Face front, true believers!
February 25, 2016 9:16 AM Subscribe
Heh. We need a tag for that or something.
posted by Artw at 9:22 AM on February 25, 2016 [2 favorites]
posted by Artw at 9:22 AM on February 25, 2016 [2 favorites]
a "nobit", if you will.
posted by boo_radley at 9:30 AM on February 25, 2016 [31 favorites]
posted by boo_radley at 9:30 AM on February 25, 2016 [31 favorites]
All of which should mean there’s never been a better time to be Stan Lee. But watching him over the last year, ... it’s hard to avoid the impression that, in what should be his golden period, Lee is actually playing the role of a tragic figure, even a pathetic one.
See this? This a violin on Pym Particles.*
-J.Kirby
Just kiddin'. It's a Kirby Dot!
posted by eclectist at 9:30 AM on February 25, 2016 [23 favorites]
See this? This a violin on Pym Particles.*
-J.Kirby
Just kiddin'. It's a Kirby Dot!
posted by eclectist at 9:30 AM on February 25, 2016 [23 favorites]
Perhaps most important for today’s Hollywood, he crafted the concept of an intricate, interlinked "shared universe," in which characters from individually important franchises interact with and affect one another to form an immersive fictional tapestry...but the Justice League debuted in 1960, establishing that the DC universe was also a shared (if inconsistently manged) continuity, at least contemporaneously to Lee and Kirby and Ditko, et al, creating the Marvel Universe.
posted by Gelatin at 9:38 AM on February 25, 2016 [1 favorite]
So why, at 93, is his legacy in question?I can think of at least one good reason.
posted by pxe2000 at 9:39 AM on February 25, 2016 [3 favorites]
For me, his legacy is the awful, forced cameos that instantly take me out of whatever movie or show I'm watching.
What I'm saying is that he's modern Marvell's Jar Jar.
posted by ArmandoAkimbo at 9:46 AM on February 25, 2016 [6 favorites]
What I'm saying is that he's modern Marvell's Jar Jar.
posted by ArmandoAkimbo at 9:46 AM on February 25, 2016 [6 favorites]
I understand the reasons why the article starts with the present, but it seems odd to conflate the current out put from Stan Lee, which seems like a case of "93 year old less in touch with the zeitgeist than he was fifty-years ago,"* with the issues with Kirby and Ditko, which get at the question of how much credit he should get for the stuff that happened way back when. Nothing that Stan Lee does now will matter for his legacy, and even the grousing about his cameos (which I do too!), will die down when he dies. Stan Lee's legacy hinges on how much history decides he's responsible for the genius of the 60s Marvel output that has his name on it.
*Although I'm really enjoying saying "Dragons vs. Pandas" to myself right now
posted by Bulgaroktonos at 9:47 AM on February 25, 2016 [5 favorites]
*Although I'm really enjoying saying "Dragons vs. Pandas" to myself right now
posted by Bulgaroktonos at 9:47 AM on February 25, 2016 [5 favorites]
What I'm saying is that he's modern Marvell's Jar Jar.
*snikt*
posted by entropicamericana at 9:49 AM on February 25, 2016 [10 favorites]
*snikt*
posted by entropicamericana at 9:49 AM on February 25, 2016 [10 favorites]
You either die a hero or live long enough to see yourself- oh wait wrong universe.
I liked the article. It covered a lot of ground and had some insightful moments. Still, I'm a bit baffled by the hand-wringing over "oh this should be his finest hour but instead all the cracks are showing." Seems a bit silly: as the article itself says Stan Lee's "second act" was his moment of glory. Surely we're well into at least his 3rd or 4th act by now; he's a aging lion and of course looks less "great" than he once might have. It's like writing about late-Alzheimer's Regan and bemoaning that he no longer influenced politics as strongly as he did as President.
posted by Wretch729 at 9:49 AM on February 25, 2016 [6 favorites]
I liked the article. It covered a lot of ground and had some insightful moments. Still, I'm a bit baffled by the hand-wringing over "oh this should be his finest hour but instead all the cracks are showing." Seems a bit silly: as the article itself says Stan Lee's "second act" was his moment of glory. Surely we're well into at least his 3rd or 4th act by now; he's a aging lion and of course looks less "great" than he once might have. It's like writing about late-Alzheimer's Regan and bemoaning that he no longer influenced politics as strongly as he did as President.
posted by Wretch729 at 9:49 AM on February 25, 2016 [6 favorites]
I've kinda come around on Stan. Ditko received a plot credit on his work; by one account, at least, the reason why Ditko left Spider-Man was that he and Stan disagreed on a major plot point. That sounds to me like two guys both quite committed to the stories they wanted to tell. Similarly, Kirby created the Silver Surfer, but Stan created an elaborate origin story that...apparently really bummed Kirby out, because it had nothing to do with what Kirby had envisioned. When you see Kirby's uninked pencils, they're often filled with dialogue suggestions that ran counter to what Stan would write before the book was published. So it's less that Ditko and Kirby weren't writing and more that...well...Stan overwrote them. Kind of a lot.
Even if Stan only wrote dialogue for almost all of the Marvels published in the 1960s, this is a mindboggling amount of work -- rivaled only by the even more mindboggling number of pages that Kirby pencilled. It's also highly significant work. Read any DC book from around the same time and it is immediately evident what Stan was bringing to the table.
The real problem is that Stan said it was all him. This is just not true. And it's not true that it was all Jack, either, although a Stanless version of a Marvel Kirby may have been possible, depending on how much story input Lee brought to Kirby before art began (accounts vary). But it would certainly not be any Marvel Kirby like one we know from the '60s. The same's true of Ditko. Ditko has written plenty of his own work, and most of it is...well, again, it's different. Would a Spider-Man written and drawn by Ditko have been a hit? It might have, but I doubt any of the stuff we know about Spider-Man as a character would have been there in his version. That's Stan's work, and it's clearly important.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 9:53 AM on February 25, 2016 [19 favorites]
Even if Stan only wrote dialogue for almost all of the Marvels published in the 1960s, this is a mindboggling amount of work -- rivaled only by the even more mindboggling number of pages that Kirby pencilled. It's also highly significant work. Read any DC book from around the same time and it is immediately evident what Stan was bringing to the table.
The real problem is that Stan said it was all him. This is just not true. And it's not true that it was all Jack, either, although a Stanless version of a Marvel Kirby may have been possible, depending on how much story input Lee brought to Kirby before art began (accounts vary). But it would certainly not be any Marvel Kirby like one we know from the '60s. The same's true of Ditko. Ditko has written plenty of his own work, and most of it is...well, again, it's different. Would a Spider-Man written and drawn by Ditko have been a hit? It might have, but I doubt any of the stuff we know about Spider-Man as a character would have been there in his version. That's Stan's work, and it's clearly important.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 9:53 AM on February 25, 2016 [19 favorites]
Bashing Stan lee now is like waiting for a prize fighter to be too old to fight back, and then calling his success into question because it's timely. This is a journalist ( I use that term lightly ) who had to make a deadline and was told to go after Stan Lee.
