Stan Lee and Spider-Man

[CTTT]

Now, Stan said over the years that he didn't have a favorite character and that he loved all of them, which might be true. But, do you think he put more effort into Spider-Man than the other characters he helped create?

[Revolutionary_Jack]

This belongs on a Spider-Man thread, I should think.

Now, Stan said over the years that he didn't have a favorite character and that he loved all of them, which might be true.

Stan Lee didn't really care a great deal about comics, personally. In his private utterances and recorded exchanges he was constantly trying to get out of comics into more respectable lines of work (fiction, movies, media personality).

So I don't know how much Stan Lee really liked any of the Marvel characters on a personal level. If he liked Spider-Man it was because he was popular and Stan Lee wanted to be associated with that popularity.

But, do you think he put more effort into Spider-Man than the other characters he helped create?

Well he didn't do much or any major lifting in creating the character or concept you know. So I'd say he put as much effort in creating Spider-Man as he did other characters, lol.

-- The concept of Spiderman and even the name pre-existed Lee, it was developed in the 1950s by the Simon and Kirby studios, with Simon even designing a Spiderman logo (sans hyphen).
-- Per Tom Brevoort, a Lee defender, it was Kirby who pitched the idea of Spiderman as a teenage hero with spider-abilities to Stan when he was presenting concepts.
-- Kirby developed a first concept which had the hero staying with his Aunt and Uncle. Then Kirby claims that the workload was too much so he gave it to Steve Ditko who expressed an interest.
-- Ditko says that he chanced on the concept at Lee's office and felt it was too much like The Fly (an Archie comics hero that was a repurposed concept from the failed Spiderman of Simon and Kirby idea) and it seems like Lee cottoned to his interest and asked him to give it a whirl.
-- Ditko came up with the costume design, gadget design, action movement, character designs, and the basic plot i.e. -- boy gets bitten by a radioactive spider, lets go a burglar who kills his Uncle.
-- The names of the characters, seem to have been cobbled from earlier stuff, Jack Kirby did a Golf comic in the late'50s called "On the Green with Peter Parr" and Ditko and Lee did a Timely/Atlas era comic about a mermaid who stayed with Aunt May and Uncle Ben (let's see how Al Ewing finds a way to work that into continuity).
-- Stan Lee's big innovation was the hyphen. That was definitely him.

So basically, the only original stuff in the first Spider-Man comic was by Steve Ditko. The interesting question is if Ditko liked Spider-Man because it seems like Ditko valued Doctor Strange as a more personal creation, being that it originated and generated almost entirely from him whereas with Spider-Man he was salvaging a Kirby-Simon pitch that went nowhere in circles for a decade or so.

[NC_Yankee]

This belongs on a Spider-Man thread, I should think.



Stan Lee didn't really care a great deal about comics, personally. In his private utterances and recorded exchanges he was constantly trying to get out of comics into more respectable lines of work (fiction, movies, media personality).

So I don't know how much Stan Lee really liked any of the Marvel characters on a personal level. If he liked Spider-Man it was because he was popular and Stan Lee wanted to be associated with that popularity.



Well he didn't do much or any major lifting in creating the character or concept you know. So I'd say he put as much effort in creating Spider-Man as he did other characters, lol.

-- The concept of Spiderman and even the name pre-existed Lee, it was developed in the 1950s by the Simon and Kirby studios, with Simon even designing a Spiderman logo (sans hyphen).
-- Per Tom Brevoort, a Lee defender, it was Kirby who pitched the idea of Spiderman as a teenage hero with spider-abilities to Stan when he was presenting concepts.
-- Kirby developed a first concept which had the hero staying with his Aunt and Uncle. Then Kirby claims that the workload was too much so he gave it to Steve Ditko who expressed an interest.
-- Ditko says that he chanced on the concept at Lee's office and felt it was too much like The Fly (an Archie comics hero that was a repurposed concept from the failed Spiderman of Simon and Kirby idea) and it seems like Lee cottoned to his interest and asked him to give it a whirl.
-- Ditko came up with the costume design, gadget design, action movement, character designs, and the basic plot i.e. -- boy gets bitten by a radioactive spider, lets go a burglar who kills his Uncle.
-- The names of the characters, seem to have been cobbled from earlier stuff, Jack Kirby did a Golf comic in the late'50s called "On the Green with Peter Parr" and Ditko and Lee did a Timely/Atlas era comic about a mermaid who stayed with Aunt May and Uncle Ben (let's see how Al Ewing finds a way to work that into continuity).
-- Stan Lee's big innovation was the hyphen. That was definitely him.

