Stan Lee Lied - Your Handy Guide to Every Lie in the 'Origins of Marvel Comics' 11 11

[sfcityduck]

On 10/12/2024 at 5:15 PM, Prince Namor said:

That's not how Kirby presented ideas, at any point in his 50+ years in the business. He did it in artwork, drawings, short 5 page stories, etc.

He and Joe Simon talked.

[Prince Namor]

On 10/13/2024 at 7:11 AM, jimjum12 said:

I apologize in advance, for not providing any venom or vitriol. I'll try to do better next time, but as an aside, one of my first jobs out of art school was freelancing for a small ad agency. Thiis was all the way into the mid 80's, yet when it came time for promotion, our first avenues were ALWAYS newspaper and radio. Interviews on radio were typically free and reached gobs of people. No social media or music streaming. EVERYONE tuned in. With the Werthan era just 5 years or so prior, a scheduled interview, engineered by Stan in the early 60's, would have been very astute and an apt way to shed light on an endeavor that was planned to exceed the previous comic book efforts that ended in bonfires in Church parking lots. New York was already knee deep in cultural revolution with the Village and it's beatniks. A very possible scenariio. Mistakes are often made when assessing the past through our present-day paradigms. GOD BLESS ...

-jimbo(a friend of jesus)

 

Oh yeah... the book (pamphlet) where he claims Martin Goodman created Captain America. Thanks for bringing that up. Lee was already stealing credits as far back as the 50's. I knew this, but thanks for showing an example of it.

[VintageComics]

On 10/12/2024 at 5:15 PM, Prince Namor said:

On 10/12/2024 at 4:10 PM, VintageComics said:

Or, I can see Kirby suggesting Thor, and Stan somehow realizing that using a swinging hammer for flight as the linchpin cementing their choice.

That's not how Kirby presented ideas, at any point in his 50+ years in the business. He did it in artwork, drawings, short 5 page stories, etc.

I'm not sure what you mean by this sentence because it can be taken more than one way. Can you clarify?

Are you saying they never had conversations about characters or stories before creating published art?

And that Kirby just presented art to Stan to create ideas?

[Prince Namor]

On 10/13/2024 at 7:17 AM, Larryw7 said:

Stan wasn’t on the radio discussing Marvel as a mythology in 1961-63. C’mon!

I know, right?

The excuses are eye rolling.

[Prince Namor]

On 10/13/2024 at 7:22 AM, VintageComics said:

I'm not sure what you mean by this sentence because it can be taken more than one way. Can you clarify?

Are you saying they never had conversations about characters or stories before creating published art?

And that Kirby just presented art to Stan to create ideas?

Believe whatever you want.

[VintageComics]

On 10/12/2024 at 5:24 PM, Prince Namor said:

On 10/12/2024 at 5:22 PM, VintageComics said:

I'm not sure what you mean by this sentence because it can be taken more than one way. Can you clarify?

Are you saying they never had conversations about characters or stories before creating published art?

And that Kirby just presented art to Stan to create ideas?

Believe whatever you want.

I'm asking you what you mean to further the discussion. 

[Prince Namor]

On 10/13/2024 at 7:26 AM, VintageComics said:

I'm asking you what you mean to further the discussion. 

And I'm choosing not to.

[jimjum12]

On 10/12/2024 at 8:18 PM, Prince Namor said:

On 10/12/2024 at 7:29 PM, VintageComics said:

I wonder how many issues they had created in advance for each title, or before an issue hit the newsstands?

Month to month

They were typically 3 months ahead.... except for Neal. GOD BLESS ... 

-jimbo(a friiend of jesus)

 

 

Edited October 13 by jimjum12

[Prince Namor]

On 10/13/2024 at 7:29 AM, jimjum12 said:

They were typically 3 months ahead.... except for Neal. GOD BLESS ... 

-jimbo(a friiend of jesus)

 

They worked month to month. The SCHEDULE was three months ahead so they could put the book out on time. 

[jimjum12]

On 10/12/2024 at 8:22 PM, Prince Namor said:

Oh yeah... the book (pamphlet) where he claims Martin Goodman created Captain America. Thanks for bringing that up. Lee was already stealing credits as far back as the 50's. I knew this, but thanks for showing an example of it.

