Stan Lee Lied - Your Handy Guide to Every Lie in the 'Origins of Marvel Comics' 9 9

[namisgr]

"With great power comes great responsibility".

Update me on who wrote that, again, for publication in Amazing Fantasy 15?

Edited Sunday at 06:51 PM by namisgr

[Mmehdy]

On 9/22/2024 at 11:42 AM, Hulksdaddy1 said:

So, we get this thing figured out, everybody's happy now? 

There is a ton of stuff not discussed which presents SM case in a much stronger light....the book, while controversial  to Lee supporters....presents a detailed blow by blow knockout of the Stan Lee myth...which he created for his sole benefit. Please if you have not..go on amazon and read the preview.....

[Mmehdy]

On 9/22/2024 at 11:48 AM, namisgr said:

"With great power comes great responsibility".

Update me on who wrote that, again?

I am surprised you did not Wikipedia it....it came from 1BC thru the "Sword of Damocles"...in other words someone...Stan, Jack stole, used it or whatever....for my gut sense....since Kirby wrote Thor so well, as well as Tales of Asgard....it could point to Kirby!!!!

EVERYONE STOLE EVERYTHING!

Edited Sunday at 06:57 PM by Mmehdy

[Prince Namor]

On 9/14/2024 at 11:20 PM, Bookery said:

Stan Lee understood ballyhoo very well.  Whether he took it to extremes others can debate.  Not my point.  He wasn't much of a writer, and wasn't an artist at all.  But he knew hype, and he put together a stable of talent to provide the solid underlying product necessary to successful self promotion.  And if he stole a lot of credit, he also allowed creators to put their names to the stories and art... something almost unheard of with other publishers.  (Would anybody know Kirby's name today if he stayed at DC in the '50s and '60s?).  And having a single personal name to build the hype around can be essential, even if it means others unfortunately get slighted.  Mike Lindell isn't designing all of those products, and Elon Musk isn't in the labs calculating structural tolerances.  But they are in charge of who they hire to do it, and how they promote it.  I don't deal in sports cards, and yet I know what the name "Beckett" is.  (I wonder if, despite their success, a company like CGC or its competitors wouldn't have been better off starting with a solid recognizable moniker rather than something that looks like a stock symbol?  It's of note that their current owner is Blackstone... a bold simple name that is a translated amalgam of the original two partners' names).

THIS is where the quote came from. Are you saying you weren't referring to Lee here?

[PopKulture]

On 9/22/2024 at 2:48 PM, namisgr said:

"With great power comes great responsibility".

Update me on who wrote that, again, for publication in Amazing Fantasy 15?

Is that particular rewording of an idea two thousand years old and espoused by various statesman, revolutionaries and politicians alike reason enough to look the other way regarding Lee’s blatant misrepresentations? Lee didn’t come close to formulating that sentiment. 

[Prince Namor]

On 9/23/2024 at 1:48 AM, namisgr said:

"With great power comes great responsibility".

Update me on who wrote that, again, for publication in Amazing Fantasy 15?

Another quote that Lee took from elsewhere. 

[Mmehdy]

On 9/22/2024 at 12:00 PM, Prince Namor said:

Another quote that Lee took from elsewhere. 

or maybe Steve....or even Jack!

[Prince Namor]

“At some point in every Martin and Lewis movie, Dean says to somebody, ‘Hey, you can’t do that to my pal.’” And I said, “Stan, no matter what they do to Jack, it’s always somebody else. You dive under the desk: ‘I’m not responsible for him being screwed, because I didn’t screw him personally.’ “ I said, “When I work with people and I get credit for their work, I go out and write a letter and I try and correct the record.” And I finally said, “I don’t understand how you can write superheroes and say, ‘With great power comes great responsibility.’” And he got furious at me and didn’t speak to me for a year and a half.”

- Mark Evanier, from Abraham Josephine Riesman for True Believer: The Rise and Fall of Stan Lee (2021).

