Stan Lee's Biggest Contribution to Comics

[Mudd]

Nothing else that Kirby ever wrote very much reached the level of his collaborations at Marvel.

 

[shivkala]

Well that would point to Stan Lee's contributions. He was the showman.

And while not household names such as Captain America, the Fantastic Four, Hulk, etc., DC would be poorer without the Fourth World characters such as Darkseid, Mr. Miracle, and Funky Flasman etc. Well, Darkseid and Mr. Miracle, at least.

 

[The Old Mixer]

Kirby's writing style was a bit idiosyncratic, but I'd consider the Fourth World to be his masterpiece as a comics creator.

 

[Nerys Myk]

From reading the earliest Marvel books, especially Spider-Man and The FF, Stan very much pushed the idea of the books being produced by a team. While is was Stan doing the "promoting" it was always Stan and Jack or Stan and Steve. IIRC, Lee encouraged readers to address their letters to the creative team no the Editor or even just himself. He was promoting Kirby and Ditko as much as himself. It must have been quite a blow when they left. Marvel wasn't quite the same afterwards. The creative team aspect was never played up in the same way, even with stellar artists like John Romita and John Buscema on board.

 

[JD]

I don't about that, I still see the artists being talked about a lot, even in interviews with the writers and other people.

 

[The Lensman]

Nothing else that Kirby ever wrote very much reached the level of his collaborations at Marvel.

True, but Kirby was still a creative force who's post Stan Lee partnership gave us more characters that I can name off the top of my head than I can for Lee's post Kirby partnership days.

Meanwhile Kirby is considered a genre unto himself, with books like Jersey Gods, Nightworld, and especially Godland, all of which reveled in Kirby goodness, especially Godland. Lee isn't thought of in the same way. Kirby gave us "techno-mythology" and yes, as stated above, superheroes are America's mythology. Not so much in the sense of explaining the world around us, but in the tales that we tell over and over again.

The problem with America's mythology is that it keeps on going, and never ends and so these characters will never achieve the status of the older characters of yore. Interestingly, Kirby's finest techno-mythological tale, The Fourth World, was supposed to have an ending. Because Kirby was always about moving on to new ideas and concepts.

 

[Nerys Myk]

I don't about that, I still see the artists being talked about a lot, even in interviews with the writers and other people.

I'm talking about how Stan promoted himself and Jack and Steve as teams. He didn't do it in the same way when Kirby and Ditko moved on. Part of that was Marvel's image as "the little company that could". Around the time Kirby left the company, Marvel was approaching the point were it wasn't the little upstart anymore.

 

[JD]

Oh, I thought you meant artists today. Sorry about that.

 

[Mudd]

The problem with America's mythology is that it keeps on going, and never ends...

The problem with the things that folks call "America's mythology" is that they're disposable commercial product that mutates in meaning and context as quickly as it can be recycled for resale.

Which is not so much to devalue the product itself - I love comic books - as to suggest that Americans are pretty easy on ourselves about what we consciously elevate to supposedly embody our cultural ideals.

But I dunno, "bad dialogue and endless fight scenes" - as one luminary of the genre once summed it up - may be exactly what best represent us.

 

[Takeru]

Arguably there's precedent for both of those things, Lee had a lot of pretty good ideas but mostly he had a lot of support from people like Kirby surrounding him who made those pretty good ideas into great ones. Once he lost the support structure he built at Marvel he never really created anything worthwhile again. Like Bob Kane though, he is a showman and self-promoter first and foremost, and built a second career off of being "Stan Lee!" the creator of heroes. And like Bob Kane, his actual contributions to those heroes' origins will always be somewhat suspect.

I think Stan Lee contributed a bit more to Marvel that Bob Kane did to Batman. Lee did not personally invent and develop all of those characters in a vacuum but he worked at Marvel for a long time, shaped the universe and was involved a lot. Bob Kane just had a good contract giving him way too much credit and Batman wasn't even a big deal while he worked for DC, that came later.

 

[Kai "the spy"]

Well, shit.

CBR| Stan Lee Accused of Sexual Misconduct by Home Care Nurses

 

[The Nth Doctor]

Their source is The Daily Mail, and when I did a search for collaborating sources, all I found were other tabloids.

That said, I wouldn't be surprised if the accusations are true, but I want to see a better source than The Daily Mail, The Sun, and The Hollywood Gossip.

 

[Kai "the spy"]

There might actually be a situation concerning Stan. Neal Adams and others are ringing alarm bells.

Bleeding Cool| Peter David, Jason David Frank Join Neal Adams to Express Concern for Stan Lee

Bleeding Cool has been reporting on the current situation regarding Marvel Universe creator Stan Lee, seemingly housebound and isolated from his friends and work colleagues. We know that his manager of 14 years, Max Anderson, has been fired, alongside a number of negative articles in the Daily Mail and TMZ, and it has been reported that same has happened to his longstanding lawyer, though this is disputed.

Bleeding Cool has also been told that Alicia, Stan Lee’s housekeeper for decades, and his gardener have also been let go. Many are concerned that Stan is being isolated from familiar faces.

 

[JD]

Wow, that does sound strange.