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How Lee took credit for "This Man This Monster" by FF Historian Chris Tolworthy
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74 posts in this topic

27 minutes ago, Chuck Gower said:

1. Move as fast as you want! Sooner or later I'll connect -- and when I do--!!

2. Hey! Hold it! Did you lose your marbles or something? I'm trying to help!

3. His debt to you may be paid -- but he owes me a little something!!

Jeez! I’d have picked easier examples, but what the hell, I’ll take a shot.


1. The Hulk?
2. Spider-Man? 
3. ...sooo alpha male...could be a lot of guys...Iron-Man?

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On 1/27/2020 at 4:12 PM, gunsmokin said:

Kirby’s work ethic totally debunks this. He was driven to provide for his family. Jack consistently said the creations were his and I tend to believe him over Lee’s huckster nonsense. His creative success beyond Marvel is further proof.

 

On 1/27/2020 at 2:06 PM, Chuck Gower said:

Absolutely. Even if Stan gave Jack an idea he DIDN'T use, he still contributed by making Jack think and possibly inspiring him to go a direction he might not have. And there are plenty of other instances where Stan DID directly contribute.

Like all great creative collaborations it was doomed to not last forever, but while it did, it produced some great works. 

 

On 1/27/2020 at 2:20 PM, KirbyJack said:

My favorite contribution of Stan’s is the distinctive voice he gave each character. I’ll bet I could give a quote from any major player circa 65-66 and a well-read Marvelite could name them.

 

On 1/27/2020 at 3:02 PM, KCOComics said:

This..  

At this point its impossible to determine who exactly was responsible for what. Those guys collaborated an awful lot and I'm just really happy they were all together at the right time and place..  

I do give Stan a lot of credit for one thing that isn't widely discussed...  My father worked at an art college in CT and artists are crazy!   Trying to get those guys to stay on schedule, meet deadlines and keep their egos in check must have been maddening.

Bill Everett's daughter told a story about how her father always waited to the last minute, would go to NY, party for days and hand in something he threw together at the last minute. Stan would pay him in cash and then he would go home and throw the cash in the air for him and his children to swim in.  I felt like that story could have been any one of the commissioned artists at my father's school. They were just "free spirits".  And Stan deserves credit for keeping the wheels on

Maybe he took to much credit, maybe the greatest charector he really created was "Stan Lee".  But I think the guy worked tirelessly to give us marvel comics. More so than any other individual. 


Mark Evanier who is easily the biggest champion of Kirby and actually knew and worked with him presents it well on his blog as to who did what.

 

Who did what on the Lee-Kirby collaborations?

Ooh…tough one to start with.  Well, it's safe to say Jack did all the penciling.  Beyond that, we run into all sorts of semantic arguments having to do with definitions of the word "writing" and with the fact that Mssrs. Lee and Kirby both have / had notoriously poor memories.  You also have the fact that when two creative talents get together and come up with an idea, each of them might honestly believe that he suggested at least the core of the concept if not the entire thing.  This happens in any collaboration anywhere and, ultimately, you usually have to just say that they both had the idea.  Ergo, I say that the Lee-Kirby creations are Lee-Kirby creations.

Some of the ideas sound more like Stan to me, some sound more like Jack and there's some documentation and other evidence that suggests that certain ideas flowed more from one gent than the other.  Even then, even where one person contributed 80% of the notion, they are still Lee-Kirby co-creations.  The plots came from both, though Stan has acknowledged that once Marvel started to grow and he became busier, Jack was largely on his own to figure out the details of each story, if not the basic plotline.  Stan's dialogue sometimes closely paraphrased marginal notes that Jack wrote while drawing, and sometimes deviated altogether.  I do think Stan has been unfairly maligned by those who've said that all he did was retype and polish Jack's notations.  I also think Jack was wronged by credits that gave him no credit for anything other than drawing because he certainly did more than that.

 

Now that both parties are dead and after years Disney was finally the one to give the Kirby family a fair settlement (according to Evanier) I hope the debate dies too. There’s a lot of guesses that will continue but everyone should be happy that Lee, Kirby, Ditko and others were in the right place at the right time. Also consider this on the who did what debate is not just a Lee/Kirby issue but Ditko at times took exception with Kirbys claim on his own work with Spider-Man. If you pick just one story from Kirbys viewpoint does that make both Lee and Ditko (and others) liars? Kirby once claimed to creating Superman too. He had the same memory problems Lee had some accidental and some intentional I’m sure. 
 

