Revelations about Stan Lee in Riesman's biography

[Revolutionary_Jack]

I made a post about Riesman's biography (https://community.cbr.com/showthread...-True-Believer) in the Spider-Man forums mainly about the stuff dealing with Ditko and (the little) stuff that pertains to Spider-Man in that story. I said there, that I thought it was the best book on Marvel Comics anyone has yet written and I'd like to reiterate that here. There's been some scuttlebutt about this especially given Roy Thomas' response so I wondered if I should read it but I read it and there's a wealth of new material that hasn't been reported or covered yet, and a collating of stuff that either I had read or known before or introducing some stuff I didn't know and contextualizing others.

PROS
It does what I've long insisted comics scholarship do, look at documentary evidence as much as possible, trawl through archives and reconstruct the narrative and find the version that makes the best sense. Riesman's book has finally brought a good level of professionalism to comics history which otherwise has been lacking. The comics business has too long been too incestuous, comics sites depend on the industry for interviews and access, and in turn the industry gives comics journos a platform for internships and working in the comics business directly.

CONS
Are there issues with it? Yeah there are, all books of scholarship are written with the aim that they will be overcome down the line. Riesman's book has weaknesses in his lack of critical interest in the comics and stories themselves, likewise his perpetuation of the black legend on Jim Shooter, and also for his tunnel-view on the issue of credit over everything else. I guess Riesman wrote this book with the idea of mainstreaming stuff known more among comics aficionados to a wider audience, hence he wrote a book that's fairly short for a biography (some 335 pages) and doesn't discuss comics continuity stuff and comics stories that most people wouldn't get.

In terms of what this biography argues or contributes:
-- The debates about Lee and Kirby and who came first is well-known in these boards. Roy Thomas argued in his review of the book that Riesman neglected stuff to exculpate Lee but he mis-states Riesman's views in the review. Thomas claims that Riesman's entire argument rests on a rumor by Kirby's associate but that's not the case. Riesman simply points out that the synopsis is just not a clincher and that there's no smoking gun, and that it's unlikely that the synopsis was written before the meeting between Kirby/Goodman/Lee that most sources agree is when the idea for a comic (that became Fantastic Four) came out. The interesting thing for me is that as Riesman documents thoroughly, Stan Lee himself never cites this synopsis as the basis for his claim that he came up with the Fantastic Four. He gave legal deposition (during which he tellingly admits that Kirby created some "secondary characters" without specifying who they are, all by himself, implying that the collaboration between them wasn't proportionate down the line).
-- The stuff that shocked me is the Wally Wood and Dick Ayers stuff. Wally Wood and Dick Ayers both report meetings where they went to Lee to "discuss" and Stan said nothing waiting for them to start first and that led to Wally Wood leaving in rage. Basically the empirical evidence and the most plausible explanation tips the scales to Kirby and Ditko and not to Lee.
-- Larry Lieber is the real heartbreaker of this book. I heard of him of course but I never cared enough to know more but wow. Stan Lee certainly wasn't "my brother's keeper" in any sense.
-- One weird thing that surprised me is that apparently Fantastic Four #66-67 was supposed to be a parody of Ayn Rand by Kirby, but Stan bowdlerized it because it offended his pro-business fiscal conservative views. Blake Bell's biography of Ditko revealed that Stan was the one who introduced Ditko to Rand, and now here we have it recorded that Stan censored Kirby's Rand-satire. So it seems that Lee and not Ditko was the real Randian ideologue of Marvel'60s.(Page 157).
-- Stan Lee defenders often bat away claims of Lee's credit-stealing by saying he was a co-creator and he felt he created the characters but in this book there are many examples of Lee claiming credit for stuff that didn't involve him. A particularly disappointing one was that in the 1940s, Lee tried to write a book about the origins of comics in a way to make money, and in that he claimed outright that he created Captain America, not Joe Simon and Jack Kirby but him, Stan Lee (Page 70). Stan Lee's constant involvement in union busting is documented right through, as is the level of nepotism involved in his career. And to be honest, I always tried to give Lee the benefit of the doubt but I really do think that he was the one who fingered Kirby and Simon and got them fired in the 1940s.
-- This isn't just a biography of Stan Lee but a biography of Marvel Comics as a company in part because Lee was at the center of stuff between management (Martin Goodman the man who founded Marvel) and the creative (Kirby mostly). One that comes across is that Martin Goodman just wasn't very good at his job. He was successful and capable but until 1961, barring Captain America, Timely produced no major durable comics and titles. They just weren't among the best on the lot: not as popular and iconic as DC, not as beloved as Fawcett's Comics Captain America, as weird as Quality Comics' Plastic Man, and not a candle to anything by Eisner, or at EC Comics. Kirby and Simon meanwhile after being fired from Timely went on to create Young Romance and then work at DC comics. It's a comics publication whose early years are stunningly mediocre compared to every other contemporary publisher.
-- At one point, Roy Thomas was privy to a conversation between Stan Lee and Carmine Infantino where both of them plot out "price collusion" or "price fixing" which is a financial crime. Lee and Infantino decided to control uppity artists asking for pay by trying to make a deal whereby both of them always inform the other about the rate they are paying each other. Roy Thomas is a mixed figure, on one hand he is a Stan Lee loyalist who always took his side against Kirby, on the other hand he did stand up to Lee and defended Gerry Conway when Lee was tossing him to the wolves.
-- The stuff about Lee's cameos are interesting. Lee was paid a pittance for these appearances and even if he got an executive producer credit never made real money off the movies. Sam Raimi is on record for opposing Lee doing cameos in the Spider-Man movies saying, "I know Stan, he can't act!".

