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

[Prince Namor]

On 10/22/2024 at 9:31 PM, VintageComics said:

I'm not sure how you can tell me what the point of MY post is. 

My point is that you took Stan's words out of their context, edited them to create a hybrid quote which changes meaning of Stan's words and then you proceeded to build a case for a "Stan Lee lie" based on that new meaning. 

No. It was never to 'build my case'. The quotes were after thoughts.

 

I even specifically POINT out in a singular post what I meant from it:

 

Oct 4

Words mean something.

Kirby: "I researched. I kind of did my version of it."

Lee: "I could solve"

 

YOU are the one turning it into more than it is.

On 10/22/2024 at 9:31 PM, VintageComics said:

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

This is why I'm saying that:

Again, for clarity, this was your version of Stan's quote:

“As all true devotees know, every superhero needs a special quality, a special weapon of some sort… and then I realized I could solve both problems (weapon and flying) at once - with a hammer!”

The problem with your version of Stan's 'quote', is that it's a hybrid quote made up of 2 DIFFERENT, selective parts, with the 1st part of the quote found on page 162 and the 2nd part of the quote found on page 165.

THE TWO PARTS YOU USE ARE FOUR PAGES APART!!!

They're in the same paragraph. And the entire quote, actually strengthens my OPINION that he was being vague in trying to make it sound like he created the hammer FOR flying.

[Prince Namor]

On 10/22/2024 at 9:31 PM, VintageComics said:

Here's a link to the Origins intro for Thor (page 162) where PART of your hybrid quote comes from.

You can 'arrow' left and right to flip pages and everyone will see that the entire discussion focuses on mythology. 

https://readcomic.net/origins-of-marvel-comics/issue-TPB/162

Within those 4 pages ensues a detailed discussion about mythology (including Greek and Norse), even discussing some distinct attributes of those mythological characters. 

Stan says "As far as I can remember, Norse mythology turned me on." on page 162.

It's important to state that almost EVERYONE knows a little about Norse mythology, so it's not unreasonable in any way to believe that Stan would have KNOWN about it. Even the radio announcer knew about it and he's not a fantasy magazine creator. 

And so it becomes clear that by page 165, if you're reading the context properly, after discussing Norse mythology in detail, that Stan was specifically talking about finding an already established, historic 'mythological' character to use as a new hero on page 162 when he says

“As all true devotees know, every superhero needs a special quality, a special weapon of some sort"

but when it comes to the 2nd half of the statement, 4 pages later, after discussing mythological characters, Stan was looking for a solution to flying on page 165:

"and then I realized I could solve both problems (weapon and flying) at once - with a hammer!”

This whole paragraph is incorrect as I just posted the same paragraph where both statements come from.

 

On 10/22/2024 at 9:31 PM, VintageComics said:

So 1st, your edited quote by Stan makes it sound as though Stan was taking credit for giving Thor a hammer(literally), when it's clear from the full context of the Origins text that everyone had a grasp of mythology and everyone would have known Thor had a hammer.

In fact, you doubled down on it in this post 60 pages ago when you said this:

"Yeah except Lee writes 

“As all true devotees know, every superhero needs a special quality, a special weapon of some sort… and then I realized I could solve both problems (weapon and flying) at once - with a hammer!”

LOL. He IS literally saying he SOLVED the problem by giving him a special weapon - a HAMMER.

He IS saying it."

That's not what Stan was saying at all, which becomes clear once the proper context is established. 

That's my OPINION. You can't change it or tell me it's wrong, unless you have PROOF.

And neither of us was there - nor did Lee ever go back and specify. 

On 10/22/2024 at 9:31 PM, VintageComics said:

2nd, Stan was specifically talking about giving Thor the power of flight through his hammer...which is the point people like @namisgr @jimjum12 myselfand others were trying to point out to you. 

That's THEIR opinion.

On 10/22/2024 at 9:31 PM, VintageComics said:

So when you say this:

The 'camp' I'm building, is that by using two separate quotes from a larger context, changing their meaning and combining them to build your "facts" or "evidence" you are being intellectually dishonest. 

