Originally Posted by
Revolutionary_Jack
Even before that he created Ultron. So even back then, there were issues with him. Look at the early Avengers comics and he's often dismissive and sexist to Jan (albeit not moreso than Reed to Sue in that time).
Founding fathers of '60s Marvel is a big stretch imo because it conveys a false idea of the level of importance that the Avengers had back then to the wider Marvel Universe and publishing as a whole. The Avengers became important to Marvel over time, in the same way the X-Men did. It's also dubious to apply that to the characters rather than the creators.
I think it makes sense to call Kirby, Lee, Ditko founding fathers of '60s Marvel, but extending that to the characters they created is a bit of nonsense. And if you can apply that to any of the characters, then it's the Fantastic Four. The FF run under Lee-Kirby introduced the entire 616 Continuity, it brought Namor back into circulation connecting the Timely Era to the '60s Marvel era, it introduced Wakanda, Inhumans, Silver Surfer which spun out of their pages. Doctor Doom became the major Marvel villain even back then. Major Avengers bad guys like Kang the Conqueror spun out of Fantastic Four as well. The Avengers have no claim of performing any similar function in terms of impact. Sure it brought Captain America out of ice...but that was setup in Fantastic Four when it brought back Namor. Johnny Storm finding a random hobo and shaving him to reveal Namor essentially meant the entire Timely Era -- Namor, Toro, Cap, Bucky -- was in continuity again. So from there it was a logical leap to bring original Cap back.
Without the Fantastic Four, Marvel 616 wouldn't exist. But without the Avengers, it absolutely would have, so in no way can the Avengers or any member of the Avengers be considered a "founding father". They do not arrive at that importance.
The titles that kept Marvel afloat in the '60s and '70s was Fantastic Four, Spider-Man, and the license to do Star Wars comics...the Avengers would not be missed even if it never got published in that time. And while this seems like a dig, let me say the same applies to the X-Men (who went into reprints in this time). The X-Men weren't important to Marvel until 1975 and under Claremont's run from the late-70s to the early 90s. So I think attaching importance and value to longevity and so on, inherently doesn't have purpose. The Avengers' had decent runs and great stories of course, especially under Roger Stern, but their moment in the sun was the 2000s, in both comics and movies.
Look whenever people talk of the Avengers and the Big three, it's always Cap, Thor, Tony...and if there's a fourth, its Hulk, and nowadays people would add Carol Danvers as the fourth, and maybe T'Challa as the fifth.