Stan Lee's final years are definitely sad and incredibly so.

On the whole this is a pretty dispiriting look at the comics business, and as Kirby said, "Kid, comics will break your heart"

[Montressor]

Long live King Kirby.

[king of hybrids]

For better or worse, there is a reason the big two have stand ins/expires/likeness of Stan on the satanic end of their cosmologies (Marvel - TOBA in Immortal Hulk taking on Stan’s face and being a multi-faced, body (credit) stealing monster tangentially involved in Spider-Man’s creation, DC - Flashman, and the heavy implication that the Just Imagine characters are a 5th column for darkseid)

Everyone in the industry pretty unambiguously leaned on Kirby/Ditko’s side; but Lee marketed himself/Marvel far too well to denounce him (or, as it turned out, for Lee to distance himself from Marvel)

[Will Evans]

For better or worse, there is a reason the big two have stand ins/expires/likeness of Stan on the satanic end of their cosmologies (Marvel - TOBA in Immortal Hulk taking on Stan’s face and being a multi-faced, body (credit) stealing monster tangentially involved in Spider-Man’s creation, DC - Flashman, and the heavy implication that the Just Imagine characters are a 5th column for darkseid)

Everyone in the industry pretty unambiguously leaned on Kirby/Ditko’s side; but Lee marketed himself/Marvel far too well to denounce him (or, as it turned out, for Lee to distance himself from Marvel)

Can you explain how the Just Imagine characters are a fifth column for Darkseid?

[Revolutionary_Jack]

Can you explain how the Just Imagine characters are a fifth column for Darkseid?

I've not heard of that. Being a "Fifth column" for Darkseid would be weird because Jack Kirby, creator of Darkseid, introduced his own fifth columnists like Glorious Godfrey to serve that function.

[gurkle]

It was a good idea to write this book because, as you say, the things that comics buffs know will come as a surprise to the wider public, which thinks of Stan Lee as a kindly old genius.

It's pretty obvious that he was not a creative genius. I think he had some talent as a writer, if only because so many people have tried to imitate him and failed (I'm thinking in particular of his way of inserting humor into unlikely places). And because Kirby became his own scripter and editor in the '70s, it's easy to see what Lee brought to the partnership. I'm not going to argue that Kirby on his own is worse than Kirby/Lee, but it's different.

I don't know if he mentions this in the book, but Stan Goldberg, the Marvel colorist who also drew "Millie the Model" after Dan DeCarlo left, once also said that Lee expected him to come in with story ideas. It seems pretty universal across the line. It meant that when he was working with someone who was good at drawing but not plotting (i.e. not Kirby or Ditko) the plots are very limited. "Silver Surfer" has gorgeous art, but John Buscema needed a plot, and I don't think Lee gave him much.

[king of hybrids]

Can you explain how the Just Imagine characters are a fifth column for Darkseid?

In the pre-Metal/Death Metal MultiUniversal plan, Just Imagine is the closet universe, and linked to, the True Apokolips; whereas Kammandi’s earth (wherein dwell some of Kirby’s kirbiest guys) is not only closest to New Genesis, it is where godheads of the New Gods of New Genesis reincarnated after Final Crisis.

Fifth column os probably too strong a term, more that as Lee’s creations, the Just Imagine guys will be Darkseid’s patsies as surely as Funky Flashman is

[Revolutionary_Jack]

In the pre-Metal/Death Metal MultiUniversal plan, Just Imagine is the closet universe, and linked to, the True Apokolips; whereas Kammandi’s earth (wherein dwell some of Kirby’s kirbiest guys) is not only closest to New Genesis, it is where godheads of the New Gods of New Genesis reincarnated after Final Crisis.

Fifth column os probably too strong a term, more that as Lee’s creations, the Just Imagine guys will be Darkseid’s patsies as surely as Funky Flashman is

In Tom King's MR. MIRACLE series, Funky Flashman is redone as a tribute to Stan Lee and appears in a more forgiving light, so I guess there are issues with everything.

Anyway, that's DC stuff.

At one point in Riesman's biography he talks to a guy who is managing "Stan Lee Media" (a company that Lee started that became essentially a massive financial fraud which Lee may or may not have been complicit in) who says that they ultimately want Stan Lee Media to be divorced from Stan Lee the way Disney is from Walt the man. They use the name but don't talk about him.