And frankly, this is just one instance, but in the larger scope of discussions, this a hallmark of your debate / discussion style. It's a perpetual pattern. 

This is the CONFLATION of facts I constantly point out that you use. You are conflating several discussions into one in an intellectually dishonest manner. 

Yes we CAN know what Stan said and meant if we read the entire context properly, and it's clear that you built your hybrid quote to weaponize Stan's words against him by mischaracterizing what he said than letting them speak for themselves. 

I did not change their meaning. And you are committing libelous statement against me. 

On 10/22/2024 at 9:31 PM, VintageComics said:

More evidence:

No Stan's quote DOES NOT contradict the Kirby quote you provided by about his "research" on mythology and so there is no lie prove be those two "facts". In fact, they complement each other in their proper context. 

Yes, Kirby had done Thor 2 times previously. NEITHER of which Kirby's 2 previous Thor iterations had the power of flight, so there's no reason to believe that Kirby gave Thor flight a 3rd time, and there's no reason to doubt Stan's claim that he felt he needed a character of flight because in Stan's editorial role, overseeing the greater universe, it's very likely that he saw the need for flight based on his assertion in those 4 pages that other characters in the Marvel canon already had that power and it made the story telling more interesting and dynamic.

So there really is no "Stan Lee lie" in that specific post. It's fabricated using intellectual dishonesty. This is how "fake news" works. 

And frankly, again, because you don't seem to be able to connect dots using logic and reason, if you took a poll I think MOST people would see it my way over your way. There is a logic chain running through my dissemination of the information. There is NOT one when interpreted your way. 

You fixate on this pair of quotes like it means something. I couldn't care less about it.

I presented my findings on why I think Lee most likely had nothing to do with the creation of Thor and you have ignored it. 

 

[RockMyAmadeus]

On 10/22/2024 at 10:28 AM, BLUECHIPCOLLECTIBLES said:

I'm a big believer in research and citation, but it ceases to be laudable or worth your time reading when a person subverts their own research by coming to it with a predetermined conclusion, disputes all evidence that doesn't lead to that conclusion and accepts all evidence that supports that conclusion even if the supporting evidence is questionable and contradictory, sums it up with hyperbolic accusations in all caps and resorts to name-calling ("apologists", "zombies") of anybody who doesn't agree with 100% of his conclusions.      

[Prince Namor]

On 10/22/2024 at 9:31 PM, VintageComics said:

and there's no reason to doubt Stan's claim that he felt he needed a character of flight

Lee had never written heroic adventure stories, yet you believe HIM.

Kirby spent his whole previous career doing it and yet you don't believe him.

That's logic?

On 10/22/2024 at 9:31 PM, VintageComics said:

because in Stan's editorial role, overseeing the greater universe,

Universe? They had two books... FF and Hulk and one was on the way to being canceled.

On 10/22/2024 at 9:31 PM, VintageComics said:

it's very likely that he saw the need for flight based on his assertion in those 4 pages that other characters in the Marvel canon already had that power and it made the story telling more interesting and dynamic.

So there really is no "Stan Lee lie" in that specific post. It's fabricated using intellectual dishonesty. This is how "fake news" works. 

And frankly, again, because you don't seem to be able to connect dots using logic and reason, if you took a poll I think MOST people would see it my way over your way. There is a logic chain running through my dissemination of the information. There is NOT one when interpreted your way. 

If you took a poll of mostly Lee fans, yes. 

You haven't proven anything in all of this.

My quote wasn't from two sentences that were 4 pages apart. My opinion is still my opinion. You have no proof of what Lee meant other than YOUR interpretation of what he wrote. It doesn't matter what any 'group' thinks. 

[RockMyAmadeus]

On 10/22/2024 at 11:04 AM, themagicrobot said:

consequently we would award nothing but "no-prizes", because if there were no winners, then there couldn't be any losers".

