Wolverine's co-creator has been changed to Roy Thomas??? 0

[Ryan.]

On 3/31/2024 at 4:10 PM, shadroch said:

As long as the royalty checks aren't being cut from 50-50 to 33% each, I'm glad Roy is getting paid for his work transitioning Marvel in the Bronze Age.

That's all that matters. Any decision that results in transferring more profits to the talent is a good thing. 

[Kevin76]

The comic fans know who created who, Comic creators aren't exactly taught in public schools with tests so the students grow up knowing who these creators were. The average joe couldn't care a less who created what character.  

[s-man]

You are all wrong!! 

His co-creators are....

Spoiler

Elizabeth Howlett and Thomas Logan  

 

[DougC]

On 3/31/2024 at 1:10 PM, Axelrod said:

People be claiming credit for stuff they didn't do since the beginning of people.

It has been an industry secret for over 60 years now but I actually created the idea for CGC encapsulation when I laminated a comic back in 1963. Myself and old Willy B were reading the funny pages and wanted to find a way to protect them from the red menace. At the time we just wrote on top of the laminate what the condition of the book was, this changed in 68 when we met up with true paper gangster Spencer "man of" Silver and started using post it notes.

Now that this is public, my representatives will be in contact with CGC so that I can be properly credited...

Those on the forums who want to pay proper respects can do so by selling me things HERE.

Edited April 1 by DougC

[royaluglydudes]

Roy Thomas editing a magazine with ego in the title has always been a little too on the nose for me.

[LazySundayComics]

Me, I didn't even know there was Foomerine! 'Foo-verine?? 

https://fourcolorsinners.com/2024/04/04/but-what-i-have-no-one-can-buy-an-exclusive-interview-with-andy-olsen-creator-of-the-first-wolverine/

[Prince Namor]

On 4/1/2024 at 1:17 AM, ADAMANTIUM said:

The way I'm reading it, is Marvel made the decision of using already established facts, just since he's a living body can consult and whatnot, so they changed of their own accord to include him in the royalties and basically hired him to be a living name.

I get "roy" waited so long, but I really don't thing "roy" had anything to do with it. If it was just "roy" and not Marvels idea, he would have got no where, as he didn't for 40 years.

I think this is a "Marvel decision" that everybody would think that since "ROY" has the "most to gain" he must be behind it, which is laughable given Marvels reputation with such subjects.

I don't think there was an argument in Heaven with Len Wein and Herb Trimpe rolling in their perspective graves, only that Marvel employed and gave credit established in contracts at the time, and now Marvel is changing those aspects  AND FOR WHATEVER REASON ie be it a living name to put in credits.

1)Roy just waken up one morning went to Marvel and said, "I'd like royalties?" and Marvel said "OK!" 

2)or Roy waited 40 years to "plot royalties" Ahhah! "Everyone is dead now is my chance!"

3) Or "marvel had an idea that would benefit marketing, and roy agreed"

 

No.

Roy Thomas and his 'handler' John Cimino (who stuck a camera in Steve Ditko's face) have been planning this for some time.

It's all outlined here:

https://fourcolorsinners.com/2023/12/29/such-a-shame-that-a-little-fame-and-attention-began-to-get-to-lens-head-on-roy-thomass-erasure-of-the-real-creators-of-wolverine/

 

[Prince Namor]

More:

https://fourcolorsinners.com/2024/04/02/i-hope-his-widow-gets-rich-off-it-more-on-roy-the-ghoul-and-the-power-of-recorded-statements/?fbclid=IwAR23wns97DfcAPBUWece0O1EvRHq26lPvYGVsIJTd8PWQMcKBXiT_JjRwuA_aem_AV60Vd1x8Q-wc7F3rbG4BHB3jPzeTVIGc0VQTBEIJqKahXEEwyziG5Z3oObDdCUiqJdmbus3IBV9LBtkNlK31rI2

 

[Prince Namor]

Here was my take:

The Marvel Method

Recently, I was reading what Will Byron had put together about Roy Thomas (Houseroy) and his right hand partner in Historical Manipulation, John Cimino.

