Who's more responsible for Mavels Sucsess? Jack Kirby or Stan Lee

[iloveclones]

Well, if not us, then who?

 

[explode7]

Superman's responsible for Marvel's success because if that superhero never existed there would have never been a thought in anyone's mind in creating a superhero.

 

[iloveclones]

Well, Guttenberg is most responsible, otherwise we would have to spread these stories from person to person.

 

[The Mad Titan]

Actually, it was Ug the foul smelling, who was the first to tell stories of beings of great power with great responsibility.

 

[spideyboy_1111]

Superman's responsible for Marvel's success because if that superhero never existed there would have never been a thought in anyone's mind in creating a superhero.

erm... that's arguable... you seriously thought if superman was never made, no superhero ever would be? ever here of greek mythology?

 

[Anubis]

No.

 

[Aristotle]

Eventhough I love Stan Lee, the more I read about Jack Kirby, the more I think he's responsible for Marvels sucsess. Am I wrong in this assesmment? Please correct me if I am. And please provide detailed examples if you think Lee is more responsible.

Well, Stan Lee is more responsible for the dumbing-down and complete disillusionment of comics, so he's more responsible for the financial success, but everything early Marvel did right creatively is down to Kirby and Ditko.

 

[UK_Stu]

Thank you for providing such an insightful response. The revelations you've shared with us reinforces my suspicion that Jack Kirby was the real genius, while Stan seemed to be an opportunnist. I'm glad someone was able to summon you, because I'm all out of Soul Shards

umm I don't think that was what was implied at all. There is absolutely no doubting the genius of Kirby, but its an insult to simply call Stan Lee an opportunist. I'd say creativeness aside, Stan did more to make the 'Business' of Marvel Comics the success it is today.

 

[Xofenroht]

Well, Stan Lee is more responsible for the dumbing-down and complete disillusionment of comics, so he's more responsible for the financial success, but everything early Marvel did right creatively is down to Kirby and Ditko.

I read some of Stan's run on "Amazing Spider-Man" and also some of his runs on other titles and Stan didn't really dumb anything down. In the 60's and early 70's, college kids were getting into comics. Stan used his writing to make a lot of political statements, some to promote environmental awareness and also to promote civil rights.

Now come on guys. Are we really going to sit around and disrespect two icons like this?

 

[fifthfiend]

ever here of greek mythology?

This really isn't the appropriate place for a discussion of your taste in porn.

 

[Xofenroht]

I wonder if the ancient greeks invented redtube.

 

[CaptainCanada]

Well, Stan Lee is more responsible for the dumbing-down and complete disillusionment of comics

Uh, what are you talking about?

 

[GyLocke]

DC has Finger vs. Kane, Marvel has Kirby vs. Lee.

Is there any other medium with such soap opera of lies, deception and exploitation in the background?

I think as a creative person your job includes making sure you get credit for what you do. If you let yourself get pushed around, history will forget about you for someone who shines more. It's sad but true. Part of the game.

Stan Lee is building brands. There is one brand he is building above all: Stan Lee. And it's a succesful one.

That's where his talent lies. It's stupid to hate him for it.

 

[Kirk Langstrom]

Well, Stan Lee is more responsible for the dumbing-down and complete disillusionment of comics.

Wow. No offense, but that has to be the most ignorant statement i've ever seen on Superherohype.

Here's a little lesson for you on comics history: Prior to Fantastic Four #1, the entire comic industry was stagnant, and basically paint by numbers...particularly the superhero portion of said industry.

The heroes ALL got along with each other, ALL had secret identities, and ALL had girlfriends who would really dig them "if only they knew who he really was"...

Basically, they were written for children. Stan's scripts and dialogue turned the industry upside-down. Now we had heroes who (in the FF's case) had public identities, fought constantly amongst themselves, and were involved in romantic triangles...

On what planet do you find that "dumbed down" and "disillusioned'?

 

[spideyboy_1111]

Wow. No offense, but that has to be the most ignorant statement i've ever seen on Superherohype.

Here's a little lesson for you on comics history: Prior to Fantastic Four #1, the entire comic industry was stagnant, and basically paint by numbers...particularly the superhero portion of said industry.