[Prince Namor]

On 10/22/2024 at 9:49 PM, VintageComics said:

Thanks, and I genuinely appreciate that but I've followed Chuck's discussions for years and have debated him for many of those years.

The point I'm specifically trying to make here right now is not about what he wrote in those threads or in his book, but about how he consistently forms his "evidence" and "facts" in a general sense, using one specific example in this thread. 

I've shown that it was done by being intellectually dishonest, and I contend that it's a repeating pattern. 

In fact, even if Stan Lee did lie or steal (allegedly) the point I'm building my case is on is still a clear example of this intellectual dishonesty.  

Again a libelous statement about me. My OPINION is one shared by others. If you can PROVE what Stan meant in that paragraph or chapter - stop making this about ME and DO it.

[Prince Namor]

On 10/23/2024 at 12:28 AM, BLUECHIPCOLLECTIBLES said:

I'm a big believer in research and citation, but it ceases to be laudable or worth your time reading when a person subverts their own research by coming to it with a predetermined conclusion, disputes all evidence that doesn't lead to that conclusion and accepts all evidence that supports that conclusion even if the supporting evidence is questionable and contradictory, sums it up with hyperbolic accusations in all caps and resorts to name-calling ("apologists", "zombies") of anybody who doesn't agree with 100% of his conclusions.      

Thanks for making it about ME again. 

I've dealt with this since the beginning of the thread before I did more than just post my initial opening of introducing the book.

Someone got banned from the thread on PAGE ONE.

But yeah... it's all ME.

[Prince Namor]

On 10/23/2024 at 1:04 AM, themagicrobot said:

You have to give credit to Stan for picking up on the feedback from fans in the early Fantastic Four letters pages and making them feel that just by reading the comics they were part of a select Marvel "club". Writing in the Bullpen Bulletin in FF 56 he says "We never wanted any of our treasured readers to lose a contest - consequently we would award nothing but "no-prizes", because if there were no winners, then there couldn't be any losers".

Except when he promised ACTUAL prizes and then never gave any. Like for Marvel Value Stamp Books and the Origin of the Silver Surfer contest...

[Prince Namor]

On 10/23/2024 at 2:42 AM, Mr Sneeze said:

Well I finally had a chance to read to book. I very much enjoyed it and really appreciate the hard work and passion you put in into it. For anyone on the fence, I highly recommend it. You don’t have to agree with any or all conclusions but if you are a fan of comics then there is much here to consider.

I have more to say but just wanted to get this out.

Thank you!

[sfcityduck]

On 10/21/2024 at 5:23 PM, Zonker said:

If I can butt in here, people who haven't read the book, and also haven't read the threads in question, risk getting hyper-focused on tiny bits of the argument, and assume that is the entire argument.  I confessed pages ago I haven't read the book, but that's because I followed the various threads and participated along the way, so I feel like maybe I did read an early draft version of the book. 

I've read the threads. I've argued with PN on and off on the threads. And I agree, that those threads and PN's comments on other message boards dating back at least 11 years embody an argument he's long been pushing. I'm not impressed by the argument.

I don't agree with PN's argument because it is based on the opinion that you can discern who created the characters based on the content of the stories Kirby and Lee worked on before or after those character creations occurred. I disagree with that opinion, especially to the extent that opinion is used to attempt to displace evidence of what people actually did and what they thought. But that's too broad and free-flowing an argument.

In any event, given the breadth of evidence on these topics, it appears that PN and I share the view that if you want to have a decent discussion you have to break it down to small enough pieces that they can be chewed. That's why I accepted his proposal to narrow the topic. We've now agreed to do that, and I think PN's proposal that we proceed this way was very productive and in good faith. I gave him a choice of topics and he opted to accept one of them. I think the discussion we can have on that narrow topic will be more interesting and have better analysis than the shotgunning that has been happening on this thread. I guess we'll all see.

Edited 8 hours ago by sfcityduck

[Prince Namor]

Thanks to Roy bringing this up... let's look at the FULL quote I edit for brevity:

Was Lee saying he created the idea of the Hammer? We can't know FOR SURE, but in MORE than just my opinion...

