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Underground > Comic Books >

Stan Lee Sues Marvel

Matthew Fluxington

13:01 / 13.11.02

The rumors have been going around, but it's finally out. Stan is suing Marvel for depriving him of profits.

I guess Stan DOES deserve the money, but still, I can't help but think of this as karma.

Okay - Barbelithpunditmachinego!

13:03 / 13.11.02

Don't people like Stan Lee then?

13:31 / 13.11.02

Uh, Stan Lee's okay with me, I suppose; I can't help wishing there was a way that some of the other marvel greats (Ditko springs to mind in particular) could get more for the characters they created.

Mister Six, whom all the girls

14:18 / 13.11.02

It's beyond Karma... it's just what you get for being an ASS.

Stan developed the 'marvel style' in the 60's from this:
He talked to Julius Schwartz at a golf match and got the news that Gardner Fox was going to bring back the JSA as the JLA and somehow got an idea of the cover (look at Brave and the Bold 18 (or whenever the JLA premiered) versus FF#1... same cover design).
Stan then talks to Jack Kirby over a meal about what would become the Fantastic Four. Excited, Jack goes home and whips up the issue, no script needed. Stan then adds dialogue.

So... to say he deserves the money (as he claims) is very slight. He's dined on the dreams of others for far too long.

Excelsior!

yawn - thing's buddy

14:54 / 13.11.02

I held that view for a long time as well six.

it's too simple to say that tho methinks.

I read the original incriminating Kirby interview in the Comics Journal in 1990 and i thought: 'you c*nt!'

but having read more on the matter, includung an interesting overview by the journal again (circa 95) I reckon Stan's not the cheapshot many believe him to be.

anyway.

Mister Six, whom all the girls

15:20 / 13.11.02

Yawn,

I love Marvel 60's... but after seeing this article... I'm angered, I guess.

I ask you to rent one Marvel Cartoon video and watch 'Uncle Stan' give his little intro to ideas that are documented as coming from Ditko, Kirby, and even Joe Simon... then have the same view. There he is, in Florida, all tanned glasses and toupee... grinning like a corpse.

yawn - thing's buddy

22:26 / 16.11.02

accchh, you're probably right, sixy. found this on linkmachinego:

its probably the best bit of writing Ellis has ever done. It was certainly thew first time his words actually made my skull resonate.

Warren Ellis on Stan Lee: '... his position as Publisher Emeritus makes him a million dollars a year, just for the use of his name. The co-creator of Spider-Man, Steve Ditko, is the invisible man. No money, no participation, no mention. Perhaps he doesn't care. Like Stan Lee didn't seem to care, until a few weeks ago. I mean, a million dollars a year is pretty good. Until an American news program asked him how he felt about earning and owning nothing of last year's cinema phenomenon and this year's DVD phenomenon. I saw the clip. 30-odd years of media savvy choked. Hesitation is fatal in a medium like TV. He choked and burned and suddenly he couldn't be 100% positive. Suddenly he was Jack Kirby.'

yeah. you are right, sixy.

Solitaire Rose as Tom Servo

06:57 / 17.11.02

I understand a lot of why people have a lot of anger toward Stan...but the facts are pretty simple. His contract says he gets 10% of the profits Marvel gets from selling characters to other media. This was a lot less than he had before the 1995 corporate bullshit, and the first thing he did when he got the new, lesser contract was to go to DC and offer to write a bunch of stuff for them.

Should Kirby and Ditko get a lot more? Well, Kirby should, Ditko's philosophy keeps him from taking a lot of money that we would think he's entitled to. But now, Stan has a contract (which Kirby and Ditko didn't) and he's going to make sure he doesn't get screwed. Good for him.

And the story cited about the FF has a lot of holes in it. First, it was Martin Goodman who told Stan to crank out super-heroes because DC was making money with them again. Second there IS a copy of Stan's plot for the first issue of the FF, and Will Murray's research has shown that the Marvel Method didn't really hit in full force until around 1965 - 1966 when there were so many books, Stan couldn't write plots for them all, so he would "act out" the stories if the artist was in the office, or call and explain the story to the artist if they weren't. Third, you will find no bigger defender of Jack Kirby on this site, but without Stan, his Marvel stuff wouldn't have been half as popular and he'd be a cult artist like Ogden Whitney by now. Stan made the dialouge fun, turned Marvel into a "club" that readers got to join by buying the comics, and tamed Jack's thought process to create manageable stories. It's no coincidence that The New Gods is pure Kirby, and yet so filled with new ideas that none of them are developed enough to matter.

yawn - thing's buddy

08:40 / 17.11.02

yeah.