So basically, the only original stuff in the first Spider-Man comic was by Steve Ditko. The interesting question is if Ditko liked Spider-Man because it seems like Ditko valued Doctor Strange as a more personal creation, being that it originated and generated almost entirely from him whereas with Spider-Man he was salvaging a Kirby-Simon pitch that went nowhere in circles for a decade or so.

I do not know Steve Ditko, but the fact he never ( to my knowledge) spoke negatively about Peter, Spider-Man nor about his other creations ( Strange, JJJ, Norman, Otto etc) should be a clue that characters that lasted over half a century after he created them is something I am sure he took pride in.

[Revolutionary_Jack]

I do not know Steve Ditko, but the fact he never ( to my knowledge) spoke negatively about Peter, Spider-Man nor about his other creations ( Strange, JJJ, Norman, Otto etc) should be a clue that characters that lasted over half a century after he created them is something I am sure he took pride in.

Ditko generally wanted the work to speak for itself and didn't want to constantly be asked or made to answer questions on any of his past work. And that's how it should be.

I reread Amazing from 39 to 122 this past long weekend and there are issues by Romita, Buscema, and Gil Kane and throughout it all there is a common tone and voice in all the characters (that is markedly different from the first 38 when Ditko clearly was running the whole show) that clearly suggest to me that Lee was doing more than signing invoices and stealing credit.

Firstly Stan Lee only participated regularly until ASM#110. From #111 it was Gerry Conway's run. Conway was hired and was able to mimic Stan Lee's style in his early issues but he gradually changed as time went on.

And even in the Lee-Romita era (From #39-110), you have a lot of peaks and valleys. The first 12-14 issues (ASM#39-52) is good, and then you have another run of good comics from ASM#87-98, but between that a lot of mediocrity and repetition and trite melodrama, and then after that you have Roy Thomas' brief and insane (in a bad way) run with Spider-Man which includes the Savage Land trip, the Mobius intro and so on.

[RJT]

Firstly Stan Lee only participated regularly until ASM#110. From #111 it was Gerry Conway's run. Conway was hired and was able to mimic Stan Lee's style in his early issues but he gradually changed as time went on.

And even in the Lee-Romita era (From #39-110), you have a lot of peaks and valleys. The first 12-14 issues (ASM#39-52) is good, and then you have another run of good comics from ASM#87-98, but between that a lot of mediocrity and repetition and trite melodrama, and then after that you have Roy Thomas' brief and insane (in a bad way) run with Spider-Man which includes the Savage Land trip, the Mobius intro and so on.

You do realize I said I just reread these comics, right? I know that Conway took over and that Thomas filled in. I was just listing the issues I read, the majority of which were credited to Stan Lee. I know how to read title pages and credit boxes.

And your opinion of those issues is subjective. If your assertion is that Stan Lee contributed nothing, you can’t wave away when someone points out that Stan Lee actual made contributions to a book with a “but I don’t like those contributions.”

[Revolutionary_Jack]

If your assertion is that Stan Lee contributed nothing...

I never actually asserted that Stan Lee contributed nothing.

[NC_Yankee]

Ditko generally wanted the work to speak for itself and didn't want to constantly be asked or made to answer questions on any of his past work. And that's how it should be.



Firstly Stan Lee only participated regularly until ASM#110. From #111 it was Gerry Conway's run. Conway was hired and was able to mimic Stan Lee's style in his early issues but he gradually changed as time went on.

And even in the Lee-Romita era (From #39-110), you have a lot of peaks and valleys. The first 12-14 issues (ASM#39-52) is good, and then you have another run of good comics from ASM#87-98, but between that a lot of mediocrity and repetition and trite melodrama, and then after that you have Roy Thomas' brief and insane (in a bad way) run with Spider-Man which includes the Savage Land trip, the Mobius intro and so on.

I agree with you 100% that is he work speaks for itself and it should, but I still imagine that privately, Ditko must have been pleased that his characters have lasted as long as they have, and that he along with very others ( Jack Kirby, Bob Kane and Stan Lee to name three that come to mind) will be discussed as long as comic books exist.

[Holt]

The block button is your friend, people.

[jackolover]

It’s all subjective, I feel. To me, I liked Spider-Man the most, so I would say Stan wrote him the best. But on a relative level of where the writer comes from, in this case Stan Lee’s dialogue, like Revolutionary says, Stan’s motivations were not towards loving comic characters, but the marketing. As a fan of Spider-Man, I tend to romanticise my feelings towards the writing of the characters, so Stan Lee comes off as loving Spider-Man the most. A Thor fan would say it was him. An FF fan would say it was the FF.