As for the Fantastic Four #51 story I think it’s OK. Never understood why certain fans loved it. There were better stories by Marvel at the time. I know a fair amount of fans that think it’s overrated too but whatever. The author (“historian”) of the original post is mostly guessing so in the end it’s just his opinion like everyone else’s...

Edited by N e r V
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Stan Goldberg of course has one of the more famous quotes about Stan Lee from Alter Ego magazine:

”Stan would drive me home and we’d plot our stories in the car. I’d say to Stan,”How’s this? Millie loses her job.” He’d say,”Great! Give me 25 pages.” And that took him off the hook. One time I was in Stan’s office and I told him, “I don’t have another plot.” Stan got out of his chair and walked over to me, looked me in the face, and said very seriously, “I don’t ever want to hear you say you can’t think of another plot.” Then he walked back and sat down in his chair. He didn’t think he needed to tell me anything more.”

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The article shows bias.  For one example, "Reed stole Ben's girlfriend."  Where was it ever stated that Sue was Ben's girlfriend?  Conversely, there were references that Sue and Reed were sweethearts before the events of FF1.
This article seems to be like so many other modern "theories".   Let's begin with a premise, cherry-pick the evidence that's in favor of the desired conclusion and downplay or ignore any contrary evidence, and exaggerate and/or make false claims (was Sue ever Ben's girlfriend? No).
This is so common nowadays; to have a predetermined conclusion lead the evidence, instead of the evidence leading to a conclusion.

-here's some evidence that Stan may have had a hand in the plot of FF 51. 
It has similarities to an earlier FF story (#10), where by most accounts Stan was still contributing to the stories.
And the story in FF 51 bears very startling similarities to Daredevil 15 - which was just from a couple months earlier, and was written by Stan.  Let's recap both stories:

In DD 15, a scientist switches bodies with a physically powerful character (the Ox).  In FF 51, it was a scientist and the Thing.
The Ox, now with the scientist's body, realizes he's been tricked (similar to Ben's reaction in the FF story). 
Ben can't convince Reed and Sue that he's the real Ben Grimm (in DD 15, the Ox in the scientists' body initially has the same problem with Karen Page). 
By the end of the story, the false Ox has become more like the real Ox, as his scientific intelligence is replaced by the Ox's brutish, limited intelligence. This leads to his fatal plunge off a building. 
In FF 51, the "changeling" Thing has his jealousy of Reed replaced by admiration as he starts seeing Reed through Ben's eyes, just like the real Thing.  This leads to his demise.

Interesting that these two very similar stories came out a couple months apart with the earliest one being written by Lee.

-All this is just worth noting, since we are trying to be precise as to who did what and when, and not be one-sided about the whole matter.
And it's worth noting that this plot was used over and over again in Silver Age Marvel superheroes stories, the first time being FF 10 where Doom switches bodies with Reed, then DD 15, then FF 51, then DD 37 (Dr. Doom and DD) then Captain America 115 (Cap and the Red Skull).  There may be more that I'm forgetting.

Edited by Unca Ben
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6 minutes ago, Unca Ben said:

The article shows bias.  For one example, "Reed stole Ben's girlfriend."  Where was it ever stated that Sue was Ben's girlfriend?  Conversely, there were references that Sue and Reed were sweethearts before the events of FF1.

Agreed.  I don't recall anything in the FF run that made me think Ben was in competition with Reed for Sue's love.  The basic setup was  Reed was in love with Sue, Sue was Reed's friend, Ben was Reed's college roommate and friend, Johnny was Sue's kid brother and if anyone was in competition with Reed for Sue's affection it was the Sub-mariner

 

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1 hour ago, thehumantorch said:

Agreed.  I don't recall anything in the FF run that made me think Ben was in competition with Reed for Sue's love.  The basic setup was  Reed was in love with Sue, Sue was Reed's friend, Ben was Reed's college roommate and friend, Johnny was Sue's kid brother and if anyone was in competition with Reed for Sue's affection it was the Sub-mariner

 

Another easy error to spot is the comment that FF51 is the "first appearance of the negative zone".  While this point is not germain to the article's thesis, it does show another mistake by an FF "historian".

The first mention of a "negative zone" is in FF 48, when Maximus traps the Inhumans behind a barrier which in that issue (and a few following issues) is called a negative zone.  This is not the same "negative zone" as in FF 51. 
In FF 51, Reed is exploring "sub-space" - which ends up being made of negative matter hence the explosive problem when this matter encounters the positive-matter Earth in the story's climax.  This sub-space ends up being renamed "the negative zone" in later issues.
However, the first mention/appearance of this sub-space was in FF 37, which is how the FF travel to the Skrull homeworld to avenge the death of Sue and Johnny's father, Franklin Storm.