Total crap, regardless. He wrote some comic books. He worked at Marvel. He's older than most of us will get to be. Journalism isn't anymore. It's insignificant musings of people who can't report any real news so they write fluff like this. This piece is a waste of space by an editorial staff that has zero respect. Vulture sucks.
posted by .wal at 10:01 AM on February 25, 2016 [7 favorites]
Total crap, regardless. He wrote some comic books. He worked at Marvel. He's older than most of us will get to be. Journalism isn't anymore. It's insignificant musings of people who can't report any real news so they write fluff like this. This piece is a waste of space by an editorial staff that has zero respect. Vulture sucks.
posted by .wal at 10:01 AM on February 25, 2016 [7 favorites]
Well, Stan Lee is certainly no Bob Kane. But I do think it's totally valid to criticise the way he sold himself throughout the 90s and 2000s as, like, the guy behind all that Marvel stuff the kids love, rather than one of the guys behind all that Marvel stuff the kids love.
posted by tobascodagama at 10:06 AM on February 25, 2016 [5 favorites]
posted by tobascodagama at 10:06 AM on February 25, 2016 [5 favorites]
"I served with Jack Kirby. Jack Kirby was a friend of mine. You, sir, are no Jack Kirby."
posted by Mr.Encyclopedia at 10:07 AM on February 25, 2016 [3 favorites]
posted by Mr.Encyclopedia at 10:07 AM on February 25, 2016 [3 favorites]
It's the division between Lee and Kirby that gets most people upset. Lee is widely regarded as the mostly business guy who kicked the mostly creative Kirby out when the latter asked about getting paid part of the profits. I think a major part of the creators' rights movement can be traced back to that interaction. It's hardly the only instance, but it's still current in living memory, if only just. (Ditko too, but he went kinda nuts.)
After their split, Kirby moved over to DC and continued being awesome. It's inarguable that Kirby never needed Lee creatively as he had many productive years at DC (Darkseid is his, for example). The reverse is no where near as clear cut, so Lee's claims about being the prime mover behind the Marvel creative surge in the 60s are a little more suspect. At least, that's my reading of it as a 70s comic kid.
posted by bonehead at 10:18 AM on February 25, 2016 [3 favorites]
After their split, Kirby moved over to DC and continued being awesome. It's inarguable that Kirby never needed Lee creatively as he had many productive years at DC (Darkseid is his, for example). The reverse is no where near as clear cut, so Lee's claims about being the prime mover behind the Marvel creative surge in the 60s are a little more suspect. At least, that's my reading of it as a 70s comic kid.
posted by bonehead at 10:18 AM on February 25, 2016 [3 favorites]
Stan Lee was the frontman for a band that put out some pretty major hits in its heyday. There's bound to be some arguments over who the real songwriter is when one person does the music and someone else does the lyrics, and generally speaking, people tend to give the frontman credit they may not deserve as much as they think they do.
A good band needs a good frontman, though, or nobody's ever gonna know they're any good. Stan was and is a good frontman, and you sorta have to forgive him for believing his own hype - it comes with the territory.
posted by Mooski at 10:19 AM on February 25, 2016 [13 favorites]
A good band needs a good frontman, though, or nobody's ever gonna know they're any good. Stan was and is a good frontman, and you sorta have to forgive him for believing his own hype - it comes with the territory.
posted by Mooski at 10:19 AM on February 25, 2016 [13 favorites]
I'm just gonna drop Chris Sims' take on Lee right here.
posted by suetanvil at 10:38 AM on February 25, 2016 [10 favorites]
posted by suetanvil at 10:38 AM on February 25, 2016 [10 favorites]
It's inarguable that Kirby never needed Lee creatively as he had many productive years at DC (Darkseid is his, for example).
I'd accept an argument that Lee without Kirby or Ditko wouldn't have gotten anywhere, but I also think the whole of those partnerships was greater than the sum of their parts.
I have the hardcovers of the Fourth World collections, and OMAC, and I think DC-era Kirby was super groovy and doing all sorts of neat stuff, but there's a reason that the Fantastic Four, Spider-Man, and the Avengers are timeless and the New Gods and OMAC have contributed a handful of lasting characters to the canon but are mostly just kind of out there. Kirby running his own show is interesting but not necessarily intelligible.
He's the best of the trinity with solo work -- solo Stan gives you Stripperella, solo Ditko gives you weird Ayn Rand fan art. But I wouldn't rank the best of solo Kirby in the same class as the best of Kirby/Lee by a long shot.
As mentioned above, Lee "overwrote" Kirby and Ditko, and if you look at their collective output, and any of their solo output, it's pretty evident that Lee was a catalyst/editor/reagent that could elevate and enhance their combined work.
posted by Shepherd at 10:40 AM on February 25, 2016 [30 favorites]
I'd accept an argument that Lee without Kirby or Ditko wouldn't have gotten anywhere, but I also think the whole of those partnerships was greater than the sum of their parts.
I have the hardcovers of the Fourth World collections, and OMAC, and I think DC-era Kirby was super groovy and doing all sorts of neat stuff, but there's a reason that the Fantastic Four, Spider-Man, and the Avengers are timeless and the New Gods and OMAC have contributed a handful of lasting characters to the canon but are mostly just kind of out there. Kirby running his own show is interesting but not necessarily intelligible.
He's the best of the trinity with solo work -- solo Stan gives you Stripperella, solo Ditko gives you weird Ayn Rand fan art. But I wouldn't rank the best of solo Kirby in the same class as the best of Kirby/Lee by a long shot.
As mentioned above, Lee "overwrote" Kirby and Ditko, and if you look at their collective output, and any of their solo output, it's pretty evident that Lee was a catalyst/editor/reagent that could elevate and enhance their combined work.
posted by Shepherd at 10:40 AM on February 25, 2016 [30 favorites]
Stan Lee was the Steve Jobs of Marvel. They both were showmen who surrounded themselves with the most talented people in the business, and then took credit for their work. They also took companies that, by all rights, were almost completely dead, and turned them around into industry leaders within a decade.
While Stan doesn't deserve credit for most of what of what he claims, the fact of the matter is that Kirby and Ditko did the best work of their careers working with Lee, the difference being that the stories that they did with Lee are far more focused on characterization and interpersonal relationships than anything else they've ever done. Lee does deserve his props as one of the greatest editors in the history of comics, he lifted comics past its pulp fiction origins into something far more rich and mature. His influence on all of pop culture is profound.
posted by 1970s Antihero at 10:44 AM on February 25, 2016 [16 favorites]
While Stan doesn't deserve credit for most of what of what he claims, the fact of the matter is that Kirby and Ditko did the best work of their careers working with Lee, the difference being that the stories that they did with Lee are far more focused on characterization and interpersonal relationships than anything else they've ever done. Lee does deserve his props as one of the greatest editors in the history of comics, he lifted comics past its pulp fiction origins into something far more rich and mature. His influence on all of pop culture is profound.
posted by 1970s Antihero at 10:44 AM on February 25, 2016 [16 favorites]
Yeah, I love The Fourth World with all my heart, and it's whole bombastic style, but ask Kirby to do anything a bit more human scale and its going to go to pieces rapidly. And it's not like Lee stopped churning out the classics the moment Kirby and Ditkon were out the door or Kirby and Ditko didn't have their own periods of creative decline.
posted by Artw at 10:57 AM on February 25, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by Artw at 10:57 AM on February 25, 2016 [1 favorite]
Sims take is probably the most balanced thing on Lee I've read in a long time. I hadn't seen that before, thanks suetanvil.
