Revelations about Stan Lee in Riesman's biography

[Revolutionary_Jack]

I know Riesman, and hence Revolutionary_Jack, believe Stan created nothing — and I admit the evidence that Stan did create Marvel is pretty damn thin — but I don’t care about that much. Stan wrote dialogue. He probably had something to do with the creation of the characters IMO. But none of it matters. Stan Lee is undeniably guilty of perjury, of lying under oath and directly trying to harm Jack’s children and family financially, in the 2000s.

Just to be clear...I am not saying categorically that Stan Lee didn't create anything.

My point is that Stan Lee's obfuscation over credit and failure to give due recognition has to be the defining fact of his career.

[Brian B]

Just to be clear...I am not saying categorically that Stan Lee didn't create anything.

My point is that Stan Lee's obfuscation over credit and failure to give due recognition has to be the defining fact of his career.

I thought you bought more into the argument that Lee created nothing at Marvel, really, just claimed the creations of “artists” (in quotes because they were writers, too), like Ditko and Kirby?

[Kaitou D. Kid]

Haven't finished the book yet, but it's arguably very objective and fair to Stan. Riesman went out of his way to reference all the times that Stan was fair to Kirby and his employees, as well as the times when people were unfair to him (Kirby's initial reasons dislike of Stan prior to Fantastic Four was arguably unjustified). The book also highlights all the times Kirby has said contradictory stuff. It's just that there are (sadly) a lot more examples of Stan lying and taking unjustified credit than the other way around.

[Revolutionary_Jack]

It's just that there are (sadly) a lot more examples of Stan lying and taking unjustified credit than the other way around.

That's the rub of it.

[jackolover]

A corporate trust is closer to the system you are trying to define, where basically companies get so much power that they can abuse workplace laws with impunity and make it hard or impossible to get workers to unionize and collectively act against their interests. Protectionism in economics can refer at times to mild or neutral stuff like protecting cultural products, like France and UK like to protect cultural exports like Champagne and Scotch Whiskey by making them cultural and national products and so provided with caveats that spare it from market exploitation and so on. And some form of protectionism can co-exist fairly well with a free market economy.

But in the case of comics business where you have basically two huge companies, owned by mega-corporations, you have essentially a dual industry monopoly where two companies can basically abuse the principles of normal fair capitalism to maintain a thuggish form of exploitation of labor that you simply don't get in any other media industry.

Fundamentally the comics business doesn't actually run on normal ideas of capitalism, I mean this is the kind of stuff that Theodore Roosevelt, no socialist he, fulminated against on his bully pulpit. Comics have evaded the antitrust laws (which granted have been gutted and eroded steadily since FDR died) through a variety of ways but fundamentally the laws and contracts which the business has run on is gloriously illegal and fragrantly unethical.

The reason why this hasn't come to light is because of a cronyist culture, where essentially you have situations where artists and writers become editors and executives (Carmine Infantino went from artist of Flash to Editor in Chief at DC, Jim Shooter likewise), or in the case of Stan Lee you have a relation of the company president working as office gofer, and then as editor, and then as editor/writer (where Lee drew a check as a freelance writer while Kirby was just paid for the art). I mean at one point, Stan Lee had the unmitigated gall to actually propose himself as a member for a planned writer's union which people objected to because he was the boss. So that meant that many artists/writers become complicit and implicated in this system of exploitation which also kills and hampers unionization drives (of which there are many, all of them failed). There's also the fact that the comics business had no respect and attention...and people only bothered when the MCU and others became this moneymaking juggernaut. Because even people who care about art and stuff pay attention to the power of stuff that makes money. Then you have the fans...where the business found a readymade eternal supply of cheap disposable labor and strikebreakers, the kind of eager enthusiast who'd work for free and hey guess what, that's what you're gonna be doing.

So it's a kind of human centipede like industry where everyone's head is attached to rear ends in an ouroboros.

That's why I don't think fans have no power or don't have a part to play. Nor do I think they are innocent either. We are involved in this whether we like it or not. It may not feel that way but it's true.

A great rundown on how the comics industry worked in those days. My take is oversimplified by comparison

[jackolover]

The main disputes between Kirby and Marvel did not reach the courts until 2009 when Kirby’s heirs were seeking to terminate Marvel’s copyrights on everything Kirby created, which was, you know, Marvel Comics, basically.

Marvel then sued the Kirbys.

If Stan Lee had not lied repeatedly under oath about Stan Lee solely creating the core of the Marvel Universe, the lower courts’ rulings may have granted Kirby’s heirs control of the copyrights.

Lying under oath in the 2000s isn’t some quaint comic industry practice. It was Stan lying about intellectual property worth at the time $4 billion dollars on behalf of the corporate behemoth Disney, one of the largest media conglomerates in the world with $65 billion in revenue and $200 billion in assets, including the Marvel Universe. This isn’t some rinky-dink b.s.

I know Riesman, and hence Revolutionary_Jack, believe Stan created nothing — and I admit the evidence that Stan did create Marvel is pretty damn thin — but I don’t care about that much. Stan wrote dialogue. He probably had something to do with the creation of the characters IMO. But none of it matters. Stan Lee is undeniably guilty of perjury, of lying under oath and directly trying to harm Jack’s children and family financially, in the 2000s.

You want to blame the courts, go ahead. But just look at what Stan personally did. The courts didn’t lie about who created what. Stan Lee did.

I can understand the damage done to the Kirby family.

Myself, Marvel was protected and it wasn’t on Stan Lee alone. The same protection was offered to DC in court. Publication owns property in the comics industry.

[jackolover]

The terms of the settlement were not made public, except for one thing. So, I don’t know what it includes, except acknowledgement that Kirby co-created the Marvel Universe, that it was not all Stan as he claimed for decades. That’s what was made public — that Kirby co-created Marvel, that Stan Lee officially did not create the Marvel Universe by himself, as he claimed for so long.

It was a settlement with the Kirby estate. I doubt it would cover any other Marvel contractor or employee. It only concerned works created or co-created by Kirby. There are no “outstanding” issues between Marvel and the Kirby estate as far as I know.

My impression is Kirby’s heirs are now wealthy due to the Marvel settlement. Hopefully, they can easily afford to buy their own annuities now. I base this on Kirby biographer and confidant, and Kirby family confidant Mark Evanier saying Jack and Roz Kirby would be “real, real, real happy” at the settlement. I also base it on what other industry figures thought about the settlement.

There are indications that Ditko also received a settlement, but there is barely anything in the public record about it, except basically rumors. There are no indications that Ditko ever filed to revoke his copyrights from Marvel. Marvel never sued Ditko as far as we know, unlike Marvel suing the Kirby estate.

For Larry Lieber, IMO that guy ought to go find himself a good lawyer.

That sounds great. Thanks for letting me know.