He DOES bring up other weapons that he's considering:

"A high flying diety would hardly employ a Sherman tank, or brass knuckles, or a BB gun. It would have to be something different, something unique.".... he appears to be searching for a WEAPON that HE is deciding upon. Right or Wrong? Am I reading that correctly?

"Then, another thought hit me."

"I wanted it to somehow be believable." (LOL. That one cracks me up)

"And then I realized I could solve both problems at once - with a hammer!"

 

Sure sounds to ME like he's saying he created the idea of using a hammer, so that he could make Thor fly. 

His full quote actually STRENGTHENS my opinion.

[comicwiz]

On 10/22/2024 at 3:42 PM, Mr Sneeze said:

Well I finally had a chance to read to book. I very much enjoyed it and really appreciate the hard work and passion you put in into it. For anyone on the fence, I highly recommend it. You don’t have to agree with any or all conclusions but if you are a fan of comics then there is much here to consider.

I have more to say but just wanted to get this out.

I'm jelly. I haven't had a good stretch of available time, burning the candle on both ends for the last two weeks. But I hope to be able to get some reading time over the next few weeks.

I keep finding myself taking pauses to also reconnect parts of thoughts or information I'd read or heard about in my own research undertakings, and doing ancillary research as well as updating my own notes. I was never the type to use a highlighter.

I don't think anyone is going to appreciate this book as much as me, because I feel it's so important in consolidating it all together in one massive research undertaking. Mad props to the author for this accomplishment alone!

[VintageComics]

On 10/22/2024 at 4:47 PM, Prince Namor said:

No. It was never to 'build my case'. The quotes were after thoughts.

 

I even specifically POINT out in a singular post what I meant from it:

 

Oct 4

Words mean something.

Kirby: "I researched. I kind of did my version of it."

Lee: "I could solve"

 

YOU are the one turning it into more than it is.

They're in the same paragraph. And the entire quote, actually strengthens my OPINION that he was being vague in trying to make it sound like he created the hammer FOR flying.

I want to correct myself as I was wrong. 

In speed reading (and lots of travelling over the last 5 days) I misread the Origins pages and misspoke. It was an honest mistake. 

When I was rereading page 162 in a hurry, this sentence below grabbed me and I confused it with the paragraph you got the Stan quotes from:

"And that was what grabbed me. That was the answer."

Busy again. More later. 

[Prince Namor]

On 10/22/2024 at 7:04 PM, Zonker said:

Silver Surfer might be worth its own book some day!

For the early 1960s Marvel comics, Stan's wisecracking dialogue certainly was part of the appeal.  Spider-Man's quips in the middle of tackling his latest bad guy were a lot of fun for many readers (as Ditko mentioned in one of his quotes we saw earlier).  And as the Fantastic Four were traveling through the worlds of Kirby's imagination, you could always count on the Thing to have some kind of a quip to keep the mood from remaining overly-serious.  So, when Stan launches the Silver Surfer solo book, he abandons this trademarked light touch, and instead makes the proceedings oh-so-solemn.  There wasn't a regular counterpoint in the comic like a Ben Grimm or a Johnny Storm to act as the Surfer's foil and lighten up the mood.   Apparently, the older fans loved it, as it won best story of the year in  fandom's Alley Awards during each of the two years it was eligible. But the comic seemed to not find a wide enough audience to keep it going beyond those couple of years.  Did it fail partly because it was missing that winking, in-on-the-joke aspect of many of the more successful Marvel comics? 

Or was it just a case of the higher 25 cent cover price during its first year pricing it out of the reach of its potential mass audience? 

Silver Surfer is just poorly written. It lacks any creative spark. Lee just pulls out his usual tricks - faceless alien, guest star, etc. and the Surfer has extra pages to mope and wax poetic about the same every issue. It was a drag.

GREAT art, but... the stories were just dumb.

Did it miss the wise cracks? Probably. But Lee was maybe trying to write 'grown up comics' now per his self-proclaimed reputation.