[namisgr]

On 9/22/2024 at 2:54 PM, Mmehdy said:

I am surprised you did not Wikipedia it....it came from 1BC thru the "Sword of Damocles"...in other words someone...Stan, Jack stole, used it or whatever....for my gut sense....since Kirby wrote Thor so well, as well as Tales of Asgard....it could point to Kirby!!!!It

EVERYONE STOLE EVERYTHING!

It appeared in AF15 because Stan put it there.

[namisgr]

On 9/22/2024 at 3:00 PM, Prince Namor said:

Another quote that Lee took from elsewhere. 

You miss the point.  Steve didn't put it in AF15, Stan did.  Along with a slew of other dialog and concepts that helped make the character and title so successful.

Edited Sunday at 07:31 PM by namisgr

[bronze_rules]

FWIW, Amazon currently has a free 3 month Kindle Unlimited subscription available to Prime members - the text under discussion is available for checkout at 0.00.

Encourage anyone following along, with price as a deterrent to jump on the opportunity. I purchased mine, but it's a great deal that just happened to come out because of a 10th anniversary promo.

2nd thing that might be of interest is that the latest Jack Kirby Collector's edition at tomorrows publishing (#90) has huge coverage and detailed research of all the prior similarities Spider-Man may have borrowed from and more backstory on how it likely came about. One excellent tidbit was that Steve Ditko completely revamped the spider-man storyline that Kirby handed over to him, some of which was 5 pages with only one illustration of Spider-Man, another of which showed Spider-Man as a bulky muscular hero, with a gun holster and a gun  (There were other first hand testimonies to this, such as Jim Shooter's). One comment that was put forth was Ditko told Stan the original story was very closely related to the Archie's the Fly which Kirby had a hand in. One theory I have is Stan may have pushed the development on to Ditko, for fear of Archie Suing for Kirby theft of ideas. I've seen things like that happen with IP threats, and who knows, Goodman may have also been behind that. 

Another tidbit I came across that supports Prince Namor's contention of the 2 page synopsis Stan said he wrote before sharing the idea. In the "Stuff Said" text, Morrow shared an excellent theory that many of the pinups of the first few FF4 were likely created long before Stan created that synopsis, in order to pitch the concept to Marttin Goodman and get approval to move forward. That would support the assertion that Lee did indeed discuss it with Kirby before putting together the synopsis.

Edited Sunday at 07:51 PM by bronze_rules

[Mmehdy]

On 9/22/2024 at 12:32 PM, bronze_rules said:

FWIW, Amazon currently has a free 3 month Kindle Unlimited subscription available to Prime members - the text under discussion is available for checkout at 0.00.

Encourage anyone following along, with price as a deterrent to jump on the opportunity. I purchased mine, but it's a great deal that just happened to come out because of a 10th anniversary promo.

Amazing, no excuse now!!!!!!!! Read it and comment!

[Bookery]

On 9/22/2024 at 2:57 PM, Prince Namor said:

THIS is where the quote came from. Are you saying you weren't referring to Lee here?

That is my very first post in the thread.  Your own posts after that made me question its accuracy.  So later I simply asked who did it.  It is completely disingenuous to take my first comment (only because I thought it was true, possibly due to the false histories you speak of... not because I was defending Lee for any "lies" he told), especially when I specifically asked for the real story afterward.  Again, in context, that was simply discussing the nature and importance of ballyhoo, and Lee's role in it from a history perspective. I had no problem being corrected on that first comment if it was in error.   (You still have never said who you thought did some up with the idea, so I don't even know if my offhand mentioning this in a larger comment was truly in error or not).  You then coupled it with my actual question about who began listing credit boxes at Marvel, to make it appear as if I'm jumping on some sort of mythical Lee band wagon.  