Thank you for ignoring the comments about Radio advertisement. GOD BLESS ...

-jimbo(a friend of jesus)

"Believe what you want to believe", hits here too. 

Edited October 13 by jimjum12

[VintageComics]

On 10/12/2024 at 5:23 PM, Prince Namor said:

On 10/12/2024 at 5:17 PM, Larryw7 said:

Stan wasn’t on the radio discussing Marvel as a mythology in 1961-63. C’mon!

I know, right?

The excuses are eye rolling.

 

So, does the argument rest on the use of the word mythology as being applied to Marvel in it's earliest stages?

-------------------------------------------

mythology /mĭ-thŏl′ə-jē/

noun

1. A body or collection of myths belonging to a people and addressing their origin, history, deities, ancestors, and heroes.
2. A body of myths associated with an event, individual, or institution.
3. The field of scholarship dealing with the systematic collection and study of myths.
4. The science which treats of myths; a treatise on myths.
5. A body of myths; esp., the collective myths which describe the gods of a heathen people.
   "the mythology of the Greeks"
6. The collection of myths of a people, concerning the origin of the people, history, deities, ancestors and heroes.
7. A similar body of myths concerning an event, person or institution.
8. Pervasive elements of a fictional universe that resemble a mythological universe.

[jimjum12]

On 10/12/2024 at 8:32 PM, Prince Namor said:

They worked month to month. The SCHEDULE was three months ahead so they could put the book out on time. 

That's what I just said. And actually, if we wish to be pedantic, they worked page to page. By the way, those were Ditko's words, provided by comicwiz. I had never read that interview and I applaud him for producing it in it's entirety. GOD BLESS ...

-jmbo(a friend of jesus)

[VintageComics]

On 10/12/2024 at 5:28 PM, Prince Namor said:

On 10/12/2024 at 5:26 PM, VintageComics said:

I'm asking you what you mean to further the discussion. 

And I'm choosing not to.

Is this where I use your  "You got nothing. You LOST!" line? 

 

[sfcityduck]

On 10/12/2024 at 5:17 PM, Prince Namor said:

 

They STILL use the golf game story as FACT, even though it was denied by both Donenfeld and Liebowitz.

 

And Jack went to his grave claiming he did Jimmy Olson for DC because it was their worst selling title and he wanted to show them how much he could inflate the sales. Not true.

The sad thing is that people are storytellers and sometimes they begin to believe their stories and at others they are so mad they don't give a dang.

Stan Lee and Jack Kirby acknowledged each other's role as co-creators of the Marvel Universe in the 1960s.

The cranky old man "get off of my lawn" rhetoric where they were each claiming sole credit didn't really begin in earnest until after Kirby left Marvel. Frankly, I think they were both a bit embittered. I can speculate as to why, but I don't think we'll ever really know. I'm not sure it matters. But the change in rhetoric by the two of them about the other is a sad thing to see.

 

 

Edited October 13 by sfcityduck

[Prince Namor]

A nice post from artist Drew Friedman who I interviewed for my book. He had some nice interactions with Lee as a kid - his dad worked next to Stanley in Magazine Management for over 10 years. 

https://www.facebook.com/share/p/ECHBA1Zy6wuMzzsg/

 

[sfcityduck]

On 10/12/2024 at 2:43 PM, Prince Namor said:

 

In my book, you'll find out who REALLY (most likely) influenced Kirby's look for Thor.

Jack Kirby did Thor TWICE before the version we now know. Lee never did. And Kirby never said he created Thor from out of thin air. He did say (from my book):

“I got a kick out of doing the Thor legend, which I researched.
I kind of did my version of it. They thought that Thor should have red hair and a beard, and that’s not my Thor. So I just went my own way.” 

- Jack Kirby, August 1–3, 1970: San Diego’s Golden State Comic Con (San Diego, California)

 

 

But here's the thing. Jack Kirby didn't "research" Thor. He just read juvenile level Norse mythology books. The kind a lot of kids in his day, and even into the days of my childhood, would read. They were adventure books. And for the Thor comic, Jack's ideas were just a pastiche of adventure book concepts. Here's Jack clarifying what his "research" was in the 1989 interview by Groth:

KIRBY: Yes. I loved Thor because I loved legends. I’ve always loved legends. Stan Lee was the type of guy who would never know about Balder and who would never know about the rest of the characters. I had to build up that legend of Thor in the comics.

