I owe an enormous debt to Stan Lee, and I know it. The Marvel comics line was hugely important to me growing up and is perhaps only slightly less important now because I’ve got things like dependents and employees. Even with that, there are moments that I get completely caught up in Reed Richards’ quest to solve everything. But Stan’s latest profile, in Inc. magazine, is puzzling to me.

Firstly, Inc. is a magazine aimed at entrepreneurs, i.e., people who start their own companies. That isn’t really Stan Lee. He was an employee at Marvel, and even at his own companies (Stan Lee Media and Pow!) I believe he was a  figurehead for other people. He’s a gifted storyteller of a certain sort, and God knows he’s a marketing genius, but an entrepreneur he isn’t.

Secondly,  I’m disturbed by this quote in the profile:

All of the characters at Marvel were my ideas, but the ideas meant nothing unless I had somebody who could illustrate it. For Spider-Man, I called Jack Kirby, and he did a few pages that weren’t right. Jack drew everything so heroically, and I wanted Peter Parker to look more like an average, schlumpy kid. So I got Steve Ditko to do it. Whenever I would discuss the strip, I would say that Steve Ditko and I created Spider-Man. I certainly don’t own the Marvel characters. I’ve never owned them. If I did, I’d be too wealthy to be talking to you.

“All of the characters at Marvel were my ideas”…? I guess it depends upon the definitions of the words “all” and “ideas.” The pre-eminent Marvel way of scripting was thus:  a plotting session between writer and artist; the penciller  would render the pages; the writer would then script in balloons and captions. The first time Stan Lee thought of the Silver Surfer, for example, was after seeing him drawn into a Fantastic Four storyline about Galactus. Stan asked Jack Kirby who that was, and Kirby said he figured that someone as important as Galactus would have a herald — and that was the herald. Stan has agreed in interviews that this was the origin of the character. Here’s the relevant snippet from Wikipedia:

The Silver Surfer debuted as an unplanned addition to the superhero-team comic Fantastic Four #48 (March 1966). The comic’s writer-editor, Stan Lee, and its penciller and co-plotter, Jack Kirby, had by the mid-1960s developed using a three-collaborative technique known as the “Marvel Method“: the two would discuss story ideas, Kirby would work from a brief synopsis to draw the individual scenes and plot details, and Lee would finally add the dialog and captions. When Kirby turned in his pencil art for the story, he included a new character he and Lee had not discussed.^[5] As Lee recalled in 1995, “There, in the middle of the story we had so carefully worked out, was a nut on some sort of flying surfboard”.^[6] He later expanded on this, recalling, “I thought, ‘Jack, this time you’ve gone too far'”.^[7] Kirby explained that the story’s agreed-upon antagonist, a god-like cosmic predator of planets named Galactus should have some sort of herald, and that he created the surfboard “because I’m tired of drawing spaceships!”^[8] Taken by the noble features of the new character, who turned on his master to help defend Earth, Lee overcame his initial skepticism and began adding characterization. The Silver Surfer soon became a key part of the unfolding story.^[5]

The Silver Surfer, therefore, was not solely the idea of Stan Lee. Taking Stan’s definition of “idea” as I believe he’s using it, the Surfer wasn’t his idea at all. So clearly, by this one example alone, “all” isn’t accurate.

I’m not an intellectual property attorney, but doesn’t the “idea” of Spider-Man expand to include the character as conceived? Stan Lee partially got the “idea” for Spider-Man by watching a spider crawl up the wall, but our understanding of Spider-Man redounds largely from the costume as well, which was designed and drawn by Steve Ditko. In Stan’s version, Ditko is an “illustrator” whom he also recognizes as a “creator.” Fair enough. But can you “create” if you’re not part of generating the “idea”? I do a lot of collaboration in all sorts of arenas, especially in the theatre, and part of that is the exchange of ideas. You want people to bring their ideas. (Unless you’re Bertolt Brecht. But that’s another story.)

Throughout the years, Stan Lee has been attacked for taking too much credit. I’m not interested in joining in on that and I’m not trying to. Reading this interview in Inc., though, I see again the sort of interview he gives that lends the impression that he’s edging others out of the spotlight, or minimizing their contribution.  I also like to think that since he’s 86 years old we should pray for his continued good health and look the other way when something he says comes out the wrong way.

And once again, all of this would feel better if Marvel and its various corporate entities over the years had done more to acknowledge the genius of Jack Kirby with tribute, and with money. He was co-creator of a multi-billion-dollar universe of characters and he couldn’t even get his art returned to him.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 11th, 2009 at 7:57 pm and is filed under Comics, Thoughts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.