So FF 37 is the first appearance of sub-space, which is later re-labeled as the negative zone.

...and the original "negative zone" that held the Inhumans captive becomes "the negative barrier" or "negative zone barrier" or just "the great barrier".

 

I'm not an FF historian, just a fan that read these stories voraciously when they first came out.  :smile:

 

Edited by Unca Ben
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14 hours ago, thehumantorch said:
14 hours ago, Unca Ben said:

The article shows bias.  For one example, "Reed stole Ben's girlfriend."  Where was it ever stated that Sue was Ben's girlfriend?  Conversely, there were references that Sue and Reed were sweethearts before the events of FF1.

Agreed.  I don't recall anything in the FF run that made me think Ben was in competition with Reed for Sue's love.  The basic setup was  Reed was in love with Sue, Sue was Reed's friend, Ben was Reed's college roommate and friend, Johnny was Sue's kid brother and if anyone was in competition with Reed for Sue's affection it was the Sub-mariner

 

Don’t have anything in front of me and would need to doublecheck, but I’m pretty sure in the first few issues Ben makes a few quips that imply a hint of jealously. I’ve never read anything having to do with a Ben/Sue relationship though, unless there’s some modern retcon drek story I don’t know about.

While we're on the topic, for anybody with an interest in who did what, "Lee and Kirby: Stuf' Said" by John Morrow is a must-read.

https://twomorrows.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=98_57&products_id=1513&zenid=4bd4f795936d51efa4ce661c91572491

 

Edited by Dick Pontoon
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1 hour ago, Pontoon said:

Don’t have anything in front of me and would need to doublecheck, but I’m pretty sure in the first few issues Ben makes a few quips that imply a hint of jealously. I’ve never read anything having to do with a Ben/Sue relationship though, unless there’s some modern retcon drek story I don’t know about.

While we're on the topic, for anybody with an interest in who did what, "Lee and Kirby: Stuf' Said" by John Morrow is a must-read.

https://twomorrows.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=98_57&products_id=1513&zenid=4bd4f795936d51efa4ce661c91572491

 

I think it was written more as “what do you see in a guy like that” attitude with anger over what was done to him with Reed and the flight than any actual intended love triangle. Remember by issue #4 the seeds of the Reed/Sue/Namor triangle were planted and by issue #8 Ben had already met a girl and started dating by #12. Look at something like the Ben/Johnny relationship early on to later thru the 1960’s/early 70’s which you could take at hate/playful older brother banter to just best  friends who fight playfully. Lee wrote a lot of FF with Kirby and it’s probably the one series that showcases their dynamics together until much later in the run when Kirby started “holding back” due to dissatisfaction with Marvel and Lee.

From issue #1 it was established in the dynamics that Reed and Ben were longtime friends who both knew Sue and her brother for awhile. If Reed and Ben were intended rivals from issue #1 it seems likely to be more written like the Reed/Victor Von Doom relationship established in #5. Most guys in stories (comics or otherwise) that have been established as best friends for years wouldn’t be hitting on the other guys girl unless it was an intended plot point to destroy the relationship in the future which I’m pretty sure wasn’t in the thinking in issue #1. 

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16 hours ago, Unca Ben said:

The article shows bias.  For one example, "Reed stole Ben's girlfriend."  Where was it ever stated that Sue was Ben's girlfriend?  Conversely, there were references that Sue and Reed were sweethearts before the events of FF1.
This article seems to be like so many other modern "theories".   Let's begin with a premise, cherry-pick the evidence that's in favor of the desired conclusion and downplay or ignore any contrary evidence, and exaggerate and/or make false claims (was Sue ever Ben's girlfriend? No).
This is so common nowadays; to have a predetermined conclusion lead the evidence, instead of the evidence leading to a conclusion.

-here's some evidence that Stan may have had a hand in the plot of FF 51. 
It has similarities to an earlier FF story (#10), where by most accounts Stan was still contributing to the stories.
And the story in FF 51 bears very startling similarities to Daredevil 15 - which was just from a couple months earlier, and was written by Stan.  Let's recap both stories:

In DD 15, a scientist switches bodies with a physically powerful character (the Ox).  In FF 51, it was a scientist and the Thing.
The Ox, now with the scientist's body, realizes he's been tricked (similar to Ben's reaction in the FF story). 
Ben can't convince Reed and Sue that he's the real Ben Grimm (in DD 15, the Ox in the scientists' body initially has the same problem with Karen Page). 
By the end of the story, the false Ox has become more like the real Ox, as his scientific intelligence is replaced by the Ox's brutish, limited intelligence. This leads to his fatal plunge off a building. 
In FF 51, the "changeling" Thing has his jealousy of Reed replaced by admiration as he starts seeing Reed through Ben's eyes, just like the real Thing.  This leads to his demise.