GROTH: The whole Asgardian...

KIRBY: Yes. The whole Asgardian company, see? I built up Loki. I simply read Loki was the classic villain and, of course, all the rest of them. I even threw in the Three Musketeers. I drew them from Shakespearean figures. I combined Shakespearean figures with the Three Musketeers and came up with these three friends who supplemented Thor and his company, and this is the way I kept these strips going by creative little steps like that.

[End Quote]

He also stated in the Groth interview:

GROTH: Who came up with the name “Fantastic Four”?

KIRBY: I did. All right? I came up with all those names. I came up with Thor because I’ve always been a history buff. I know all about Thor and Balder and Mjolnir, the hammer. Nobody ever bothered with that stuff except me. I loved it in high school and I loved it in my pre-high school days. It was the thing that kept my mind off the general poverty in the area. When I went to school that’s what kept me in school — it wasn’t mathematics and it wasn’t geography; it was history.

[End Quote]

As you can see, Jack's research was just reading adventure stories when he was a kid ... just like, although he tries to spin himself as special, a lot of kids. 

Edited October 13 by sfcityduck

[Prince Namor]

On 10/13/2024 at 6:36 AM, Zonker said:

But for Stan's story to work, the radio host would have had to perceive Marvel as currently publishing a "twentieth-century mythology" (his words, not Stan's).  That radio host would have had no way to know what was in the planning stages at Marvel, just what had already been published at the time that pre-JIM #83 conversation took place.

Exactly.

If work began on Journey Into Mystery #83 in March of 1962, Marvel had just put out Hulk #1. The previous month, Fantastic Four #4 had come out. That was it. 

FF#5 and Hulk #2 had been completed or started and FF#6 would be what was part of the work load for that month.

[Prince Namor]

On 10/13/2024 at 3:17 AM, Zonker said:

There were 2 things that defied belief: The first is not on that page, but a couple of pages back the story goes that Lee was being interviewed on the radio and the host remarked that Marvel was telling a new mythology for the 20th century, and that gave Stan Lee the idea to adapt some pre-existing mythology into Marvel Comics.  It is difficult for me to believe that anyone was interviewing Stan on the radio back in 1961 before the story in JIM #83 was even in the planning stages.  This is pre-ASM #15, Amazing Fantasy #15 and very likely pre-Hulk #1.  And even if some minor local radio show did seek out the relatively unknown Stan Lee back in 1961, the entire Marvel mythology at that point in time consisted of Reed, Sue, Ben, Johnny, Sub-Mariner, and Ant Man. Not much of a pantheon yet.  It just doesn't ring true as a possible 1961 event.

Exactly.

Lee may have even sought some free radio time, but... no one was talking about a Marvel 'mythology' after 4 issues of the FF. 

On 10/13/2024 at 3:17 AM, Zonker said:

But then we get to the page I posted, and Stan has decided to adapt something from Norse mythology as a result of that radio interview.  But he doesn't know which Norse god to choose until he figures out that Thor's hammer can both be a) the weapon he's looking for his hero to wield, and b) the means for that hero to fly.  Just seems way bass-ackward to me.  The logical progression to me would be: 

Choose Thor as a heroic archetype => Define the characteristics of Thor's hammer in the Marvel U => Define how the hammer lets Thor fly

But in Stan's telling it is:

Looking for a weapon => Looking for a flight scenario => So Choose Thor (How many other Norse mythological candidates were there, realistically?) 

EDIT:  I originally typed ASM #15 when I meant Amazing Fantasy #15.

Yep.

Liars always tangle their stories up the more they speak.

[Prince Namor]

Reasons to believe Stan Lee most likely had nothing to do with the creation of Thor.

I’ll start with a quote from the most respected Marvel Comic Book Historian there is, Dr. Michael J Vassallo:

"After deep diving into the published history and careers of both creators for 30 years now, there’s no other way I can see this coming about. I do not believe the official version told since the Origins books in 1974. From a factual historical data perspective, they make no sense whatsoever. Neither does a side by side comparison of both creator’s entire careers. You’ve got to approach this like a course in medieval comparative literature, coming in with no set agenda and allowing the historical published evidence to help guide your deductions, not emotions."

