Stan Lee: Man Vs. Legend

In the days since the passing of Stan Lee, a number of commentators have danced and weaved around the ins and outs of Lee’s legacy in comics.  As I wrote in my post on Monday, there has been “no small degree of consternation” about that legacy.  


What, pray tell, was Stan Lee’s crime that casts such a shadow over his reputation? 


Back in the early 1960s, Stan Lee was in charge of a shell of a comic book company.  Timely Comics begat Atlas which begat Marvel but publisher Martin Goodman’s name changing did nothing to change the fortunes of the company.


Overall, the comic book industry faced declining sales with a line of comics increasingly geared to young children thanks to the restrictive guidelines of the Comics Code Authority. Specifically Marvel was hurt by a decision by Goodman to establish a means of distribution exclusive to Marvel, a distribution system that crashed, leaving Goodman with no one to distribute his comic books.




Until DC came to the rescue.


Goodman made a side deal with DC’s distributor to also carry Marvel Comics.


Yes, DC saved Marvel Comics. But with the caveat that Marvel could only produce a half dozen comics a month, a collection of western titles, sci-fi anthologies and humor books. There was very little for Stan Lee to do. He wasn’t even commissioning new art, relying on a back log of previously completed stories to fill out the thin slate of Marvel titles.  Whatever needed to be written, Stan wrote it. 


Then came Fantastic Four, then Spider-Man. Suddenly, super heroes were big again at Marvel. Iron Man, the Hulk, Ant Man, the Wasp, Thor, the Uncanny X-Men, Doctor Stange, Daredevil and many more. 





It was a lot to produce. The backlog of sci-fi monster stories were no help with the demand to produce new super hero stories. It was a lot of one man to write. So Stan Lee got help.


This brings us to the Marvel Method.

Traditionally, a comic book writer would come up with a story idea or concept, then plot the story, breaking down what happens from page to page and within each individual page, from panel to panel.  Then the writer creates the script: dialogue, thought balloons, captions and even sound effects.




This complete package of story, plot and script would go to an artist to draw. 


What Stan would do is skip the plot part. He would come up with a story idea or concept, then tell the artist to go draw that.  It was up to the artist to work out what happens from page to page and within each individual page, from panel to panel. When the art would come back to Stan, he would do the scripting.  This came to be known as the Marvel Method.


Some artists found this approach liberating, freed from the constraints of drawing exactly what is dictated in a script.

 But there was the issue of how much heavy lifting the artist was doing on the writing part of the process.

Another thing Stan did at Marvel Comics was to be sure to post the credits of the creators clearly where the readers could see them.  He would post  credits like...


Written rapturously by Stan The Man Lee!

Penciled powerfully by Jack the King Kirby!

 This pissed Jack Kirby off. 


Jack resented how those credits presented him as just an artist for hire, bringing Stan's stories to life when a big part of the writing part was foisted off on the the artist. 


Even the very start of the writing process, coming up with a story idea or concept, Kirby was dismissive of Lee's contributions.




Lee himself would admit that the story idea or concept might be no more than, "How about Doctor Doom comes back this month." 


Over on Spider-Man, Steve Ditko won a concession on the credits, being listed as plotter and penciller. By the time Ditko left Spider-Man and Marvel, he was no longer speaking to Lee.


By all accounts, Stan Lee held Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko in high regard as collaborators but failed to understand why exactly they were mad at him.





Mostly because Kirby and Ditko did not seem themselves collaborating with Lee but doing all the major heavy work with coming up with stories and plots as well as drawing the damn things. Only for Lee to come along and screw it up with his dialogue.


Lee would occasionally insert dialogue that fundamentally change the plot Kirby or Ditko created, sometimes necessitating re-drawing pages. And they were only paid for the pages that were accepted for the book.





So yeah, they were pissed.


The thing is these were not the only artists Stan Lee worked with and if there was any similar criticism from John Romita, Dick Ayers, Don Heck, John Buscema, Gene Colan or any of the other artists in the Mighty Marvel Bullpen, I'm not aware of it.





It didn't help that for all their prolific talents, both Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko struggled in areas that Stan Lee excelled. Stan Lee knew how to market himself and by extension Marvel Comics.  Kirby was described as a gruff man with a wild and expansive imagination, more content hunched over his drawing board creating art than having to explain it or sell it. Likewise, Ditko was a misanthrope who shunned the human interactions that Lee thrived on.  


All of this is not to say that maybe, Stan Lee was a bit of a dick towards Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko. But if he was, it was not our of malice, I don't believe. At the core of Stan Lee the legend was Stan Lee the man, smart, talented, gregarious but also insecure, uncertain, even a bit fearful as all men are, deep down. 





Like the man, the legend and the legacy of Stan Lee is no simple matter to resolve.