[Jman27]

Not sure aren’t there any interviews that can answer those question?

[Revolutionary_Jack]

Not sure aren’t there any interviews that can answer those question?

It depends on the interview, the time of day, the year on the calendar. As Lee became a big time celebrity, he became more and more public facing and circumspect, often telling people what they wanted to hear.

In interviews over the decades, Lee at various times claimed J. Jonah Jameson was his favorite character, and the character he identified with most. And apparently he campaigned to play Jameson in a live-action movie version in the many attempts to bring the character on-screen. Probably for the best it never happened, because to quote Sam Raimi, "I know Stan. He can't act." (Raimi was reluctant to even offer Lee cameos).

But on the other hand, privately Lee rarely seem to voice any special feeling for any Marvel character. He often wanted to get out of comic books and resented being associated with it.

[FFJamie94]

I've read multiple times that Stan Lee always thought Silver Surfer was his favourite character. He probably didn't get much of a chance to do anything with him due to sales not being great for that character.

[Revolutionary_Jack]

I've read multiple times that Stan Lee always thought Silver Surfer was his favourite character. He probably didn't get much of a chance to do anything with him due to sales not being great for that character.

Silver Surfer was a character entirely developed independently by Jack Kirby without input from Lee.

[marhawkman]

It depends on the interview, the time of day, the year on the calendar. As Lee became a big time celebrity, he became more and more public facing and circumspect, often telling people what they wanted to hear.

In interviews over the decades, Lee at various times claimed J. Jonah Jameson was his favorite character, and the character he identified with most. And apparently he campaigned to play Jameson in a live-action movie version in the many attempts to bring the character on-screen. Probably for the best it never happened, because to quote Sam Raimi, "I know Stan. He can't act." (Raimi was reluctant to even offer Lee cameos).

But on the other hand, privately Lee rarely seem to voice any special feeling for any Marvel character. He often wanted to get out of comic books and resented being associated with it.

I've always found Stan's role in the old animated series intersting.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1N9TIvIEnpA
how much of that was what he thought people would like to hear and how much was his actual personal thoughts?

[Revolutionary_Jack]

I've always found Stan's role in the old animated series intersting.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1N9TIvIEnpA
how much of that was what he thought people would like to hear and how much was his actual personal thoughts?

I would say all of that was what he thought people would like to hear. In the first place, the script and the words spoken were written by John Semper. So Stan Lee is ventriloquizing what Semper thinks Lee would say.

As for Stan Lee's "actual personal thoughts", nobody had access to that other than Stan Lee. All you can do is try and find some hints or indications, such as a separation between public persona and private actions, long arc of their careers, consistent patterns and form an informed view based on that.

Remember, you started this by saying that Stan Lee had nothing to do with the creation or development of Silver Surfer. I think a case can be made that Jack Kirby is the sole creator of Silver Surfer. But Stan Lee and John Buscema developed his entire backstory, including his identity before he appeared as Galactus' herald. And his background as Norrin Radd has played a huge part in many of the Silver Surfer stories told beyond his original ongoing, including the terrific J.M. DeMatteis run on the character, and the acclaimed Slott/Allred series. Stan Lee felt very proprietary about Silver Surfer for a long time--more so than almost any other Marvel character, most of whom he seemed to forget about the second he stopped "Writing"/editing their titles. It's also--interestingly-- probably the only character that Stan Lee did not take some credit for like he did all the others that were created by Kirby during their run on FF. He told the story countless times that Kirby brought in the art boards with the Surfer on them and that was the first Lee had seen or heard of the character. I think these two seemingly contradictory elements--his proprietary hold over the Surfer for much on the 70s and his clear admission that he had nothing to do with the genesis of the character--suggest to me that Lee did have a lot to do with the development of the Surfer's character post Fantastic Four 48-50, in a way that he maybe did not with many of the other Marvel characters.

Hmm...that's an interesting argument.

What I meant by development is the original Galactus Trilogy and the Surfer's appearances after that in Fantastic Four under Kirby. Silver Surfer's personality is mostly set in stone by Kirby in the first Galactus stories.

In the '70s, Lee and Kirby actually worked on a Silver Surfer proto-graphic novel and for this collaboration Kirby left a paper trail showing him clearly doing the plotting and conception and storytelling while Stan appeared indifferent and lackadaisical as always. This is in Riesmann's book.