Still, it's hard not to take from that the feeling that even though he might have been a great editor (Though best? Karen Berger would like a word), he sure climbed over a lot of people to get there.
posted by bonehead at 10:58 AM on February 25, 2016 [1 favorite]
Still, it's hard not to take from that the feeling that even though he might have been a great editor (Though best? Karen Berger would like a word), he sure climbed over a lot of people to get there.
posted by bonehead at 10:58 AM on February 25, 2016 [1 favorite]
I have the hardcovers of the Fourth World collections, and OMAC, and I think DC-era Kirby was super groovy and doing all sorts of neat stuff, but there's a reason that the Fantastic Four, Spider-Man, and the Avengers are timeless and the New Gods and OMAC have contributed a handful of lasting characters to the canon but are mostly just kind of out there. Kirby running his own show is interesting but not necessarily intelligible.
That was my exact thought. Kirby did some fascinating, trippy, work at DC. But nothing he wrote there had the resonance of his work at Marvel.
posted by protocoach at 10:59 AM on February 25, 2016 [1 favorite]
That was my exact thought. Kirby did some fascinating, trippy, work at DC. But nothing he wrote there had the resonance of his work at Marvel.
posted by protocoach at 10:59 AM on February 25, 2016 [1 favorite]
I'm not sure why it's so surprising that Stan Lee is in his twilight years instead of his golden years. He's old. He gets those cameos as an aging grandpa.
posted by Rainbo Vagrant at 11:08 AM on February 25, 2016
posted by Rainbo Vagrant at 11:08 AM on February 25, 2016
That was my exact thought. Kirby did some fascinating, trippy, work at DC. But nothing he wrote there had the resonance of his work at Marvel.
Honestly, I think New Gods is the apex of Kirby's work, but I basically agree with this conclusion. In terms of influence, there's no question Kirby's Marvel work is the biggest deal.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 11:08 AM on February 25, 2016
Honestly, I think New Gods is the apex of Kirby's work, but I basically agree with this conclusion. In terms of influence, there's no question Kirby's Marvel work is the biggest deal.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 11:08 AM on February 25, 2016
Vulture sucks.
Yeah, I'd much rather that Spider-Man go up against Mysterio or Doc Ock.
posted by radwolf76 at 11:12 AM on February 25, 2016 [13 favorites]
Yeah, I'd much rather that Spider-Man go up against Mysterio or Doc Ock.
posted by radwolf76 at 11:12 AM on February 25, 2016 [13 favorites]
ask Kirby to do anything a bit more human scale and its going to go to pieces rapidly
Which is weird considering the years he spent working on Young Romance with Simon.
posted by robocop is bleeding at 11:17 AM on February 25, 2016 [3 favorites]
Which is weird considering the years he spent working on Young Romance with Simon.
posted by robocop is bleeding at 11:17 AM on February 25, 2016 [3 favorites]
"When you talk to Stan Lee, when he turns the Stan Lee act off, he’s a very decent human being who is chronically obsessed with himself. He’s very insecure. Those of us who have trouble being angry for some of the things that happened, it's because we saw the real human being there at times.”I worked at Stan Lee Media - I never really interacted with Stan beyond being introduced when I was hired and exchanging the occasional hallway or elevator greeting... but I agree 100% about real human part. The Stan Lee huckster act was on most of the time (Most of his tv interviews were shot in a neighboring cubicle in the web department, which was lavishly decorated with leftover stuff from some Stan Lee comic book theme restaurant that had failed a year or two before) but I also got to see him when he wasn't "on stage," so to speak, and he never struck me as anything but a genuinely kind and pleasant man.
I'll also agree 100% with the article's assertion that SLM was a complete disaster, having been conceived by Peter Paul as a swindle from the beginning with Stan as an unwitting participant. The scam wasn't evident at the time, but the trainwreck factor was. The business model, such as it was, was for Stan to come up with new superheroes (The Seventh Portal, The Accuser, The Drifter) and for a hugely expensive stable of writers/artists/voice actors/animators to turn them into seven minute web animations, with new episodes to be released for free every two weeks. Then ???, then Profit!
The problem was that Stan had hired a couple of fellow 1960s comic book buddies as head writers, and his new characters all felt like tired, generic retreads. Everything was just unintentionally hokey and completely out of touch with what internet-savvy kids-those-days might have been interested in. (Our chief competition in terms of episodic web content was Icebox, who were doing considerably edgier stuff that was actually entertaining.) The other part of the business model was taking celebrities and making them into superheroes (The Backstreet Project, Mary J. Blige) which again was somehow supposed to lead to profit someday. Oh, and for some reason that none of us could ever fathom, George Hamilton was "President of global branded entertainment".
I don't know how differently things might have gone if Stan had partnered with someone who actually cared about the success of the company; even then his celebrity brand was all about Marvel, and 16 years later it's a weird mix of being famous for Marvel comics and being famous for being Stan Lee.
posted by usonian at 11:24 AM on February 25, 2016 [9 favorites]
...he sure climbed over a lot of people to get there.
Maybe. My most-charitable take on this is that, as the only guy with good schmoozing and PR skills, representing the industry just sort of fell on him. And in that capacity, he had lots of conversations of the form:
posted by suetanvil at 11:31 AM on February 25, 2016 [13 favorites]
Maybe. My most-charitable take on this is that, as the only guy with good schmoozing and PR skills, representing the industry just sort of fell on him. And in that capacity, he had lots of conversations of the form:
Person: Oh, so you make the Spiderman comics?I'm inclined to think that it comes from there more than pure bastardry given that Lee was the reason we know who Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko got credit at all.
Lee: Actually, I work with a team of creative and talented people.
(Later)
Person: Oh, so you make the Spiderman comics?
Lee: Actually, I work with a team of creative and talented people.
(Later)
Person: Oh, so you make the Spiderman comics?
Lee: Actually, I work with a team of creative and talented people.
(Repeat 10000 times)
Person: Oh, so you make the Spiderman comics?
Lee: ... Yeah, that's me.
posted by suetanvil at 11:31 AM on February 25, 2016 [13 favorites]
This piece is a waste of space by an editorial staff that has zero respect.
I thought it was kinder to Stan than a lot of comics fans are these days.
My inclination, which is I think is not an uncommon position, is to give him limited credit for character concepts - which Jack Kirby did like most people breathe - but plenty for his voice, which is all over old Marvel stuff.
posted by atoxyl at 11:35 AM on February 25, 2016 [1 favorite]
I thought it was kinder to Stan than a lot of comics fans are these days.
My inclination, which is I think is not an uncommon position, is to give him limited credit for character concepts - which Jack Kirby did like most people breathe - but plenty for his voice, which is all over old Marvel stuff.
posted by atoxyl at 11:35 AM on February 25, 2016 [1 favorite]
industry just sort of fell on him.
After the comic book industry had one of its periodic implosions in the late 1950s, he was literally the only employee left working for Martin Goodman.
posted by 1970s Antihero at 11:35 AM on February 25, 2016
After the comic book industry had one of its periodic implosions in the late 1950s, he was literally the only employee left working for Martin Goodman.
posted by 1970s Antihero at 11:35 AM on February 25, 2016
This is a journalist ( I use that term lightly ) who had to make a deadline and was told to go after Stan Lee.
