Kapow! EPIX Pre-empts Stan Lee Documentary Before Slamdance Debut

COMMENTS (12)

• Is Jack Kirby or Steve Ditko brought up getting ripped off?

  Comment by THEGHOST (773)572-6347 — Saturday January 21, 2012 @ 9:25pm EST  Reply to this post

  • Yeah, because after leaving Marvel, Kirby and Ditko went out and created… uh… uh… uh…

    Comment by it's the writing, fanboy — Sunday January 22, 2012 @ 3:04am EST  Reply to this post

    • Kirby: At DC Comics, “The Fourth World” including the New Gods (including perhaps DC’s top villain, Darkseid), Mister Miracle and The Forever People; OMAC; Kamandi; The Demon; Kobra; and the’70s incarnation of the Sandman. Then he went back to Marvel in ’76, and without Stan Lee, created The Eternals, Devil Dinosaur and Machine Man. All of these concepts still figure regularly in publishing and other media.

      Ditko: At Charlton Comics, the ’60s incarnation of Blue Beetle, the Question and Captain Atom. These characters are now owned by DC Comics. Later, at DC Comics, he created the Creeper, Hawk and Dove, Stalker, the Odd Man, Shade the Changing Man and the ’70s incarnation of Starman. Again, almost all of these concepts still figure regularly in publishing and other media (been a bit since I’ve seen anything with Stalker or Odd Man, I’ll admit).

      Unquestionably, most of both men’s strongest work was in collaboration with Stan Lee. But they weren’t exactly pikers on their own.

      (Quick, name some lasting concepts that Lee created after both left Marvel in the late ’60s.)

      Comment by Julio — Sunday January 22, 2012 @ 8:26pm EST  Reply to this post

      • Oh, yeah.

        I forgot about Disney paying $4 Billion – with a “B” – for Darkseid and Devil Dinosaur.

        Devil Dinosaur? Hey, why don’t you add the Newsboy Legion to your ridiculous laundry list. You made my point for me.

        Kirby’s was a talented artist, but his work without Lee was childlike. The sophisticated writing made Marvel Comics.

        And as for Lee’s post-sixties work, he didn’t need to do a damn thing. He’d already created every major character in that company’s stable. But Lee remained as an editor, helping artists and writers maintain the quality he established.

        In the early eighties, Lee spearheaded Marvel’s successful move into television and film. Ultimately, this lead to the aforementioned $4 Billion Disney happily paid to acquire Marvel.

        Comment by it's the writing, fanboy — Monday January 23, 2012 @ 12:57am EST  Reply to this post

    • No knock on the great Stan Lee, by the way. But writing off Kirby or Ditko so smugly is just plain wrong.

      Comment by Julio — Sunday January 22, 2012 @ 8:28pm EST  Reply to this post

• I wonder if the film will cover the controversy surrounding Lee taking full credit for his Marvel heroes, leaving out–for a long time–the contributions from people like Steve Ditko, Jack Kirby, and others.

  I think the Fandom started making a great deal of noise about this in the late ’70s & ’80s if I recall. It’s what led to the creator credit in the Spider-Man films reading “Stan Lee and Steve Ditko” (and other similar two-name credits in other cartoons and features beginning in the ’90s).

  Comment by Kplan — Saturday January 21, 2012 @ 11:26pm EST  Reply to this post

  • Read interviews from the 1960s with Stan. From the start he gives credit to his artists. The reporters of those pieces go out of their way to try to make him seem like the sole creative force behind Marvel, he corrects them, but they stick with the narrative they came in wanting to tell. (Much like film critics giving “authorship” of a film to the director. Who, unlike Stan, do not try to correct this.)

    Whether you like it or not, the fact remains that Stan Lee came up with the original concepts for most of the major Marvel characters (Captain America of course being a major exception, but there are others.) None of his concepts would have been as successful without Kirby and Ditko. He knew that and that’s why he picked them to work on his ideas — they were among the best in the business at the time (it was Stan who nicknamed Kirby, “The King” of comics.)

    In addition to the characters, Stan came up with the “heroes with feet of clay” concept.

    Comics which previously had only one dimensional characters, now were two dimensional.

    His dialogue was modern and fun (see the dialogue of DC Comics at time, or Kirby and Ditko’s dialogue on their solo efforts…)

    Stan wrote and/or co-wrote hundreds of stories that entertained millions for generations.

    Kirby and Ditko got a bad deal for sure. Stan Lee didn’t create the bad deal nor make them take it.

    Comment by Truthy McJones — Sunday January 22, 2012 @ 1:14pm EST  Reply to this post

• stan lee had NOTHING to do with creating Captain America. That would be Joe Simon and Jack Kirby.

  Comment by truth believer — Sunday January 22, 2012 @ 2:05am EST  Reply to this post

• Stan Lee just won’t go away. Jeez.

  Comment by Anonymous — Sunday January 22, 2012 @ 2:22am EST  Reply to this post

• Get a life. Stan Lee has never denied credit to anyone. Talk to the old Marvel corporate if you want to meet the real super-villains. What Stan co-created were all works-for-hire for Marvin Goodman and he held rights to none of it. If anything, Stan has kept the torch burning for the guys he partnered with.

  Comment by Santayana — Sunday January 22, 2012 @ 11:40pm EST  Reply to this post

• Sooo sick of idiots like Julio, taking potshots at Stan Lee, the genre’s Walt Disney. I love how Julio immediately notes, “Kirby created perhaps DC’s top villain, Darkseid”. Never heard of him–but dude, DC’s top villain(s) would be The Joker, Catwoman, Lex luthor or Two Face.

  Stan created various characters with various artists–with Don Heck, he created Iron Man, with Wally Wood, he created Daredevil, with John Romita, SR The Kingpin, with Gil Kane, The Abomination, and a slew of other characters.

  As with nerds who like to assign John Lennon credit for all the Beatles’ catalog, Stan frequently gets slammed for ‘stealing all the credit’ from Kirby. as an earlier poster noted, Kirby’s “King” nickname was from Stan, too. As a writer, Stan’s work is still the best comics have ever been and by sticking to his stories and dialogue(“With great power…”). studios have finally wised up and make millions off his stromng storytelling.

  Comment by Mr. Jingles — Monday January 23, 2012 @ 1:21am EST  Reply to this post

• I’ve absorbed a lot of what Lee says about character creations on webofstories.com He seems unerringly sure that it was all down to him… quite a character nonetheless.

  Comment by Charlie C — Monday January 23, 2012 @ 6:11am EST  Reply to this post