True Believer: The Rise and Fall of Stan Lee 6 6

[zosocane]

Stan was a giant.

‘Nuff said.

[Prince Namor]

5 hours ago, Garystar said:

In my opinion we do Stan a disfavour if we only think of him as an editor and a promotor. It was Stan who put the words in the mouths of all the characters we loved, it was Stan who created the persona of Peter Parker, Tony Stark, Bern Grimm, Matt Murdock, the Silver Surfer et all. It was Stan who created their humanity and made them “real” to us kids. It was Stan who wove all the titles and held the “Marvel “universe” together. I wasn’t around in the 60s early 70s but reading these as back issues when I did start collecting, Stan’s editorial created a sense that as a reader you were part of the Marvel family, you were welcomed and appreciated and the editorial was part of the attraction of Marvel Comics.

Yeah, he was an editor and a promoter and a voice for the characters, as well as a voice for the comics. He is one of the most important people in the history of comics. He lived a LAVISH lifestyle, full of praise and adulation. Marvel paid him a MILLION dollars a year (+ other benefits, free travel, etc.) just to be a VOICE for the company. What DISSERVICE could anyone ever do to Stan Lee? He's dead now. He benefitted more from Marvel Comics than any man who ever had anything to do with it. What could possibly be taken from him???

5 hours ago, Garystar said:

The Fantastic Four didn’t come from Jack and would have existed without him, Spider-man didn’t come from Steve and would have existed without him.

Based upon what?

20 years of Stan creating NOTHING before the Silver Age and Jack Kirby's huge success during that same 20 years?

Stan did NOTHING even close to what the Fantastic Four was, but Jack Kirby did the Challengers of the Unknown, which has many similarities - both in story telling, characterization, villains, etc., yet somehow people still believe Stan came up with it all on his own?

5 hours ago, Garystar said:

I happen to think without Jack and Steve there’s a high probability both would have been rubbish and died on the vine but who knows what they would have been in someone else’s hands.

Jack was successful for 20 years before he went back to Marvel. And he put himself together a great deal in going to DC afterwards, creating characters that 50 years later are still used by DC. 

5 hours ago, Garystar said:

We know Stan had a hand in the plotting of both titles and although his input diminished over time to somewhere between negligible and nothing he did none the less contribute. There’s a newspaper interview/report somewhere with Stan and Jack where Stan is vocally plotting FF#55 so Stan’s input lasted some time on FF at least, to what extent we may never know but it was something.

Stan contributed, I don't doubt that.

But the 'plotting session' for issue #55 in the Herald Tribune article was a staged event. The book had already been done.

5 hours ago, Garystar said:

Was Stan lucky to work with Jack and Steve? Absolutely. Was he lucky to work with John Romita, John Buscema, Gene Colan, Neal Adams, Jim Steranko, Wally Wood (briefly), Barry Smith, Gil Kane etc etc? That doesn’t sound like luck to me, that sounds like someone who knows what he’s doing, recognises talent and knows how to focus it and work with it.

Neal Adams actually only worked on one issue with Stan (Thor #180) - he'd been well warned about the Marvel Method and not getting paid for story input. Steranko wouldn't work for Marvel unless he could write his own stuff - again he was well aware of the unfairness of the Marvel Method. Wally Wood lasted 4 issues. Barry Smith... did he do a comic with Stan?

Realistically Stan didn't last much longer once he didn't have Kirby around. And he was smart enough to not really let anyone else at Marvel 'write' with Kirby. Because then we would've seen the same thing we saw with Romita: The book didn't really change when Stan left it.

5 hours ago, Garystar said:

When Steve left Spider-man the creativity didn’t die. Stan recognised that John had different strengths to Steve and changed direction on the title, Mary Jane Watson (heard but never seen in Steve’s stories), Capt Stacey and the Robertsons were introduced and the comic became more of a soap opera – and became even more popular.

Yep. The artist dictated the story.

5 hours ago, Garystar said:

I agree Jack and Steve deserve more credit, Stan used to do that in the early days and it’s a shame and a discredit to him that he didn’t do so more in latter years when he had a bigger stage. As fans we recognise Jack and Steve's immense contribution and that without them the Marvel characters we know today wouldn’t exist and we need to tell that to anyone who is interested enough to listen. However their credit shouldn’t be given at Stan’s expense, Stan deserves the credit he gets – it’s just that Jack and Steve deserve more than they get

At this point, I think it would be absolutely impossible for Stan to get short changed on any credit.