The heroes ALL got along with each other, ALL had secret identities, and ALL had girlfriends who would really dig them "if only they knew who he really was"...

Basically, they were written for children. Stan's scripts and dialogue turned the industry upside-down. Now we had heroes who (in the FF's case) had public identities, fought constantly amongst themselves, and were involved in romantic triangles...

On what planet do you find that "dumbed down" and "disillusioned'?

not to mention stan was sorta a unexpected profit.... alot of ideas he had esp with X-men turned into a science, where scientists have actually tried to figure out ways to make things real, sure stan isn't the only one, but i have great respect for him.

 

[Aristotle]

Stan Lee took a genre of storytelling that was basically a happy, optimistic style, projecting a moral system of goods and bads, and turned it into a sludgy, gray world that was even more boring than what came before. Comics were being revolutionized underground in ways that would have more organically reshaped the superhero model. We didn't need Stan Lee to introduce a modicum of realism to superheroes. It would have happened. He did it in an excessively postmodern way. Instead of superheroes always getting along, they almost never did. They seemed to constantly be fighting each other, and never really trusted each other. No longer were superheroes iconic, mythical paragons of virtue that could inspire us to be better. Now they were dirtier and grayer and scarier and lonelier than we were. We don't need art to tell us how ****ty the world is; we LIVE IN THE WORLD. We see it every day. I'm reminded of Patton Oswalt's condemnation of "reality TV" for the same reasons: we used to come home from a hard day at work to escape the ****ty, gray, dull, angry, sad real world. Now we just subject ourselves to more of the same. It's the worst face of postmodernism, and Stan Lee was the horseman of the particular apocalypse in comics.

As for dumbing-down, again, it was Stan Lee. Dialogue had never been a strong point in comics, but Stan Lee made it worse. He couldn't write, and he still can't write, if you read his Who Wants To Be A Superhero tie-in book. And while pre-Stan Lee, superhero comics were often about wildly fantastical, silly, whimsical ideas, Lee went for the boring, "real-world" angle. Fanservice hero-fights. Conversations with taxi drivers. Don't even get me started on "the Marvel method." Even when he did go cosmic, it was always his artists that carried the story, not him. We remember Galactus because of how he looked and how imposing he was, not because of his HORRIBLE dialogue and lackluster plotting.

Finally, as someone already noted, Stan Lee really just builds his own brand. And I do hate him for it, because it's Marvel, and superhero comics in general, that suffer as a result.

 

[CaptainCanada]

You seem to have confused Stan Lee with Frank Miller; he introduced some conflict and problems into comics, but his heroes were still upright heroes. He (and his collaborators) brought the real world into comics, which connected with people, and made comics more intelligent, not less.

His dialogue was no different than anyone else's in that era; if you look at Kirby's solo "Fourth World", it's no different, fundamentally.

 

[iloveclones]

I find that people who use phrases post-modernism more than once in a conversation are usually just trying to show off that they know long words....like prestidigitation.

 

[spideyboy_1111]

This really isn't the appropriate place for a discussion of your taste in porn.

 

[Kirk Langstrom]

Stan Lee took a genre of storytelling that was basically a happy, optimistic style, projecting a moral system of goods and bads, and turned it into a sludgy, gray world that was even more boring than what came before. Comics were being revolutionized underground in ways that would have more organically reshaped the superhero model. We didn't need Stan Lee to introduce a modicum of realism to superheroes. It would have happened. He did it in an excessively postmodern way. Instead of superheroes always getting along, they almost never did. They seemed to constantly be fighting each other, and never really trusted each other. No longer were superheroes iconic, mythical paragons of virtue that could inspire us to be better. Now they were dirtier and grayer and scarier and lonelier than we were. We don't need art to tell us how ****ty the world is; we LIVE IN THE WORLD. We see it every day. I'm reminded of Patton Oswalt's condemnation of "reality TV" for the same reasons: we used to come home from a hard day at work to escape the ****ty, gray, dull, angry, sad real world. Now we just subject ourselves to more of the same. It's the worst face of postmodernism, and Stan Lee was the horseman of the particular apocalypse in comics.

