, including Paper Doll pages in Patsy Walker)

On 2/22/2024 at 11:26 PM, shadroch said:

I've done you the courtesy of ignoring your version of "facts". 

Yes, facts do frustrate those who can't handle the truth.

On 2/22/2024 at 11:26 PM, shadroch said:

I'd appreciate you doing the same.

I can't ignore facts added to the discussion that you don't make.

Edited February 23 by Prince Namor

[shadroch]

On 2/22/2024 at 12:23 PM, Dr. Haydn said:

Stan had a couple of speed demons in Kirby and Ditko. (Later, Gene Colan and John Buscema were just as fast, turning out as much as 60 pages a month). He had the good sense to stay out of everyone's way, more or less. (Plus, he could dialogue a story in a couple of days, if necessary.)

Later editors at Marvel, it seems to me, meddled a lot more, causing ruffled feelings and a lot of departures to rival DC.

You are almost saying Stan was good at his job.  Very good, even.  He assembled a great team, utilized a process that played to everyone's strengths, didn't micromanage, and guided a company about to close its door to heights undreamed of in the space of a few years. 

Decades later, he signed a series of contracts with Marvel that led him to believe he had an ownership stake.  When Marvel went bankrupt and the new owners didn't honor the deal, he sued.   That is a far cry from saying he claimed he owned and created the characters in the 1970s, when he still an employee. 

Stan helped bring Jack back to Marvel, apparently against a lot of the staff's wishes.  I'm not sure what might have happened had the roles been reversed. 

[Prince Namor]

Fact: Stan Lee stole CREDIT and PAY from those artists.

You can debate everything else all you want. It's an indisputable fact. 

Bob Kane: Vilified. (At least he paid the guys he stole credit from - and in the END admitted they deserved credit).

Stan Lee: Worshipped. (Yep. He was the promoter that Kane wasn't).

[shadroch]

So, it is agreed that he never actually claimed ownership but somehow did it in a subtle fashion so he'd have a claim twenty-five years later. 

 

The Man was a genius. 

[Aman619]

On 2/22/2024 at 9:58 PM, Prince Namor said:

In the Fireside book, Stan lays out 'his' version of the state of comics (he makes it sound as if the whole industry was in ruins - DC, Archie and Dell were killing it at the time) and then how his wife gave him the idea to 'do a comic HIS way' and then Martin wanted a superhero team and told Stan to put it together, and then... "It was natural for me to choose Jack Kirby to draw the new superhero book that we would soon produce."

Stan is claiming he came up with the idea. He chose Jack to draw it.

Yes, in specific terms he didn't 'claim ownership'. Goodman and Kirby were still alive at the time. He did it under handed the same way as he got rid of Goodman's son Chip at Marvel.

The same as he is laying the groundwork for sole creator status by the way he words the 'origin'.

Stan's goal from the 50's - and he thought he'd have to get there through newspaper strips - was to find an artist to latch onto - get popular, like Denis the Menace or Casper the Friendly Ghost (two he copied) - and ride it out. He saw the creativity Jack brought and latched on as the 'writer'.

(Stan also lies and says he and Jack were doing the Monster books together. Not one single Jack Kirby monster story from that era has Stan's signature on it - and Stan signed everything he did, including Paper Doll pages in Patsy Walker)

Yes, facts do frustrate those who can't handle the truth.

I can't ignore facts added to the discussion that you don't make.

 

Id just like to add when speaking about Stan Lee Media that in my experience you have:  it backward when describing Stan as having engineered that whole thing to his benefit.  As if HE were pulling the strings.  Peter Paul was hanging around Stan for years, introducing him to people in Hollywood/LA, getting him out with people, politicians etc.  Stan's office wall at Saban had press photos of his public appearances (not comic conventions stuff)  When Marvel went bust Paul had his shot and egged Stan into a partnership, and worked out the stuff regarding converting a penny stock public company, and floating Stan's "ownership" of the characters as collateral. Paul's plan was to put it out there, reap the press to sell SLM shares based on the "Creator of Marvel". As usual Stan was led by the nose (willingly of course) into this grand second act.  And it worked!! far better than Paul had ever imagined! Somehow with nothing more than the hype of "Stan Lee NOW on the inter webs!!" was quickly worth MORE than Marvel for a brief period of time before it all fell apart because there was nothing there!  No comics, no characters anyone knew or cared about, and no breakthrough multimedia content...  just internet 1.0 Hype devised by Paul and energetically as usual marketed by Stan. 

So many people want Stan to have been an evil genius... when he was just a guy striving in a low rent industry that became the face of the company and took too much credit. 

Edited February 23 by Aman619

[Prince Namor]

On 2/23/2024 at 10:15 AM, shadroch said:

didn't micromanage

LOL

On 2/23/2024 at 10:15 AM, shadroch said:

Decades later, he signed a series of contracts with Marvel that led him to believe he had an ownership stake. 