So I think that might be Marvel's attitude going forward especially now that Lee has gone. Whereas Jack Kirby going forward is someone Disney more and more will embrace, albeit with the greatest hypocrisy imaginable.

[JackDaw]

-- Larry Lieber is the real heartbreaker of this book. I heard of him of course but I never cared enough to know more but wow. Stan Lee certainly wasn't "my brother's keeper" in any sense.

Well except in the original biblical sense, that the brothers really didn't like each other? ( In the story of Cain and Abel, after Cain killed Abel, Our Lord asked Cain "Where is your brother?" and Cain replied "Am I my brother's keeper?")

[Revolutionary_Jack]

Well except in the original biblical sense, that the brothers really didn't like each other? ( In the story of Cain and Abel, after Cain killed Abel, Our Lord asked Cain "Where is your brother?" and Cain replied "Am I my brother's keeper?")

Perhaps.

Or if you want a more secular analogy, here's the scene from On the Waterfront:


Larry Leiber is Marlon Brando in my allegory here.

[Iron Maiden]

With the issue of Stan Lee and his brother Larry Lieber I think you have to take into account the fact Stan went out to the West Coast back in the 1980s IIRC while Larry stayed out East. That doesn't sound like much but I experienced that with two of my siblings. Time zones come into play....when they'd be getting off work, it would be late in our time zone. These days Facebook helps a lot in that regard since we have a private invitation only family page.

This sounds like a dumb question but I wonder if Stan remembered Larry in his will? It's quite possible that everything went to his troubled daughter Joan.

[Revolutionary_Jack]

I enjoyed that, thanks. (And should have mentioned before...enjoyed reading this thread, you and others obviously put a lot of thought into it.)

Thanks. I enjoy your posts too, here and elsewhere.

With the issue of Stan Lee and his brother Larry Lieber I think you have to take into account the fact Stan went out to the West Coast back in the 1980s IIRC while Larry stayed out East.

Stan neglected Larry right throughout their lives. He didn't spend time with him when they were kids, and even if both of them had difficult relations with their Dad, Stan never stepped up for Larry. When their mother died in the mid-50s, Larry (age 16) who had been living with his parents had to move out because his father made it clear he didn't want to be a single parent, so Larry had to move in with Stan and his wife Joan and then left after a few months to stay with his cousin because Stan and Joan didn't want to take care of him.

Mark Evanier really sums it up when he points out that Stan Lee in his dealings with Kirby never once lived by the creed of "With Great Power comes Great Responsibility" and that's true in his personal life. When you consider that his most famous character Spider-Man is all about familial duty and obligation, his Aunt and Uncle who took him in after his parents died, and Peter devoting himself to his Aunt May...it's kind of jarring that Stan in his life was all about himself.

Over the decades, whenever Stan came to New York he never knocked on his brother to check how he was doing.

This sounds like a dumb question but I wonder if Stan remembered Larry in his will? It's quite possible that everything went to his troubled daughter Joan.

That's covered in the book but basically Stan Lee's power of attorney was absconded by shady types and somehow his daughter got it all. And Larry doesn't care anymore.

[JackDaw]

Perhaps.



Larry Leiber is Marlon Brando in my allegory here.

I enjoyed that, thanks. (And should have mentioned before...enjoyed reading this thread, you and others obviously put a lot of thought into it.)

[kcekada]

I'm somewhat ambivalent about Stan -- because I know he's not everything he claimed to be, but I don't think he's the devil. I certainly would not have missed his cameos in Marvel films. The latter ones, particularly, seemed very forced.

[Revolutionary_Jack]

I'm somewhat ambivalent about Stan -- because I know he's not everything he claimed to be, but I don't think he's the devil.

Lee's more like the guy who sold his soul to the Devil, than the Devil himself. His life's closer to Marlowe's Faust than Goethe's. Stan Lee's a good example of how someone can be personally decent but still do several cruel things and never acknowledge and own up to that. At least that's how it comes across in Riesman's book.

I certainly would not have missed his cameos in Marvel films. The latter ones, particularly, seemed very forced.

Sam Raimi's reaction on what was the first major Marvel movie with a cameo for Lee was simply, "I know Stan! He can't act" that's why the early cameos in Spider-Man and X-Men had him in non-speaking roles. And Lee was quite insistent that the cameos get longer and longer and he get lines and he haggled for that, mugging for the camera. The funny thing is Lee didn't get paid well for these cameos, no more than the day's wages for any extras nor did he earn anything even from the "Executive Producer" credit that he got slapped on these movies. They basically catered to his desire for fame and celebrity and the appearance of success.

By the time Lee died his personal estate was valued at about less than $100mn which is still ridiculously rich by you-and-me standards but certainly a lot less than the Walt Disney level of fame and wealth people had the impression of him having.