With that in mind, here we go: Reasons to believe Stan Lee most likely had nothing to do with the creation of Thor.

ONE: Lee didn’t write heroic adventure stories. He had no interest in it. He had 20 years to create any type of comic book he wanted and the closest he came was the Black Knight that he ran out of interest in after 1 issue.

I posted ALL of the stories Lee signed his name to as writer, back in my year-by-year threads - the people who followed it from start to finish SEE, exactly what type of stories Lee had his hands in for the 7 years leading up to the Marvel Silver Age. There was no Flying. There were no magical hammers. There were no superheroes. There was no Outer Space. Lee had no interest in those ideas.

Again, Doc Vassallo:

“No Maneely death, no Kirby at Marvel, no Marvel universe. That's the way I see it. Maneely's death brought Jack in and it was Jack, I'm positive, who pushed the new science-fantasy direction in a genre Goodman disliked and never sold for him. Then again it was Jack who pushed superheroes. That is the damn linchpin, the dichotomy of belief in "who" exactly pushed superheroes. Stan's "Origins" stories and the ridiculous "my wife told me to do superheroes 'my' way" narrative, for a person who had exactly no interest or experience with real heroic scientific fantasy, versus someone who had been doing it all his professional life, and would continue to do so well after leaving the company. The Marvel Comics of the 1960's were launched and created/plotted by Jack Kirby (and to a slightly lesser extent, Steve Ditko), with the editor grafting dialogue after the fact. Yes, that did produce a product different than it would have been if either Kirby or Ditko did it alone, and no one is arguing that it wasn't successful. It's always just been about the creator credit. Who likes or dislikes the finished product is not the issue.”

TWO: Stan Lee signed most everything that he put his hands on, because he wanted to claim rights to it. He wanted to claim that he was a part of it. He wanted to get paid for it. His career is basically about signing other people’s work.

And Journey Into Mystery #83, he did not sign. At the time that may not  have seemed like a big deal, because Kirby had worked on Journey Into Mystery for the last two years PLUS, and Lee didn't sign any of those stories either. That's because Jack wrote those stories himself with no editorial interference. Understand that Lee was lying about the monster stories in Origins, saying that he and Jack worked on them is a complete falsehood. Lee never signed a single Kirby monster story during that time. Not a single one. ZERO.

So Jack decided to do a Thor story in Journey Into Mystery and Lee probably didn’t pay much attention to it. How can I say that? Well, in fact it wasn't just 83 he didn't sign. He didn't sign 84 or 85. So what would suddenly make #86 so significant - the fourth issue of Thor - that would make him suddenly jump on board?

Well, comics take about three months to do from start to finish (on the stands). That would, here, give Journey Into Mystery, just enough time for the letters to start pouring in - while they’re working on #86.  Lee can see its got a hugely positive reaction.

He can’t just start signing it Lee & Kirby, because…

 

THREE: THERE’S BEEN NO COLLABORATION. For the FF and Hulk… two books that Lee very OBVIOUSLY added his thoughts to - he signed them ‘Lee & Kirby’. He did this through the first 8 issues of FF and the first 4 issues of the Hulk - guess WHEN he stopped doing that and the credit boxes first popped up?

Did you say the month Journey Into Mystery #86 came out?

If you DID then you’re paying attention.

No signature of collaboration on #83-85, then suddenly a credit box on #86.

With Lee as plot and Larry Lieber as script? Why?

Because there was no collaboration on those first three issues and Lee knew he couldn’t just sign his name to the story. He COULD however claim that he let Larry dialogue the stories and take his usual credit for the plot - which is what he did. Even that’s a lie though, most likely.

 

(Kirby almost quit over it - three months later when the first book hit the stands - that and TTA and ST, and he saw it. More on this later…)

 

FOUR: Story differences. If you read Journey Into Mystery #83, 84 and 85, the untampered Jack Kirby stories in Thor (for the most part) and then read issue 90 - the first one that Larry Lieber was completely on his own to actually write a script with another artist (Al Hartley) you can see the extreme difference. EXTREME DIFFERENCE. That's not the same writer. Larry Lieber had nothing to do with Kirby’s stories BEFORE they were created. Stan Lee had nothing to do with #83-85. They began tampering with the stories in #86. When Kirby saw the credits for that book he quit - just after finishing most of #89 - reading #90, the book is finally in the hands of Lee and Lieber. And it SHOWS. One of the worst written stories of the Marvel Silver Age.