LOL. Yeah, poor old Stan, not even paying attention... "Look I own these characters!" LOL

On 2/23/2024 at 10:15 AM, shadroch said:

When Marvel went bankrupt and the new owners didn't honor the deal, he sued.

under threat of taking HIS characters to Stan Lee Media (and making Millions, unlawfully).

On 2/23/2024 at 10:15 AM, shadroch said:

That is a far cry from saying he claimed he owned and created the characters in the 1970s, when he still an employee.

Stan became Publisher in 1972, and was far from just an employee. He wrote 'The Origins of Marvel Comics' specifically to stake his claim as sole creator and to set himself up as owning the characters. Anyone who doesn't see that is just fooling themselves. 

On 2/23/2024 at 10:15 AM, shadroch said:

Stan helped bring Jack back to Marvel, apparently against a lot of the staff's wishes.  I'm not sure what might have happened had the roles been reversed. 

Awww. after everything Jack did for Marvel, helping make Stan a Millionaire, you mean Stan found it in his heart to let him come back? What a guy!

[Prince Namor]

On 2/23/2024 at 10:21 AM, Aman619 said:

Id just like to add when speaking about Stan Lee Media that in my experience you haveLee:  it backward when describing Stan as having engineered that whole thing to his benefit.  As if HE were pulling the strings.  Peter Paul was hanging around Stan for years, introducing him to people in Hollywood/LA, getting him out with people, politicians etc.  Stan's office wall at Saban had press photos of his public appearances (not comic conventions stuff)  When Marvel went bust Paul had his shot and egged Stan into a partnership, and worked out the stuff regarding converting a penny stock public company, and floating Stan's "ownership" of the characters as collateral. Paul's plan was to put it out there, reap the press to sell SLM shares based on the "Creator of Marvel". As usual Stan was led by the nose (willingly of course) into this grand second act.  And it worked!! far better than Paul had ever imagined! Somehow with nothing more than the hype of "Stan Lee NOW on the inter webs!!" was quickly worth MORE than Marvel for a brief period of time before it all fell apart because there was nothing there!  No comics, no characters anyone knew or cared about, and no breakthrough multimedia content...  just internet 1.0 Hype devised by Paul and energetically as usual marketed by Stan. 

So many people want Stan to have been an evil genius... when he was just a guy striving in a low rent industry that became the face of the company and took too much credit. 

Yeah except... he was the evil genius who convinced everyone he created everything and those artists were just hired hands.

I don't discount anything you say about Peter Paul, but Stan was no naive "aw shucks" grandpa who just sort of fell in with a bad guy. Stan KNEW the power of the ownership of those characters very well and had spent 30+ years positioning himself for the benefit of it. He's no innocent in all of that.

[Aman619]

Stan never thought he had an ownership of the characters.  but later on as ownership became a thing and lawsuits were being filed as the characters graduated from print to the movies, sure his people thought it was worth a shot like all the rest to assert a claim.  As an employer at Marvel he couldn't use the work for hire approach, but after bankruptcy in negotiation for an exit package and ongoing package, he did and had success.  But He always said he wished he could have bought Marvel in the late 60s , but his meagre attempts never came to gather as the owners wanted cash from bigger businesses over a less lucrative or long payout with a Stan group.

Edited February 23 by Aman619
"couldn't" not could use.

[shadroch]

After starting a dozen or so threads that all devolve into Stan bashing, why not have the decency to allow fans of the man to have one without your biased responses to every post. No one came here to argue with you, we came to celebrate Stan. You have your dozen other threads to bash him in. 

[Aman619]

yes.  he knew he had some power.. but remember at that Peter Paul moment, Stan had NOTHING.  Avi and Ike kicked him out with everyone else!. They let him market himself and Stan Lee Media as a sop to make the ouster stick.  Meaning he was allowed to promote himself with character images.

[shadroch]

On 2/22/2024 at 8:15 PM, Prince Namor said:

Fact: Stan Lee stole CREDIT and PAY from those artists.

You can debate everything else all you want. It's an indisputable fact. 

Bob Kane: Vilified. (At least he paid the guys he stole credit from - and in the END admitted they deserved credit).

Stan Lee: Worshipped. (Yep. He was the promoter that Kane wasn't).

Stan paid them exactly what they agreed to work for. They understood the process and understood their pay.  Wally Wood and some others didn't like the method and left.  Kirby and Ditko could have gone elsewhere but chose to stay.   If they felt underpaid, they had lots of options.  Ditko was easily replaced and Kirby mailed it in his last few years.  Those are facts. 

On the other hand, Marvel went through a half dozen EICs before they found someone who could handle what Stan did while working part-time, according to you. 

 

[Prince Namor]

On 2/22/2024 at 4:08 AM, Unca Ben said:

If Stan hadn't worked at marvel in the early sixties then the FF...

Yeah, you wouldn't have had the 'Marvel Age of Comics', but who knows?