We must have read two different articles.
posted by Shmuel510 at 11:43 AM on February 25, 2016 [2 favorites]
We must have read two different articles.
posted by Shmuel510 at 11:43 AM on February 25, 2016 [2 favorites]
The Inquisition of Mr. Marvel, from Grantland, in a similar vein.
posted by bonehead at 11:56 AM on February 25, 2016
posted by bonehead at 11:56 AM on February 25, 2016
That was my exact thought. Kirby did some fascinating, trippy, work at DC. But nothing he wrote there had the resonance of his work at Marvel.
I'm not sure that his best work at Marvel was due to Lee's direct contributions or whether it was the more supportive atmosphere at Marvel, as opposed to DC's stick in the mud old guard editorial regime even under Carmine Infantino, but clearly he could do things at the House of Ideas he could never do elsewhere since.
Kirby may not have needed Lee as much as vice versa, but it's clear he did do his best work either with him or with Joe Simon back in the forties and fifties, having a creative partner to bounce ideas off off and occassionally ground his wilder fancies.
posted by MartinWisse at 12:01 PM on February 25, 2016 [1 favorite]
I'm not sure that his best work at Marvel was due to Lee's direct contributions or whether it was the more supportive atmosphere at Marvel, as opposed to DC's stick in the mud old guard editorial regime even under Carmine Infantino, but clearly he could do things at the House of Ideas he could never do elsewhere since.
Kirby may not have needed Lee as much as vice versa, but it's clear he did do his best work either with him or with Joe Simon back in the forties and fifties, having a creative partner to bounce ideas off off and occassionally ground his wilder fancies.
posted by MartinWisse at 12:01 PM on February 25, 2016 [1 favorite]
This is a journalist ( I use that term lightly ) who had to make a deadline and was told to go after Stan Lee.
Did we read the same article? Stan Lee's legacy has been in question since long before Abraham Riesman came along, but this is a tremendously affectionate depiction of Stan Lee which really goes out of its way to cushion or mitigate some of the more serious charges against him, without exculpating him of wrongdoing. I mean, in the last few paragraphs, he lays out his position in no uncertain terms:
Before reporting this article, I’d never had to come up with my own estimation of what Lee means to the world, much less to me, and I had whiplash-inducing changes of heart while reading about him. But his greatest sin was probably overreach: He accomplished so much, but he wanted to claim more; he was a brilliant craftsman in his prime, but he kept creating when he might have been better suited to retirement. Like the superheroes whose stories he wrote, he is a flawed being, capable of pettiness and hubris. But he’s put too much love and joy into the world — into my world — for me to even come close to deriding him.
This puts me in league with the friends and colleagues of his that I interviewed. We understand that he erred, but that only forces us to try harder to understand him and see the man in full. “I think he'll be remembered as the guy who gave the world the Marvel universe,” says Thomas. “I know various others of us — Jack and Steve — were very important in that. But without Stan Lee, there is no Marvel universe. He’s the one who had the vision.”
It's also, for my money, extremely well-written and -researched. You may ultimately disagree with his conclusions, and that's cool, but hackery this isn't.
posted by Errant at 12:04 PM on February 25, 2016 [6 favorites]
Did we read the same article? Stan Lee's legacy has been in question since long before Abraham Riesman came along, but this is a tremendously affectionate depiction of Stan Lee which really goes out of its way to cushion or mitigate some of the more serious charges against him, without exculpating him of wrongdoing. I mean, in the last few paragraphs, he lays out his position in no uncertain terms:
Before reporting this article, I’d never had to come up with my own estimation of what Lee means to the world, much less to me, and I had whiplash-inducing changes of heart while reading about him. But his greatest sin was probably overreach: He accomplished so much, but he wanted to claim more; he was a brilliant craftsman in his prime, but he kept creating when he might have been better suited to retirement. Like the superheroes whose stories he wrote, he is a flawed being, capable of pettiness and hubris. But he’s put too much love and joy into the world — into my world — for me to even come close to deriding him.
This puts me in league with the friends and colleagues of his that I interviewed. We understand that he erred, but that only forces us to try harder to understand him and see the man in full. “I think he'll be remembered as the guy who gave the world the Marvel universe,” says Thomas. “I know various others of us — Jack and Steve — were very important in that. But without Stan Lee, there is no Marvel universe. He’s the one who had the vision.”
It's also, for my money, extremely well-written and -researched. You may ultimately disagree with his conclusions, and that's cool, but hackery this isn't.
posted by Errant at 12:04 PM on February 25, 2016 [6 favorites]
radwolf76: "Yeah, I'd much rather that Spider-Man go up against Mysterio or Doc Ock."
A brick!?!?!? FAPPO!
posted by boo_radley at 12:17 PM on February 25, 2016 [1 favorite]
A brick!?!?!? FAPPO!
posted by boo_radley at 12:17 PM on February 25, 2016 [1 favorite]
Perhaps most important for today’s Hollywood, he crafted the concept of an intricate, interlinked "shared universe," in which characters from individually important franchises interact with and affect one another to form an immersive fictional tapestry...but the Justice League debuted in 1960, establishing that the DC universe was also a shared (if inconsistently manged) continuity, at least contemporaneously to Lee and Kirby and Ditko, et al, creating the Marvel Universe.
Or, you know, the cross-pollination between Lovecraft, Robert Howard, Clark Ashton Smith, and many others in the pulps of the 1920s and 30s.
posted by belarius at 12:26 PM on February 25, 2016 [2 favorites]
I'd argue there's an important distinction between having a shared universe and merely having characters crossover - I think HPL and chums might have been closer to that than the early DC "universe" TBH.
posted by Artw at 12:32 PM on February 25, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by Artw at 12:32 PM on February 25, 2016 [1 favorite]
He's the best of the trinity with solo work -- solo Stan gives you Stripperella, solo Ditko gives you weird Ayn Rand fan art. But I wouldn't rank the best of solo Kirby in the same class as the best of Kirby/Lee by a long shot.
Well, let's first make the point--a little obvious, but still important--that there is no "solo" Stan, because he can't draw. But I think that there's a bigger point here, which is that Lee's real genius is in self-promotion, and he put in quite a lot of work personally promoting Marvel's 1960s superheroes. (This is acknowledged, in a backhanded sort of way, by Kirby in his creation of "Funky Flashman", the indefatigable promoter in Mister Miracle. Flashman's sidekick is Houseroy, an even more-thinly-disguised Roy Thomas.) This is obviously self-serving, as he had credits for writing those characters. Unlike Lee, Kirby wasn't part of the management hierarchy at DC, and didn't get to self-promote within the organization; in fact, he butted heads with them over incorporating the New Gods into DC continuity, and eventually left and went back to Marvel for a while. The New Gods/Fourth World stuff was occasionally used thereafter, but didn't seem to be that important to DC... until after Kirby died in 1994, after which Darkseid became the cosmic-level Big Bad at DC. You keep those characters alive, give them to fresh new writers to work their magic on, and it makes your own status as founding father a bit shinier by association. You don't, and people have to make a point of digging through yellowing piles of newsprint at comics stores to see what all the fuss was about. (Or at least they had to, before digitization and the explosion of TPBs and collections.)