 

FIVE: Kirby had done Thor twice before and stories like that throughout his career. He obviously was very familiar with the character. Lee had never done Thor before. Lee had never done Norse characters before. Again, Lee just didn't deal in heroic adventure type of characters. It just wasn't his forte.

 

SIX: Same thing happened with Ant-man. Kirby created that on his own out of a story he had previously done. He basically just put a superhero story hidden in a sci-fi story the same as with Thor. That's why Thor fights monsters in the first issue he appeared. This is the birth of the rest of the marvel universe. Three issues in and Lee suddenly has credit boxes for it, making claim to it. He didn’t sign the first three stories, because he had nothing tod o with them - the same as he hadn’t signed ANY of Kirby’s Tales to Astonish stories for the previous 2+ years. The exact same scenario as Thor…

 

AND… just like Thor, when he sees the Lieber script credit in this book as well…

 

SEVEN: The ORIGINAL ART from Journey Into Mystery #83 is currently being scanned by writer Michael Hill (‘According to Kirby’ and ‘Kirby at Marvel’) and what we see is Kirby’s handwriting in the word balloons. He was writing the script in for the letterer. There is absolutely no reason - if he was writing from a script, for him to dialogue the word balloons. That was the letterer’s job.

In later books - we see Lee’s writing - notes for Sol - or make the arm smaller or whatever. These pages are sorely lacking Stan Lee notes (i.e. Kirby, as he’d done for the last 2+ years, turned his work in needing almost no editing). This artwork has been tucked away in a collection for decades… because it was STOLEN… but now we can see it. Kirby wrote that story from on his own, using his own dialogue.

 

EIGHT: The REASONS behind both claiming to have created this version of Thor: Lee’s are simple: Protection of Intelectual property that he was trying to secure for Marvel and of course, his own fame and ego, which he’s famous for fanning the flames of.

The first: securing rights - he’d done since as far back as 1947 with ‘Secrets Behind the Comics’. In it, Lee makes the claim that Martin Goodman created Captain America, trying to erase the fact that Jack Kirby and Joe Simon created the idea while working for Goodman. That’s not a unique scenario. Goodman cheated Carl Burgos out of the Human Torch and cheated Bill Everett out of the Sub-Mariner. (The Sub-Mariner was even PRINTED elsewhere before it was brought to Goodman.)

So in 1974, this book, ‘Origins of Marvel Comics’ wasn't anything new for Stan Lee. He was just doing it for HIMSELF now, instead of Martin Goodman. Stan Lee wanted to be thought of as the rightful ‘first sayer’ of all of these ideas.

This and the ‘ego’ are both selfish reasons, and ripe with the incentive to LIE in order to acheive those goals.

Kirby on the other hand would get nothing for his claims as to creating Thor. He wouldn’t get paid, or get residuals - nor was he trying to. Kirby never sued Marvel. Never asked for back pay, never asked for back credit… he was simply setting the record straight. Why go to all that trouble, when people are going to dispute his word, and gang up on him, and throw more hate at him?

The TRUTH.

It’s what it all comes down to.

 

That’s the ONE side of it…

The OPPOSING side claims that ‘because Stan said so’ and/or ‘because he was the editor’, as PROOF, that he created the idea of the Hammer for Thor flying, thus he should be credited as co-creator.

That’s all they have.

Because ‘Stanley said so’ and ‘Stanley was the editor’.

That’s it. LOL.

 

Again, PROOF is not on the table here. No one was there. All we can do is look at all of the available information and make a reasonable guess. I could’ve made an NINE, which would be Lee’s entire history of swindling, but I need a whole other book for that…

Beleive what you want, but…

 

Stan Lee most likely had nothing to do with the creation of Thor.

[Mmehdy]

On 10/12/2024 at 5:18 PM, sfcityduck said:

He and Joe Simon talked.

Yes he told Joe what ideas he came up with after drawing