I've changed my mind again.

23:32 / 17.11.02

Yep.

Stan, whose dialogue I find unreadable to be honest (but it's not FOR me,) has his own way with language, and that along with Kirby and Ditko's genius has inspired millions of people.

When I was younger I must admit I did use the phrase "'nuff said." Go to any other comics messageboard. People use his language; in the same way they (or I) use, for example, Wu-Tang Clan's 'language'. Or Irvine Welsh's.

Not all that many people have achieved that.

03:52 / 19.11.02

Stan Lee is pretty much doubtlessly in the right in suing Marvel Comics.

Other creators, who have been considerably more harshly wronged by Marvel have gotten and will get nothing.

Stan was party to this for a very long time.

Nonetheless, it's not right to claim that his writing didn't have a very significant influence on the nature and success of early Marvel - not just in terms of the branding, but also his whole concept of "superheroes are people", which, as much as the vivid art, was the real novelty that made the Marvel success story.

Personally, I nowadays find his writing almost literally unreadable.

Don't you just revel in the contradictions?

12:16 / 19.11.02

I'm beginning to think all these comic book creators end up a bit gaga. I'd like to see how Moore or Morrison make it to their seventees.

Mister Six, whom all the girls

14:14 / 19.11.02

The source of the story (Joe Simon's Comic Book Makers) causes me to press here. Besides, Stan cites his wife for giving him the incentive to do the FF because the line was going to be cancelled.

The question of Kirby writing is one of taste, not credibility. I thoroughly enjoy Daredevil vs Submariner, but also Firever People is a masterpiece that was misunderstood and cancelled. Frankly I'm suprised to see New Gods get a negarive review from a site full of Morrison fans. He took about 20 ideas from it and Super Powers was the basis for 'Rock of Ages.'

Stan Lee, like the Velvet Underground of comics, inspired many to get into comics, but also gave many a very negative view of comics (same again sir... syndrome on Spider-Man).

In any case, this is a matter of taste, not ownership. On ownership of work... Stan deserves to kiss Kirby's grave and buy Ditko's family lunch... for starters.

Solitaire Rose as Tom Servo

03:03 / 22.11.02

I wouldn't go with Joe Simon's book for a lot in the way of facts, since his book is horridly riddled with lies and inconsistancies. Let's remember, Joe Simon is the guy who is in court right now claiming that Jack Kirby had nothing to do with the creation of Captain America, has tried to make claim to creating Spider-Man and grabbed up every credit that was lying around as well.

I love the New Gods, but it was horridly scattershot and needed a strong editorial hand so that the stories worked.

All of this is beside the point in the lawsuit though. When Marvel was in finacial trouble, they renegotiated their contract with Stan, giving him 10%, which they aren't paying him. I daresay it's like any other corporation, the creators who stayed and became company employees did ok and were able to retire with a nice amount of money(John Romita, John Verpootin, and some of the other artists who quit working freelance and took staff jobs), the artists who remained freelance got paid for what they turned in and nothing more.

It's shit, but that's the way it works at American Express, IBM, Apple and the like.

In a perfect world, they all would have gotten good contracts, and in a lot of ways, the artists now should thank them for the fight in the 70's and 80's for creator's rights. I know that when I buy original art, I write the artist to make sure I bought it legally and then send them a portion of what I paid for it. Of course, when I did that with Curt Swan, he thought I'd lost my little mind.

13:08 / 23.11.02

In addition to what I've said above, I do find Lee's 'inability to remember' just about anything to do with the creation of Marvel icons, a teensy bit disingenuous.

However, I'd rather see him get the money than some business-type. After all, Stan's not 'the Man.'

Oh, he is.

Brigade du jour

05:05 / 24.11.02

Stan's more than the man, man, Stan's the dad I never had.

Is that prose or poetry?