And, contra to Artw, I think that Lee's creativity did take a nosedive after Ditko and Kirby (particularly Kirby) left. Lee's Spider-Man had some good years with Romita Sr. on art, and in particular the Kingpin has had impressive staying power (although mostly as a Daredevil villain, which was thanks to Frank Miller). Not so much with FF; Lee did do some decent work with John Buscema on Silver Surfer, I'll give him that. But in the meantime, Kirby was making up a universe that had a wall at the end of it with the giant embedded bodies of people who tried, and failed, to get through the wall to the Source, i.e. God. And, frankly, most of Lee's "human scale" stuff was tedious refried romance comic bullshit anyway; I can forgive someone who comes up with the idea of the Promethean Galaxy for not caring much about whether Peter Parker is holding hands with Gwen or Mary Jane this week.
posted by Halloween Jack at 12:34 PM on February 25, 2016 [1 favorite]
Well, let's first make the point--a little obvious, but still important--that there is no "solo" Stan, because he can't draw. But I think that there's a bigger point here, which is that Lee's real genius is in self-promotion, and he put in quite a lot of work personally promoting Marvel's 1960s superheroes. (This is acknowledged, in a backhanded sort of way, by Kirby in his creation of "Funky Flashman", the indefatigable promoter in Mister Miracle. Flashman's sidekick is Houseroy, an even more-thinly-disguised Roy Thomas.) This is obviously self-serving, as he had credits for writing those characters. Unlike Lee, Kirby wasn't part of the management hierarchy at DC, and didn't get to self-promote within the organization; in fact, he butted heads with them over incorporating the New Gods into DC continuity, and eventually left and went back to Marvel for a while. The New Gods/Fourth World stuff was occasionally used thereafter, but didn't seem to be that important to DC... until after Kirby died in 1994, after which Darkseid became the cosmic-level Big Bad at DC. You keep those characters alive, give them to fresh new writers to work their magic on, and it makes your own status as founding father a bit shinier by association. You don't, and people have to make a point of digging through yellowing piles of newsprint at comics stores to see what all the fuss was about. (Or at least they had to, before digitization and the explosion of TPBs and collections.)
And, contra to Artw, I think that Lee's creativity did take a nosedive after Ditko and Kirby (particularly Kirby) left. Lee's Spider-Man had some good years with Romita Sr. on art, and in particular the Kingpin has had impressive staying power (although mostly as a Daredevil villain, which was thanks to Frank Miller). Not so much with FF; Lee did do some decent work with John Buscema on Silver Surfer, I'll give him that. But in the meantime, Kirby was making up a universe that had a wall at the end of it with the giant embedded bodies of people who tried, and failed, to get through the wall to the Source, i.e. God. And, frankly, most of Lee's "human scale" stuff was tedious refried romance comic bullshit anyway; I can forgive someone who comes up with the idea of the Promethean Galaxy for not caring much about whether Peter Parker is holding hands with Gwen or Mary Jane this week.
posted by Halloween Jack at 12:34 PM on February 25, 2016 [1 favorite]
Which is weird considering the years he spent working on Young Romance with Simon.
Doesn't that reinforce the point, though?
Without a partner Kirby tends to fly off into awesome but increasingly unhinged psychedelic space. With a partner he created some of American pop culture's most popular and enduring characters and stories.
posted by Sangermaine at 12:39 PM on February 25, 2016 [1 favorite]
Doesn't that reinforce the point, though?
Without a partner Kirby tends to fly off into awesome but increasingly unhinged psychedelic space. With a partner he created some of American pop culture's most popular and enduring characters and stories.
posted by Sangermaine at 12:39 PM on February 25, 2016 [1 favorite]
Or, you know, the cross-pollination between Lovecraft, Robert Howard, Clark Ashton Smith, and many others in the pulps of the 1920s and 30s.
Oh, come on. That's like trying to argue that Doc Savage was basically the first "real" hero, so what's so important about this "Super-Man" character anyways. And the early JSA/JLA was a shared universe in the sense that the heroes met each other, but then they pretty much went back to their books without other crossover or many implications.
But in the meantime, Kirby was making up a universe that had a wall at the end of it with the giant embedded bodies of people who tried, and failed, to get through the wall to the Source, i.e. God. And, frankly, most of Lee's "human scale" stuff was tedious refried romance comic bullshit anyway; I can forgive someone who comes up with the idea of the Promethean Galaxy for not caring much about whether Peter Parker is holding hands with Gwen or Mary Jane this week.
Ok, look, you're clearly stanning hard for Kirby here, so this is probably pointless, but sneering at stories that people actually connected with on a personal level as "refried romance comic bullshit" is a shitty look (and also a silly dismissal of the depth and range of the actual human concerns that powered the emotional connections people formed with characters like the FF and Peter Parker). Jack Kirby and Stan Lee, together, created characters that have resonated with people all over the world for more than a half century now. Neither man on their own created anything that sparked lightning like that again.
posted by protocoach at 12:44 PM on February 25, 2016 [2 favorites]
Oh, come on. That's like trying to argue that Doc Savage was basically the first "real" hero, so what's so important about this "Super-Man" character anyways. And the early JSA/JLA was a shared universe in the sense that the heroes met each other, but then they pretty much went back to their books without other crossover or many implications.
But in the meantime, Kirby was making up a universe that had a wall at the end of it with the giant embedded bodies of people who tried, and failed, to get through the wall to the Source, i.e. God. And, frankly, most of Lee's "human scale" stuff was tedious refried romance comic bullshit anyway; I can forgive someone who comes up with the idea of the Promethean Galaxy for not caring much about whether Peter Parker is holding hands with Gwen or Mary Jane this week.
Ok, look, you're clearly stanning hard for Kirby here, so this is probably pointless, but sneering at stories that people actually connected with on a personal level as "refried romance comic bullshit" is a shitty look (and also a silly dismissal of the depth and range of the actual human concerns that powered the emotional connections people formed with characters like the FF and Peter Parker). Jack Kirby and Stan Lee, together, created characters that have resonated with people all over the world for more than a half century now. Neither man on their own created anything that sparked lightning like that again.
posted by protocoach at 12:44 PM on February 25, 2016 [2 favorites]
I can forgive someone who comes up with the idea of the Promethean Galaxy for not caring much about whether Peter Parker is holding hands with Gwen or Mary Jane this week.
You can, but most people seem to disagree. It was precisely the infusion of real humanity into comics that early Marvel was praised for and what made those characters so enduringly popular.
posted by Sangermaine at 12:45 PM on February 25, 2016 [4 favorites]
You can, but most people seem to disagree. It was precisely the infusion of real humanity into comics that early Marvel was praised for and what made those characters so enduringly popular.
posted by Sangermaine at 12:45 PM on February 25, 2016 [4 favorites]
Who Created Spider-Man?
Peter Parker, duh!
posted by entropicamericana at 12:46 PM on February 25, 2016 [2 favorites]
Peter Parker, duh!
posted by entropicamericana at 12:46 PM on February 25, 2016 [2 favorites]
Peter Parker, duh!
.... And once again, not enough credit is given to the radioactive spider.
posted by webmutant at 12:53 PM on February 25, 2016 [19 favorites]
.... And once again, not enough credit is given to the radioactive spider.
posted by webmutant at 12:53 PM on February 25, 2016 [19 favorites]
Well, it wasn't the spider that made Spider-Man. That just gave Peter his powers.