Interesting that these two very similar stories came out a couple months apart with the earliest one being written by Lee.

-All this is just worth noting, since we are trying to be precise as to who did what and when, and not be one-sided about the whole matter.
And it's worth noting that this plot was used over and over again in Silver Age Marvel superheroes stories, the first time being FF 10 where Doom switches bodies with Reed, then DD 15, then FF 51, then DD 37 (Dr. Doom and DD) then Captain America 115 (Cap and the Red Skull).  There may be more that I'm forgetting.

Yes and sadly the original Star Trek ended with this same tired trick making for one of their worst episodes...:nyah:

 

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BE6559CA-7122-41D0-8D56-9798FEE9BB91.gif.fd27b0f584a0f1c1d2583e485bf7f58c.gif

 

 

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On 2/5/2020 at 9:38 PM, Unca Ben said:

And the story in FF 51 bears very startling similarities to Daredevil 15 - which was just from a couple months earlier, and was written by Stan.  Let's recap both stories:

In DD 15, a scientist switches bodies with a physically powerful character (the Ox).  In FF 51, it was a scientist and the Thing.

Strangely enough, DD15 was cover dated just a month before FF51... and was released on the newsstands on February 3, 1966 to FF51's March 10th, 1966. Why would Stan repeat the same plot/story exactly 5 weeks later in a different title?

We know Jack didn't read any of the comics, including his own once he finished drawing them, yet Stan... being the editor, had to be aware of all of them... weird...

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15 hours ago, Chuck Gower said:

Strangely enough, DD15 was cover dated just a month before FF51... and was released on the newsstands on February 3, 1966 to FF51's March 10th, 1966. Why would Stan repeat the same plot/story exactly 5 weeks later in a different title?

We know Jack didn't read any of the comics, including his own once he finished drawing them, yet Stan... being the editor, had to be aware of all of them... weird...

Fan disputes about who-did-what are sometimes very interesting, especially when they show the attention to detail this one did.      

As for repeating stories, that was done all. the. time.  If you look at the Archie titles plots were recycled so much you had to wonder if they were simply reusing the scripts and changing the names -- or not, changing them and just drawing it all over again.

Marvel and DC would use the same superhero plots not just within a short window but often simultaneously.   

Sometimes they are a good peek into the process and the give and take between artist and writer.  Ditko prevailed over Lee with his insistence that the bird-based villain in Spidey 2 be a thin vulture, while Stan, who'd wanted it to be a fatter bird, simply did so with the Owl in Daredevil.

What I find most interesting in fan disputes is how the arguments can go reasonable to batsj#t looney within a heartbeat.   Like the one that started this thread.   Guy makes some interesting and thoughtful points but also goes off into a histrionic ditch with the assertion that Lee's entire reputation rests upon the story in FF51.  

The same people who insist that Ditko actually did more to create Spider-man than just "the original idea" will say that the Silver Surfer is "100% Kirby" because he had the original idea.  Yeah, he also drew it, but in FF48 the surfer was just one of the alien minions who worked for Galactus.   Lee latched onto him and insisted on fleshing him out, giving him character motivations and a back story, etc.   Basically, people embrace a contradiction and want to have it both ways when they say the original idea means nothing (or close to it) when it's known Lee had the original idea but it means everything when it's known Kirby had the original idea.

And of course the biggest reason everybody knows the surfer was kirby's idea is that Stan immediately told everybody they hadn't talked about it before showed up, and he repeated that story many times over the years.  Yet people who repeat the story also repeat their assertions that Lee never gave kirby credit for his story/plot/character input.  

Reminds me of the guy who is on such a holy crusade against Bob Kane that he is unable to acknowledge that Kane did anything.  Anything. at. all.  in the creation of Batman.   He cites the story of Detective 27 as being copied from an earlier source and says it was Bill Finger who stole the idea -- ironically saying that Bill Finger's theft of the story is proof that Kane, not Finger, was a plagiarist.  

Fandom is great, but sometimes a chill pill is in order.