[Prince Namor]

Just two months before Jack Kirby would return full time to Marvel Comics, he did this issue of the Challengers of the Unknown for DC Comics. The cover is based upon the second story, where Rocky gets shot into space and upon his return has super powers! Sound familiar? Even the cover looks somewhat like a future early Marvel cover.

[Prince Namor]

There's speculation over how much Kirby did on his own and how much was writer Dave Wood's ideas on this. To me, there's no question that Dave Wood at the very least scripted these stories, but the concepts, the action, the storytelling - this is all stuff Kirby would do with whoever he was working with. The similarities between this and his work with Joe Simon, his work with Stan Lee, and his own work after Marvel shows us exactly how much is consistently Kirby in every story.

[Prince Namor]

Is the dialogue as snappy as Stan Lee's? Not even close. 

But the story, the action, the characters... the actual creation of the ideas... this is what Kirby has done for 20 years at this point.

[Prince Namor]

There was nothing like this at Marvel (Atlas) at the time. Stan Lee just was not doing anything close to these kinds of stories, nor did he for 20 years leading up to this.

[Prince Namor]

In the 2nd story in this issue, Rocky comes back from space (without his memory) with super powers! The first two of which are the fire blast of a Human Torch and the Ice Blast of an Ice Man!

[Prince Namor]

He can also grow like Giant man!

[Prince Namor]

And turn invisible...

Because he's lost his memory, the bad guys take him in and figure they can make him a part of their gang. Sound like a plot you're familiar with from Silver Age Marvel?

Edited April 5, 2021 by Prince Namor

[Prince Namor]

Meanwhile over at Marvel (Atlas), the line up of books was... pretty lame. Stan wasn't writing Navy Combat, (or least he wasn't signing his name to it as he was most everything he did at this point), but he was doing most of the Western stories, with artists who'd done those type of books for most of their career. (Maneely, Ayers, Keller)

[Prince Namor]

Looking at Kid Colt Outlaw #81, which came out the same month as Challengers of the Unknown #3, we can see Stan is already using hyperbole on the covers to try and sell the book. Without much success. Marvel was in a downward sales spiral, lacking any originality. With over 130 other comic titles on the newsstand that month (including plenty of other Westerns and Humor books), they just didn't stand out.

[Prince Namor]

The action is stiff, but the dialogue in true Stan Lee form is heavy and full of wise guy remarks. THIS is part of what Stan would bring to the Lee/Kirby collaboration. Did he also bring story ideas? Well of course. But that wasn't HIS strength. 

[Prince Namor]

What Stan mainly did was these humor books. THIS was his specialty. 

 

[Prince Namor]

This is where Stan honed his dialogue craft and his ability to create specific character ticks. And of course using his upbeat sense of humor!

[Prince Namor]

Not knocking DeCarlo's art - it's PERFECT for these humor comics (which I collect), but imagine if you could take this great dialogue and refined character skill and put it with a powerhouse storyteller/creator...

[Prince Namor]

Here's Stan signing his name to a pin-up. 

He didn't come up with the poem OR the swimsuit, and he certainly didn't draw it... but still signs his name!

[Prince Namor]

When I say that much of this 'writing' was straight out of a joke book - see the example below. The actual multi-page 'stories' for these comics were put together apparently by the artists, according to Stan Goldberg (who'd replace DeCarlo just a few months later on these books):

GOLDBERG:” 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.”

JIM AMISH:” Sounds like you were doing most of the writing then.”

GOLDBERG: “Well, I was.”

[Prince Namor]

They look a lot like what a grown up Archie and Betty would look like... here's an even better example.

[Prince Namor]

And that Challengers #3 wasn't a one off type of thing... Kirby was (unknowingly) in full pre-Marvel mode just months before coming to Marvel.

Time Cube? The Wizard? The Star Stone? Super Powers?

Stan Lee was doing NOTHING even CLOSE to these type of stories. 

[Prince Namor]

Getting hurled through space - becoming acts in a galactic circus - we would see these type of storylines at Silver Age Marvel...

Was the dialogue as snappy? Was it promoted well? Nope.

But the STORIES and the CHARACTERS were already there. It just needed an editor who was more than just an editor. A SUPER editor to bring out the best in the greatest creator in the history of comics...