It was Peter's selfish choices and the resulting tragedy that created Spider-Man.
posted by Sangermaine at 12:55 PM on February 25, 2016 [4 favorites]
It was Peter's selfish choices and the resulting tragedy that created Spider-Man.
posted by Sangermaine at 12:55 PM on February 25, 2016 [4 favorites]
Look, that spider chose to go to work at the Science Lab that day.
posted by robocop is bleeding at 1:08 PM on February 25, 2016 [3 favorites]
posted by robocop is bleeding at 1:08 PM on February 25, 2016 [3 favorites]
Here's the money quote:
posted by math at 1:22 PM on February 25, 2016
Poor baby!
...he left active duty at Marvel in the late 1990s, though he still collects a reported million-dollar annual paycheck from the superhero giant
posted by math at 1:22 PM on February 25, 2016
Look, that spider chose to go to work at the Science Lab that day.
With great power comes greater working hours.
posted by maryr at 1:35 PM on February 25, 2016
With great power comes greater working hours.
posted by maryr at 1:35 PM on February 25, 2016
Peter Parker, duh!
.... And once again, not enough credit is given to the radioactive spider.
Or Bruce Campbell.
posted by Etrigan at 1:45 PM on February 25, 2016 [3 favorites]
.... And once again, not enough credit is given to the radioactive spider.
Or Bruce Campbell.
posted by Etrigan at 1:45 PM on February 25, 2016 [3 favorites]
Really it's all about the hyphen.
So true. Spider? Seen 'em. Man? Meh. Spider-Man? Now you've got something.
posted by tobascodagama at 1:56 PM on February 25, 2016 [1 favorite]
So true. Spider? Seen 'em. Man? Meh. Spider-Man? Now you've got something.
posted by tobascodagama at 1:56 PM on February 25, 2016 [1 favorite]
Really it's all about the hyphen.
It's the web that joins the two concepts together.
posted by radwolf76 at 2:56 PM on February 25, 2016 [2 favorites]
It's the web that joins the two concepts together.
posted by radwolf76 at 2:56 PM on February 25, 2016 [2 favorites]
But in the meantime, Kirby was making up a universe that had a wall at the end of it with the giant embedded bodies of people who tried, and failed, to get through the wall to the Source, i.e. God
And ironically, the Source Wall *isn't* from the original Fourth World comics. Those had one panel with a Promethean Giant strapped to a giant boulder.
The Source Wall made of those who failed to reach God was created by Walt Simonson and Chris Claremont in, of all places, the Uncanny X-Men/Teen Titans crossover between Marvel and DC.
posted by kewb at 4:16 PM on February 25, 2016 [3 favorites]
And ironically, the Source Wall *isn't* from the original Fourth World comics. Those had one panel with a Promethean Giant strapped to a giant boulder.
The Source Wall made of those who failed to reach God was created by Walt Simonson and Chris Claremont in, of all places, the Uncanny X-Men/Teen Titans crossover between Marvel and DC.
posted by kewb at 4:16 PM on February 25, 2016 [3 favorites]
Correction: And ironically, the Source Wall *isn't* from the original Fourth World comics. Those had five pages with two Promethean Giants strapped to giant boulders.
posted by kewb at 4:18 PM on February 25, 2016
posted by kewb at 4:18 PM on February 25, 2016
Ok, look, you're clearly stanning hard for Kirby here, so this is probably pointless, but sneering at stories that people actually connected with on a personal level as "refried romance comic bullshit" is a shitty look (and also a silly dismissal of the depth and range of the actual human concerns that powered the emotional connections people formed with characters like the FF and Peter Parker).
Let me reiterate a point that I made above: You keep those characters alive, give them to fresh new writers to work their magic on, and it makes your own status as founding father a bit shinier by association. The affection that modern comics fans feel for these characters is, by and large, not on the basis of the relatively short time that Lee worked on them, but on the work done by subsequent writers; Gerry Conway got it right when he said that "Stan was pushing the limit of what his voice could do." Lee didn't do most of the work on the relationship between Peter and Mary Jane; he didn't turn Sue Storm into a fully-realized character; he didn't pick up the tattered remnants of the X-Men, dust them off, introduce a number of new characters (including a minor Hulk antagonist from Canada), and turn them into Marvel's most successful franchise.
He did, as the article notes, successfully promote Marvel into being a legitimate rival for DC, and he deserves credit for that, and at least some credit for the careers of those writers and artists who would succeed him. But, in the process, he whittled away at the reputation of his collaborators to polish his own. Even if you believe that Lee was primarily responsible for the characterization of the characters and not just the dialogue, or that Kirby had no real facility at creating relatable characters or relationships (something which I don't believe is true, and that I should have made more clear above), that was a dick move on his part.
posted by Halloween Jack at 6:58 PM on February 25, 2016 [2 favorites]
Let me reiterate a point that I made above: You keep those characters alive, give them to fresh new writers to work their magic on, and it makes your own status as founding father a bit shinier by association. The affection that modern comics fans feel for these characters is, by and large, not on the basis of the relatively short time that Lee worked on them, but on the work done by subsequent writers; Gerry Conway got it right when he said that "Stan was pushing the limit of what his voice could do." Lee didn't do most of the work on the relationship between Peter and Mary Jane; he didn't turn Sue Storm into a fully-realized character; he didn't pick up the tattered remnants of the X-Men, dust them off, introduce a number of new characters (including a minor Hulk antagonist from Canada), and turn them into Marvel's most successful franchise.
He did, as the article notes, successfully promote Marvel into being a legitimate rival for DC, and he deserves credit for that, and at least some credit for the careers of those writers and artists who would succeed him. But, in the process, he whittled away at the reputation of his collaborators to polish his own. Even if you believe that Lee was primarily responsible for the characterization of the characters and not just the dialogue, or that Kirby had no real facility at creating relatable characters or relationships (something which I don't believe is true, and that I should have made more clear above), that was a dick move on his part.
posted by Halloween Jack at 6:58 PM on February 25, 2016 [2 favorites]
CNTL-F Larry.
Poor Larry gets no respect.
posted by Mezentian at 12:51 AM on February 26, 2016 [1 favorite]
Poor Larry gets no respect.
posted by Mezentian at 12:51 AM on February 26, 2016 [1 favorite]
The affection that modern comics fans feel for these characters is, by and large, not on the basis of the relatively short time that Lee worked on them, but on the work done by subsequent writers; Gerry Conway got it right when he said that "Stan was pushing the limit of what his voice could do."
Maybe, but the exact same criticism can be leveled at Ditko and Kirby, can't it? I mean, is our affection for Mary Jane or Flash Thompson or J.J. Jameson really just because Steve Ditko spent around three years working on them? Or is the scores of others who also developed and contributed to those ideas? Do we love the Silver Surfer because Kirby drew him as a stoic naif, or because Lee made him Space Jesus, or because later writers took off from there? If nothing is timeless, than nothing is timeless.
And this is without getting into stuff like the Sub-Mariner, where the creative lineage is quite convoluted; the Kirby/Lee Namor really isn't written like Bill Everett's hotheaded, angry young man, but a lot of the setup is still Everett's, and a lot of the development is Roy Thomas, Archie Goodwin, and others besides.