  

 

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On 2/5/2020 at 6:38 PM, Unca Ben said:

The article shows bias.  For one example, "Reed stole Ben's girlfriend."  Where was it ever stated that Sue was Ben's girlfriend?  Conversely, there were references that Sue and Reed were sweethearts before the events of FF1.
This article seems to be like so many other modern "theories".   Let's begin with a premise, cherry-pick the evidence that's in favor of the desired conclusion and downplay or ignore any contrary evidence, and exaggerate and/or make false claims (was Sue ever Ben's girlfriend? No).
This is so common nowadays; to have a predetermined conclusion lead the evidence, instead of the evidence leading to a conclusion.

-here's some evidence that Stan may have had a hand in the plot of FF 51. 
It has similarities to an earlier FF story (#10), where by most accounts Stan was still contributing to the stories.
And the story in FF 51 bears very startling similarities to Daredevil 15 - which was just from a couple months earlier, and was written by Stan.  Let's recap both stories:

In DD 15, a scientist switches bodies with a physically powerful character (the Ox).  In FF 51, it was a scientist and the Thing.
The Ox, now with the scientist's body, realizes he's been tricked (similar to Ben's reaction in the FF story). 
Ben can't convince Reed and Sue that he's the real Ben Grimm (in DD 15, the Ox in the scientists' body initially has the same problem with Karen Page). 
By the end of the story, the false Ox has become more like the real Ox, as his scientific intelligence is replaced by the Ox's brutish, limited intelligence. This leads to his fatal plunge off a building. 
In FF 51, the "changeling" Thing has his jealousy of Reed replaced by admiration as he starts seeing Reed through Ben's eyes, just like the real Thing.  This leads to his demise.

Interesting that these two very similar stories came out a couple months apart with the earliest one being written by Lee.

-All this is just worth noting, since we are trying to be precise as to who did what and when, and not be one-sided about the whole matter.
And it's worth noting that this plot was used over and over again in Silver Age Marvel superheroes stories, the first time being FF 10 where Doom switches bodies with Reed, then DD 15, then FF 51, then DD 37 (Dr. Doom and DD) then Captain America 115 (Cap and the Red Skull).  There may be more that I'm forgetting.

They were redoing stories all the time.   FF51 is arguably the best of these Marvel did in this period, but the best part of it could easily have come about because somebody said (SPOILER ALERT) "and maybe the guy who takes Ben's body to kill Reed comes to respect Reed and even sacrifices himself to save him".   Marvel had done that story before, as well.  It meshed with this new story very nicely, but that kind of simple and somewhat vague but still significant sort of suggestion is just the sort of thing Stan did all the time in fleshing out concepts and stories.   Doesn't mean Kirby couldn't have thought of it on his own. 

As for the Surfer, Stan said (and Kirby never disputed) that when he saw the FF48 pages and asked what's with the guy on the surfboard, Kirby famously responded with "I thought Galactus should have a herald."   A "herald".   

Neither Stan nor Jack ever said that Kirby described his character as anything more.   Neither Stan nor Jack ever said that Kirby described the character he'd drawn for FF48 as "an alien who works for Galactus; He sacrificed himself to save his home planet by becoming Galactus' herald and helping him destroy other planets instead of his own, but in the next issue he's going to meet Alicia who will touch his heart and convince him to go against Galactus, who will retaliate by imprisoning him on Earth".

That's a good bit more than "a herald".   Not saying that Jack contributed nothing beyond that as character development.   But I think re the Surfer, as in all things Lee and Kirby did together, it is safe and appropriate to use the Lennon-McCartney credits method and bill them all as creations by "Lee and Kirby"

 

 

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Well... when it came to giving credit

On 2/6/2020 at 11:51 AM, Pontoon said:

While we're on the topic, for anybody with an interest in who did what, "Lee and Kirby: Stuf' Said" by John Morrow is a must-read.

https://twomorrows.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=98_57&products_id=1513&zenid=4bd4f795936d51efa4ce661c91572491

 

Such a great timeline of information. My favorite is Stan's quote, "Since Spider-man's been doing so well, Ditko thinks he's the genius of the world..."

This of course is when Ditko has taken over the book and him and Stan aren't speaking. Stan was clever in how he gave out 'commpliments', but it had to be on HIS terms. He certainly gave both Kirby and Ditko plenty of compliments, lots of compliments, but that isn't the same thing as giving them equal CREDIT for creating things.

And of course, when it came to money... well he certainly wasn't giving out credit there. As the idea of who created what became an issue, Stan went on the offensive. And that's why there's been a certain amount of back bite from the Kirby/Ditko side.

It's amazing to read Stan say, "Oh no, I always made up all of them, in all the books. Jack was just the guy whom I'd say, "Hey I've got something for you to draw." (From 2003, Alter Ego) And of course the things he said in his testimony. THAT is the issue people have with Stan and his version of things.

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