 

Roy wants to become co-creator of Wolverine. Or rather HAS become. Marvel green lit the whole idea pretty easily. And to me that is what says everything about this event.

 

See Houseroy, as an editor wants to be seen as a, what they call, first sayer. According to him, he got the idea of wanting to have a character that was Canadian and who was called Wolverine and thus he is considered the originator of the idea.

Keep in mind nobody loves the character of Wolverine because his name is Wolverine and because he's Canadian, …or really even what he LOOKS like in that silly bright yellow costume. His popularity grew because of what Chris Claremont, and John Byrne did with the character in the pages of the X-Men a number of years later.

 

But that’s not how Houseroy thinks. Because that's not how Marvel thinks. Because that's not how Stan Lee thought.

 

See, back in the 40s, as much as Lee wants to pretend like he was a real writer… he wasn’t. He was an editor. He did a little bit of writing here and there. Nothing that anyone would pay attention to as special or landmark.

 

He primarily was a dude who had a job because of nepotism. There is nothing he did in the 40s that really benefited the company that can be seen. And that extends into the 50s. He was surrounded by creative people who made comics.

And those comics that Marvel did (as Atlas) in the 50s were all primarily created and put together by other editors, writers and artists. Stan wrote less than 5% of that material.

 

And again, none of it is anything that anyone really notices.

 

Stan oversaw the editors who were doing the creating. He was a Goodman go-between, handling the business of making sure others were doing their job. Occasionally, he might've come up with an idea and given it to someone. From what we know he handed out scripts to some. That's what editors do. But in general, 95% of what was done was not written by Stan Lee.

 

When the implosion happened, and it looked like Goodman was going to close the comic book portion of the business down at the very least... and make no mistake… The proof is out there… Goodman was going to shut the comicss down, plain and simple as that... Stan had nowhere else to go. Goodman, had no one else to rely on. And the reasoning behind it is very simple.

 

Stan Lee was an editor of editors. He wasn't a writer. Sure he had written some stories, but mainly he just gave ideas to some of the people and told them to do the real work. He certainly wasn't then, in the aftermath of the implosion, someone who was going to save the company. He just didn't have the talent or the means to be able to do that and keep things running.

So Goodman was going to close it down.

 

Enter Jack Kirby.

 

Kirby COULD and DID save Marvel Comics. He could, and did, write and draw his own stories. And at first that's exactly what he did. No one thought anything of it at the time because they were on the verge of going out of business.

 

As soon as the Fantastic Four became a success... the company, started to think about it in terms of ownership of creativity. Was that Stan? Maybe. Most likely it originated from Goodman. He WAS the one who cheated Kirby and Simon out of Captain America originally. Maybe he TAUGHT Stan.

 

An interesting quote from writer Leon Lazarus, that I just recently read on Wikipedia:

"…Goodman started pressuring [editor-in-chief and head writer] Stan [Lee] to have other writers do some of the stories. He wasn't sold on [the Marvel Method] of doing stories [in which writers would supply artists with a plot synopsis, rather than full script, allowing artists to tell the story's visual narrative with their own pacing and details]. He became concerned that Stan would have too much leverage over him, and he worried about what would happen if Stan ever decided to leave the company. Goodman wanted other writers as a back-up in case he needed them, so he ordered Stan to use other writers. ... Goodman told Stan to, 'Have Leon write stories.' Stan called me and up and asked if I was willing to come in and work there again. ... I didn't want to say 'no' because I was working for Goodman's men's magazines, and didn't want to lose the account. ... I only did this one story, because I wasn't comfortable with the way Stan wanted writers to work with the artists, though I see now how right he was…"

 

The Marvel method wasn't created out of Stan having too many stories to write. I suspect that Stan rarely if ever actually wrote a script or a story. If he did, I doubt it was on a regular basis. I suspect that he didn't really even write synopsis’ that he alone came up with. I suspect, he’d have a meeting or phone call with an artists and push THEM for an idea - maybe interject some stuff like “What if the Human Torch guest stars???” And then it would get typed up.