Stan may not have written Mary Jane the way Conway did, but he damn sure wrote Gwen Stacy and built an emotional connection for readers that Conway's most famous Spider-Man story essentially cashes in. And I see a profound difference between, say, the Kirby/Lee Thing and Kirby's solo creations like Brooklyn, Terrible Turpin, Orion, and so forth. Kirby is very much into high-concept stuff and he likes playing with Manichean archetypes; his comedies, like Mister Miracle, are likewise about classic comic archetypes.
The brilliant alchemy of the Fantastic Four is that the grand play of archetypes comes into contact with Lee's more humanistic, and yes, soapier elements. But it's pretty easy to see where Lee';s contribution comes from; compare the occasional "Orion talks to civilians" scenes in stories like "The Glory Boat" or the opening pages of "Darkseid and Sons" and you can see the difference. And let's not forget that Kirby was very much wedded in his own way to very dated, hokey stuff: his nostalgic fascination with "Dead End Kids" stuff pops up over and over again in his work, and even towards the end of his DC tenure he was still trying to get stuff like the Dingbats of Danger Street off the ground. (There's a reason the Yancy Street Gang were an off-panel running joke, and it's very likely more to do with Stan's distaste for "kiddie" characters than Kirby briefly deciding to downplay some of his pet archetypes.)
With Ditko's solo stuff before *and* after Lee, it's just no contest. Lee is bringing the humanity there; the other Ditko stuff that has that quality also has co-writers like Denny O'Neil (the Creeper) or Steve Skeates (Hawk and Dove). Ditko just wasn't that interested in flawed characters; persecuted characters, yes, but not characters who could make genuinely bad decisions at times or react poorly to the stresses of life.
As to post-Kirby and post-Ditko stuff, I think Stan definitely isn't the concept man they are. But the later characters have interesting dimensionality and development. It's post-Kirby that we get characters like the Falcon, for example, and it's post-Ditko (and, importantly, pre-Miller) that we get not only the Kingpin but his wife and son and their dysfunctional family melodrama.
The problem with superhero comics fans is that they like stories with a hero and a villain; this is a more complicated story, one about the awful labor conditions in comics more generally, and about the people who figured out that things had to change and people like Lee who so internalized "the way things are" that they legitimately don't see the problem.
My sense is that Lee still thinks of himself as the guy who genuinely promoted "King" Kirby and Ditko and scores of others while Brand Ecch was signing Bob Kane's name on everything and letting Mort Weisinger steamroll Joe Siegel. This makes him, as Conway puts it, "not a great person," but also not a scheming, talentless hack who contributed little more than the patina of some cheeky scripting to the House of Ideas.
posted by kewb at 3:54 AM on February 26, 2016 [9 favorites]
Maybe, but the exact same criticism can be leveled at Ditko and Kirby, can't it? I mean, is our affection for Mary Jane or Flash Thompson or J.J. Jameson really just because Steve Ditko spent around three years working on them? Or is the scores of others who also developed and contributed to those ideas? Do we love the Silver Surfer because Kirby drew him as a stoic naif, or because Lee made him Space Jesus, or because later writers took off from there? If nothing is timeless, than nothing is timeless.
And this is without getting into stuff like the Sub-Mariner, where the creative lineage is quite convoluted; the Kirby/Lee Namor really isn't written like Bill Everett's hotheaded, angry young man, but a lot of the setup is still Everett's, and a lot of the development is Roy Thomas, Archie Goodwin, and others besides.
Stan may not have written Mary Jane the way Conway did, but he damn sure wrote Gwen Stacy and built an emotional connection for readers that Conway's most famous Spider-Man story essentially cashes in. And I see a profound difference between, say, the Kirby/Lee Thing and Kirby's solo creations like Brooklyn, Terrible Turpin, Orion, and so forth. Kirby is very much into high-concept stuff and he likes playing with Manichean archetypes; his comedies, like Mister Miracle, are likewise about classic comic archetypes.
The brilliant alchemy of the Fantastic Four is that the grand play of archetypes comes into contact with Lee's more humanistic, and yes, soapier elements. But it's pretty easy to see where Lee';s contribution comes from; compare the occasional "Orion talks to civilians" scenes in stories like "The Glory Boat" or the opening pages of "Darkseid and Sons" and you can see the difference. And let's not forget that Kirby was very much wedded in his own way to very dated, hokey stuff: his nostalgic fascination with "Dead End Kids" stuff pops up over and over again in his work, and even towards the end of his DC tenure he was still trying to get stuff like the Dingbats of Danger Street off the ground. (There's a reason the Yancy Street Gang were an off-panel running joke, and it's very likely more to do with Stan's distaste for "kiddie" characters than Kirby briefly deciding to downplay some of his pet archetypes.)
With Ditko's solo stuff before *and* after Lee, it's just no contest. Lee is bringing the humanity there; the other Ditko stuff that has that quality also has co-writers like Denny O'Neil (the Creeper) or Steve Skeates (Hawk and Dove). Ditko just wasn't that interested in flawed characters; persecuted characters, yes, but not characters who could make genuinely bad decisions at times or react poorly to the stresses of life.
As to post-Kirby and post-Ditko stuff, I think Stan definitely isn't the concept man they are. But the later characters have interesting dimensionality and development. It's post-Kirby that we get characters like the Falcon, for example, and it's post-Ditko (and, importantly, pre-Miller) that we get not only the Kingpin but his wife and son and their dysfunctional family melodrama.
The problem with superhero comics fans is that they like stories with a hero and a villain; this is a more complicated story, one about the awful labor conditions in comics more generally, and about the people who figured out that things had to change and people like Lee who so internalized "the way things are" that they legitimately don't see the problem.
My sense is that Lee still thinks of himself as the guy who genuinely promoted "King" Kirby and Ditko and scores of others while Brand Ecch was signing Bob Kane's name on everything and letting Mort Weisinger steamroll Joe Siegel. This makes him, as Conway puts it, "not a great person," but also not a scheming, talentless hack who contributed little more than the patina of some cheeky scripting to the House of Ideas.
posted by kewb at 3:54 AM on February 26, 2016 [9 favorites]
Poor Larry gets no respect.
I blame Chip Goodman for that.
posted by kewb at 3:54 AM on February 26, 2016
I blame Chip Goodman for that.
posted by kewb at 3:54 AM on February 26, 2016
I encourage people to check out the book The Secret History of Marvel Comics, which makes the case that Martin Goodman is the real villain here:
The popular misperception is that both breakaways were the culmination of separate clashes between editor-writer Stan Lee and the two artists. The reality, however, is that the underlying conflict was (and had been since 1933) Martin Goodman’s battle against the creative people he depended upon to fill his pages. He was proud of the miserly wages he paid them and he treated them like they were as disposable as the cheapposted by 1970s Antihero at 6:37 AM on February 26, 2016 [1 favorite]
paper his lowbrow mass-marketed magazines were printed on.
Creatively, the secret of Marvel’s legacy is that the writers and artists were able to create any legacy at all, given how Goodman viewed and executed what he saw as his core business: selling magazines — quickly, cheaply, and in mass quantities. Quality was not part of that equation. Goodman didn’t think fans cared about quality. He certainly didn’t, nor was he about to allow any sense of artistry to interfere with the sale of paper.
I can't attest to the above, but Sean Howe's Marvel Comics: The Untold Story is also pretty good.