And yes, Lee's wise cracking was a part of the appeal of those comics, but... A couple of points... 

Lee had been writing those same wise cracks all through the 50's in Millie the Model, My Girl Pearl, Dexter the Demon, etc. without any notice.

Kirby had those bickering type of charcters as early as 1942 in the Newsboy Legion (Ben-Johnny-and Reed are Scrapper-Gabby-and Big Words) and as late as 1958 in Race for the Moon (see attached). The dialogue wasn’t as silly or whimsical or whatever as Lee’s, but the intent was there. And so was the SUCCESS.

[Prince Namor]

Same thing with superheroes making wise cracks while fighting... Kirby was doing that as early as 1954...

[jimjum12]

On 10/22/2024 at 5:32 PM, comicwiz said:

I don't think anyone is going to appreciate this book as much as me, because I feel it's so important in consolidating it all together in one massive research undertaking. Mad props to the author for this accomplishment alone!

This is also what I like and would be excited to see other works that compile factoids and anecdotes from this nearly" paleolithic " time while the possibility still exists. I'm interested in this era and subject and especially timelines and such. We've all read the magazines and such but quite the underbrush that becomes.  GOD BLESS ...

-jimbo(a friend of jesus)

[sfcityduck]

On 10/22/2024 at 2:41 PM, Prince Namor said:

Same thing with superheroes making wise cracks while fighting... Kirby was doing that as early as 1954...

 

It wasn't a Kirby invention. It'd been happening since at least Robin appeared in 1940. Today we'd call it a meme. And everyone in the industry knew about it.

Robin was, after all, the second most successful GA (or pre-Code if you prefer) DC superhero, and probably top 4 overall.

[sfcityduck]

On 10/22/2024 at 2:40 PM, Prince Namor said:

 

Kirby had those bickering type of charcters as early as 1942 in the Newsboy Legion (Ben-Johnny-and Reed are Scrapper-Gabby-and Big Words) and as late as 1958 in Race for the Moon (see attached). The dialogue wasn’t as silly or whimsical or whatever as Lee’s, but the intent was there. And so was the SUCCESS.

 

 

This is why I don't like shotgun discussions. They go all over the place without any digging or critical thought. GCD, for example, does not definitively credit Kirby with scripting Race for the Moon #3. And we all know that despite Kirby's claim that he "wrote everything" he ever did -- he really didn't. Otherwise, why was he paying the Wood brothers in 1958 to write the dialogue, at the very least, for Challengers and Sky Masters? Not a stretch to believe that the Wood brothers or someone else wrote the dialogue for Race to the Moon #3 issued that same year. So the foundation necessary to support this claim doesn't appear very solid.

As for "SUCCESS," didn't "Race to the Moon" last only three issues? I'd never heard of it. Doesn't seem that successful.

I do agree that Kirby or his writer's dialogue was not as "silly or whimsical" as Lee's.

Enough of this though. We can agree to disagree. Just trying to make the point to the broader group that pretty much every claim can face opposition and, especially when the claims are overly broad, the opposition will further broaden the conversation. A nice narrow and focused conversation will probably illuminate more instead of just creating an endlessly branching tree of claims of and counter-claims.

[Zonker]

On 10/22/2024 at 6:21 PM, sfcityduck said:

Robin was, after all, the second most successful GA (or pre-Code if you prefer) DC superhero, and probably top 4 overall.

Superman demands a recount. 

[sfcityduck]

On 10/22/2024 at 3:56 PM, Zonker said:

Superman demands a recount. 

For DC, Superman is no. 1! (And I think that's even without counting Superboy).

Robin is no. 2! He was with Batman in Detective, Batman and World's Finest (all three of Batman's books). PLUS he was solo in Star-Spangled more issues than Batman was solo in Detective (Batman also had some Star-Spangled appearances).

Batman no. 3! 

And if you factor in non-DC, then Captain Marvel might break into the Top 3 somewhere with with Captain Marvel, Whiz, Marvel Family and other appearances.

 

Edited 7 hours ago by sfcityduck