 

That’s what an EDITOR does.

 

The Marvel Method is simply him doing what he always did: give out instructions as an editor and then let the creative people do the work. As he reminded us a few times in the 60s, for some people like Jack Kirby he didn't even have to do that much. Sometimes he didn't have to do anything at all.

 

That’s how EDITORS talk.

 

John Romita: "The only thing he used to do from 1966-72 was come in and leave a note on my drawing table saying “Next Month, the Rhino.” That’s all; he wouldn’t tell me anything; how to handle it." - Comic Book Artist #6 Fall 1999.

 

THAT’S WHAT EDITORS DO.

 

And when it comes to Kirby, why would he try and do more? What had he ever done that could compare to anything that Kirby had previously ever done?

 

(Well… we SAW what happened when he took himself seriously as a writer and tried to do more. Read the Silver Surfer original series and see what really lame storytelling, combined with overwrought dialogue looks like. Great art… but what a turd of a writing job.)

Understanding this makes the idea of Larry Lieber as writing for Kirby, the biggest joke in the history of the industry. Larry Lieber writing for Jack Kirby is a bigger joke than Stan Lee writing for Jack Kirby. Stan Lee, you could at least say had worked in the business for 20 years and had been around the month-to-month, daily operation of the business. He’d probably given plenty of ideas to people from various sources, handled thousands of other people scripts, overlooked thousands of pages of artwork, made judgment calls, etc.

 

What the (heck) had Larry Lieber ever done? He didn't even own a typewriter.

 

Most likely, based upon just common sense, Goodman made Stan give Larry some work. Stan probably took those finished Kirby stories from Thor and Strange Tales and Tales to Astonish and had Larry actually type up the script for him after the artwork was already done.

 

And when Jack Kirby saw that Larry Lieber was getting CREDIT (and pay) for those scripts, he blew his top. He no longer worked on those books. And Larry Lieber on his own without Jack Kirby was a mess.

 

Never again did we see a Larry Lieber credit on a Jack Kirby story. Kirby eventually returned to Thor and eventually brought Nick Fury to modern times as an Agent of Shield and Larry Lieber limped out of the picture and went on to do some basic genre western stories.

 

Stan Lee didn't create the credit boxes to give other people credit. He created them to call himself a writer, even though he was no more than just an editor. He did it to take the pay away from the artists, the true writers of the work, and give it to himself. He just dressed it up in a way that people didn't question.

 

The Marvel Method, was simply a term of distraction from what was really going on.

 

Ownership of Intellectual Property.

 

And Houseroy is just gladly putting his hand out to try and get his share. He's spent 5 1/2 decades being a manipulative shill publisher for Marvel, I suppose he thinks he's owed that.

 

‘With Great Power’ Indeed.

[greggy]

@BlowUpTheMoon

[BlowUpTheMoon]

On 4/5/2024 at 12:46 AM, greggy said:

@BlowUpTheMoon

@greggy Thanks for bringing this to my attention. 

[Ken Aldred]

On 4/1/2024 at 4:02 AM, Kevin76 said:

The comic fans know who created who, Comic creators aren't exactly taught in public schools with tests so the students grow up knowing who these creators were. The average joe couldn't care a less who created what character.  

Fair point.  Same as with Bob Kane.  The fans know the fuller history and who actually created what, and disregard specious claims.

Personally, Thomas created a fictitious metal, and that’s about it. Minor involvement in the evolution of the character.

Edited April 5 by Ken Aldred

[Mr Sneeze]

On 4/5/2024 at 10:25 AM, Ken Aldred said:

Fair point.  Same as with Bob Kane.  The fans know the fuller history and who actually created what, and disregard specious claims.

Personally, Thomas created a fictitious metal, and that’s about it. Minor involvement in the evolution of the character.

Thomas just borrowed from Greek mythology, as did many others.

[F For Fake]

Houseroy gonna Houseroy.