Mafia! Drugs! Porn.... it's all there.
posted by Mezentian at 6:53 AM on February 26, 2016 [1 favorite]
Mafia! Drugs! Porn.... it's all there.
posted by Mezentian at 6:53 AM on February 26, 2016 [1 favorite]
kewb, you make some really good points, and I feel the need to reiterate what I wrote above, that I'm not arguing that Lee was or is a "talentless hack." Nor do I particularly want to claim that Kirby couldn't have used at least some help with scripting at any point in his career, whether he had a co-writer or not. (I once mused that much of Kirby's 70s work would be substantially improved if someone went through all the word balloons and removed about 90% of the exclamation points.) And, while I think that it's likely that Lee without Kirby would have had a much shorter and less-remarkable comics career--I think that it's quite possible that he would have been Funky Flashman--it's also quite likely that Kirby would not have had the career that he did if he'd gone over to DC in the sixties, if DC would have even taken him (he'd quit working for them in the fifties); it's highly unlikely that he would have gotten a Bob Kane-type deal, and several of his characters would have competed with established DC characters. Even in terms of Marvel executives, the worst things that anyone has said about Stan Lee doesn't put him anywhere near the league of Jim Shooter, who was so badly hated by the time that Marvel fired him that, some two decades later, when Shooter was announced as a writer on Legion of Super-Heroes (where he'd begun his comics career), some people at DC who'd worked with him at Marvel said that they'd quit if he was brought on board. (I have no idea if they made good on that threat; the title, and Shooter's new DC career, didn't last long.) And, of course, some things are purely a matter of personal taste; I think that the Dingbats of Danger Street are less risible than Stripperella--Kirby can at least claim that the kids growing up rough on the streets of old Manhattan are based on personal experience--although not nearly as commercially viable.
But a lot of this stuff is neither here nor there; ultimately, the question isn't whether or not Stan Lee is a monster wearing a mask, but simply whether he's the person that he's claimed to be for the bulk of his career. The evidence is not particularly in his favor.
posted by Halloween Jack at 7:12 AM on February 26, 2016 [2 favorites]
But a lot of this stuff is neither here nor there; ultimately, the question isn't whether or not Stan Lee is a monster wearing a mask, but simply whether he's the person that he's claimed to be for the bulk of his career. The evidence is not particularly in his favor.
posted by Halloween Jack at 7:12 AM on February 26, 2016 [2 favorites]
In retrospect, I think all of my points are undermined by "Joe Siegel." What a mistake to make.
I tend to agree with you overall, Halloween Jack. I suppose I was arguing more against the "partisan" fans on either side than against anyone here. Comics was a deeply unethical industry for a very long time; just about the only reason DC got any better in the 1980s was that Paul Levitz was no Jim Shooter despite the odd similarities in their mid-career paths.
More than anything, Lee's sins are his willingness to be the company man, to essentially be the mascot of the company. He profited immensely from that, and considerable criticism is warranted. But I don't know that the "Stan wasn't much of a creator" argument is terribly true or terribly necessary to mount that criticism. It would be easier if Lee really were just a hack, because then we could lionize Kirby and Ditko and hiss at Lee and love our old Marvel Comics unproblematically.
What Lee shares with Ditko, especially, is that he outlived his own creative relevance to the medium and even the genre; but unlike Ditko (or even Kirby, towards the end, when we were getting the Silver Star and abortive launches at places like Topps; though there's a Kirbyverse revival with top-shelf creators at Dynamite Comics), Lee's combination of spotlight-seeking, success, and longevity have given him a big platform on which to look irrelevant and desperate to hang on. I he'd quietly retired in the mid-1990s, I suspect stuff like Ravage 2009 would be seen as late-period minor-league stuff on par with Ditko's Killjoy, Destructor, and Static (no, not that one) or stuff like Satan's Six and the Simon and Kirby Sandman.
posted by kewb at 7:40 AM on February 26, 2016 [3 favorites]
I tend to agree with you overall, Halloween Jack. I suppose I was arguing more against the "partisan" fans on either side than against anyone here. Comics was a deeply unethical industry for a very long time; just about the only reason DC got any better in the 1980s was that Paul Levitz was no Jim Shooter despite the odd similarities in their mid-career paths.
More than anything, Lee's sins are his willingness to be the company man, to essentially be the mascot of the company. He profited immensely from that, and considerable criticism is warranted. But I don't know that the "Stan wasn't much of a creator" argument is terribly true or terribly necessary to mount that criticism. It would be easier if Lee really were just a hack, because then we could lionize Kirby and Ditko and hiss at Lee and love our old Marvel Comics unproblematically.
What Lee shares with Ditko, especially, is that he outlived his own creative relevance to the medium and even the genre; but unlike Ditko (or even Kirby, towards the end, when we were getting the Silver Star and abortive launches at places like Topps; though there's a Kirbyverse revival with top-shelf creators at Dynamite Comics), Lee's combination of spotlight-seeking, success, and longevity have given him a big platform on which to look irrelevant and desperate to hang on. I he'd quietly retired in the mid-1990s, I suspect stuff like Ravage 2009 would be seen as late-period minor-league stuff on par with Ditko's Killjoy, Destructor, and Static (no, not that one) or stuff like Satan's Six and the Simon and Kirby Sandman.
posted by kewb at 7:40 AM on February 26, 2016 [3 favorites]
I suspect stuff like Ravage 2009 would be seen as late-period minor-league stuff on par with Ditko's Killjoy, Destructor, and Static (no, not that one) or stuff like Satan's Six and the Simon and Kirby Sandman.
Speaking for myself, while I have heard of Satan's Six and Kirby's Sandman, those later Ditko ones mean nothing to me. Never heard of them at all.
Of course, I mostly remember Ravage 2099 for its later run. But Lee also created Speedball, and look where that ended up.
(Now, if you'd mentioned Shade, the Changing Man... I'd probably also be thinking about Milligan).
posted by Mezentian at 7:50 AM on February 26, 2016
Speaking for myself, while I have heard of Satan's Six and Kirby's Sandman, those later Ditko ones mean nothing to me. Never heard of them at all.
Of course, I mostly remember Ravage 2099 for its later run. But Lee also created Speedball, and look where that ended up.
(Now, if you'd mentioned Shade, the Changing Man... I'd probably also be thinking about Milligan).
posted by Mezentian at 7:50 AM on February 26, 2016
Speedball is a Ditko joint, not a Lee character in any way, shape, or form.
posted by kewb at 4:06 AM on February 28, 2016
posted by kewb at 4:06 AM on February 28, 2016
I worked on the recent Stan memoir as a colorist, and met Stan a little while afterward. I'd expected his huckster persona, but instead was floored that he remembered my name, knew I'd been brought in at the 11th hour, knew what my workload was, the pages I'd worked on, and complimented me on very specific things I'd done. Stan was full of nothing but praise for the people who'd worked on the book. He was as kind to me as if I were a big name (which I'm not).
IMO, that behavior doesn't jive with the kind of person who's bent on taking all the credit for someone else's work, you know?
posted by culfinglin at 2:23 PM on February 29, 2016 [4 favorites]
IMO, that behavior doesn't jive with the kind of person who's bent on taking all the credit for someone else's work, you know?
posted by culfinglin at 2:23 PM on February 29, 2016 [4 favorites]
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posted by dr_dank at 9:17 AM on February 25, 2016 [22 favorites]