Look -- not everyone who posts here is your enemy.  Not everyone who disagrees with you on some point is even arguing with your basic treatise.  I never wanted to argue with you.  I didn't even really debate you other than to offer some talking points or even corrections when you veered into my areas of knowledge, however limited.  I got angry above when despite my repeated attempts to tell you otherwise, and I think my posts speak for themselves to back it up, you keep wanting to make me into some sort of brain-washed anti-truther about Lee.  If I made an incorrect assumption in my first post (which you still never refuted, so I don't know how it can be labeled an "error"), I more than made up for it by asking real questions about it later.  I did claim Lee was behind Marvel's famous hype ("ballyhoo") and no one else has ever said anything to the contrary (it certainly wasn't Steve Ditko on all those shows and convention panels), but I made no other assertion about Lee's writing abilities at all, or even his managerial skills beyond being a hypester.  I couldn't have, because it's not an aspect I would claim to know.  

I keep hearing Martin Sheen in my head telling me not to leave the Gold and Pulps boat and enter into Comics General... but I never ever learn... 

[Paul © ® ⚽️💙™]

On 9/22/2024 at 8:37 PM, Bookery said:

I keep hearing Martin Sheen in my head telling me not to leave the Gold and Pulps boat and enter into Comics General... but I never ever learn... 

CG is indeed an evil place. You need three things to survive.

1. 

2.   

3.       

[PopKulture]

On 9/22/2024 at 3:37 PM, Bookery said:

I keep hearing Martin Sheen in my head telling me not to leave the Gold and Pulps boat and enter into Comics General... but I never ever learn... 

Looking for mangoes in Comics General can indeed be dangerous…

[Albert Tatlock]

Here is an example of a 50/50 team, according to one of the parties.

Which one do you reckon did the heavy lifting, and which one counted the takings?

[aszumilo]

On 9/22/2024 at 11:54 AM, Mmehdy said:

I am surprised you did not Wikipedia it....it came from 1BC thru the "Sword of Damocles"...in other words someone...Stan, Jack stole, used it or whatever....for my gut sense....since Kirby wrote Thor so well, as well as Tales of Asgard....it could point to Kirby!!!!

EVERYONE STOLE EVERYTHING!

And everyone lied.

[Prince Namor]

On 9/23/2024 at 2:30 AM, namisgr said:

You miss the point.  Steve didn't put it in AF15, Stan did.  Along with a slew of other dialog and concepts that helped make the character and title so successful.

And... that gives him the right to steal credit and pay from the artists who wrote the books?

[Albert Tatlock]

On 9/22/2024 at 8:00 PM, Prince Namor said:

Another quote that Lee took from elsewhere. 

QI has found a strong match during the period of the French Revolution. The following passage appeared with a date of May 8, 1793 in a collection of the decrees made by the French National Convention. Boldface has been added to excerpts:[1]

Les Représentans du peuple se rendront à leur destination, investis de la plus haute confiance et de pouvoirs illimités. Ils vont déployer un grand caractère. Ils doivent envisager qu’une grande responsabilité est la suite inséparable d’un grand pouvoir. Ce sera à leur énergie, à leur courage, et sur-tout à leur prudence, qu’ils devront leur succès et leur gloire.

Here’s one possible translation into English:

The people’s representatives will reach their destination, invested with the highest confidence and unlimited power. They will show great character. They must consider that great responsibility follows inseparably from great power. To their energy, to their courage, and above all to their prudence, they shall owe their success and their glory.

Prominent leaders such as Lord Melbourne, Winston Churchill, Teddy Roosevelt, and Franklin D. Roosevelt made similar statements in later years.

[namisgr]

On 9/22/2024 at 4:09 PM, Prince Namor said:

And... that gives him the right to steal credit and pay from the artists who wrote the books?

It is but one example of the contributions that give him co-creator and writer credits for the title.  

Why you'd bring up credit and pay due to artists over this particular unrelated issue is puzzling.

Edited Sunday at 08:13 PM by namisgr