Jack's Monster Books sold better than anything Marvel published leading up to that time... who's to say his Superhero stuff wouldn't have worked?

Stan had ZERO success as a writer in the business for 20 years leading up to 1960.

Kirby had multiple hits... Captain America was a Million selling comic book when it was first released, Boy Commandos sold over a MIllion Copies a month (DC's third best selling title at the time), Young Romance and Young Love sold two million copies per month... and THEN, in 1956, his Challengers of the Unknown saw great success, going from 4 of 7 issues in Showcase to it's own title in just over a year*. The Flash, who showed up in issue #4 (two months before), credited with jump-starting the Silver Age, took 2 1/2 years to get his own title.

That doesn't even count Fighting American, which is probably my favorite Kirby book of the pre-Silver Age and the closest thing to a Marvel Silver Age book before such a thing existed.

So who's to say what would've happened?

Did Lee bring out the best in Kirby and Ditko? Maybe. Then again, maybe he muted what could have been an even more fertile, creative period. 

Remember, during the 60's, those books didn't really sell compared to the big DC titles. In 1966, Metal Men was still outselling Amazing Spider-man by 50,000 copies a month. By 1969, ASM was still Marvel's best seller, FINALLY breaking the Top 10, but still outsold by Lois Lane by 20,000 copies a month and Superboy by 100,000.

That is easily Marvel's best showing of the decade.

Kirby's Jimmy Olsen outsold Lee's Fantastic Four in 1972 by over 50,000 copies a month.

Marvel's ascension to the #1 publisher had more to do with DC's failed 25 cent experiment (for a FULL year) and Marvel's reprint GLUT (as much as 40% of their line of comics, going from 355 books to 532 in one year - than anything creative they did.

As big of a logistical scheduling mess as the post-Lee editorship was, they SOLD more comics in BULK. The individual books went down for the whole decade - from the time Kirby left (Lee still wrote for 2 more years - where was the magic then?) until the end of the decade.

FF went from 285,000 to 177,000

ASM from 322,000 to 258,000

Avengers from 217,000 to 162,000

Captain America from 225,000 to 116,000!!!

Hulk from 222,000 to 171,000

Daredevil from 212,000 to 111,559!!!

Iron Man was so bad they didn't even file reports

X-Men got cancelled.

[Prince Namor]

On 2/23/2024 at 10:27 AM, Aman619 said:

Stan never thought he had an ownership of the characters.  but later on as ownership became a thing and lawsuits were being filed as the characters graduated from print to the movies, sure his people thought it was worth a shot like all the rest to assert a claim.  As an employer at Marvel he couldn't use the work for hire approach, but after bankruptcy in negotiation for an exit package and ongoing package, he did and had success.  But He always said he wished he could have bought Marvel in the late 60s , but his meagre attempts never came to gather as the owners wanted cash from bigger businesses over a less lucrative or long payout with a Stan group.

That's incorrect. As Barron's reported, his first contract, that Ike terminated leading into all of this, was based on his part in ownership of the characters.

He knew full well what he was doing.

[Prince Namor]

On 2/23/2024 at 10:29 AM, Aman619 said:

yes.  he knew he had some power.. but remember at that Peter Paul moment, Stan had NOTHING.  Avi and Ike kicked him out with everyone else!. They let him market himself and Stan Lee Media as a sop to make the ouster stick.  Meaning he was allowed to promote himself with character images.

I'm not knocking Stan for doing, in that situation, what he had to do - business to business. I'm saying he KNEW exactly what he was doing and what he had. He prepared his whole life to live off the ownership of those characters and Marvel Comics.

[Prince Namor]

Note: Showcase #4 with Flash comes out July 5th, 1956. Flash wouldn't get his own title released until December of 1958!

It would be 2 and 1/2 years until DC felt it was popular enough to carry its own title!

By that time - Challengers of the Unknown was on issue #6 of its own title!! Lois Lane was already on issue #7!

Both of those titles came AFTER Flash in Showcase...

Challengers of the Unknown would appear in a DC title 10 times (6 in its own title) before Flash would get his own book.

Lois Lane would appear in Showcase and her own title 9 times before Flash would get his own book.

If Lois Lane was selling 458,000 copies in 1960, and Challengers had the same power to get it's own title as quickly as Lois Lane... those Kirby numbers must have been upwards of 400,000 a month as well. Selling more than ANY Marvel Comic during the 1960's.

[Prince Namor]

On 2/23/2024 at 10:53 AM, shadroch said:

Stan paid them exactly what they agreed to work for. They understood the process and understood their pay.  Wally Wood and some others didn't like the method and left.  Kirby and Ditko could have gone elsewhere but chose to stay.   If they felt underpaid, they had lots of options.  Ditko was easily replaced and Kirby mailed it in his last few years.  Those are facts. 

On the other hand, Marvel went through a half dozen EICs before they found someone who could handle what Stan did while working part-time, according to you. 

 

Fact: Stan Lee stole CREDIT and PAY from those artists.