As for dumbing-down, again, it was Stan Lee. Dialogue had never been a strong point in comics, but Stan Lee made it worse. He couldn't write, and he still can't write, if you read his Who Wants To Be A Superhero tie-in book. And while pre-Stan Lee, superhero comics were often about wildly fantastical, silly, whimsical ideas, Lee went for the boring, "real-world" angle. Fanservice hero-fights. Conversations with taxi drivers. Don't even get me started on "the Marvel method." Even when he did go cosmic, it was always his artists that carried the story, not him. We remember Galactus because of how he looked and how imposing he was, not because of his HORRIBLE dialogue and lackluster plotting.

Finally, as someone already noted, Stan Lee really just builds his own brand. And I do hate him for it, because it's Marvel, and superhero comics in general, that suffer as a result.

Seriously; you REALLY need to read up on comic history.... "Happy"? "Optimistic?"...read some of Kane's early Batman. Yeah, i guess some of the people The Joker murdered were TECHNICALLY happy what with those grisly smiles on their faces after he murdered them all.

Saying realism WOULD have eventually been introduced without Stan doesnt really amount to a hill of beans. The fact is, HE was the one who did it. That's like saying "why should we honor Abraham Lincoln on President's Day? Someone ELSE would have eventually ended slavery..."

And "lackluster plotting"? Maybe YOU remember Galactus for how he looked. I remember one of the most intense and riveting storylines i've ever read...to this day.

And finally, as Captain Canada pointed out; you seem to be confusing Lee with the likes of Frank Miller. Nothing about early Marvel was "dull, angry OR gray"...are you sure you've actually read any early Marvel...?

 

[Xofenroht]

Seriously; you REALLY need to read up on comic history.... "Happy"? "Optimistic?"...read some of Kane's early Batman. Yeah, i guess some of the people The Joker murdered were TECHNICALLY happy what with those grisly smiles on their faces after he murdered them all.

Saying realism WOULD have eventually been introduced without Stan doesnt really amount to a hill of beans. The fact is, HE was the one who did it. That's like saying "why should we honor Abraham Lincoln on President's Day? Someone ELSE would have eventually ended slavery..."

And "lackluster plotting"? Maybe YOU remember Galactus for how he looked. I remember one of the most intense and riveting storylines i've ever read...to this day.

And finally, as Captain Canada pointed out; you seem to be confusing Lee with the likes of Frank Miller. Nothing about early Marvel was "dull, angry OR gray"...are you sure you've actually read any early Marvel...?

See, I didn't even have to argue with Aristotle, because someone else did it anyway...

Whoever's behind that name needs a serious reality check or maybe they need to pull their head out of their ass. The point is that at this point, Aristotle, you're just trying to start a fight. It's obvious. PAINFULLY obvious, so cut it out already. What kind of person has the audacity to, not only come onto a comics forum, not only a Marvel forum, but into a thread discussing the greatness of two highly revered pioneers of the comic book industry and then just utterly disrespect them like that?

Aristotle, just stop. You're not doing your namesake any justice by attaching your stupidity to his name.

Thank you.

 

[The Major]

Stan was great as a front man for Marvel. That's where he exceeds Kirby. His captions, letter pages and bulletins made a comic reader feel like they were a part of a secret club. Along with making readers enjoying whatever the characters said in the panels.

Becoming the industry's unofficial spokesmen and Marvel icon is very impressive which made the comic readers happy and even the mainstream public's interest (with his voice overs in cartoons and interviews).

That's the end of it, though.

IIRC all he did as head writer at Marvel was dialogue related tasks in the comics. He didnt have time or inclination for scripts. That's how the Marvel style came about. Its just an artist doing the heavy lifting with the character designs and artwork (with some notes for the "writer" to use) then the writer just fills in the captions. Sometimes Stan would make up names for villains then the artists would create them with only that to go on. That's how Kingpin was created at least.

I'd definitely credit Ditko as the person who made Spider-man a hit. I'm sure he designed Peter Parker on himself and the the supporting cast. Very similar to Finger on Batman. All Stan was fill in the captions on it.

The only reason Stan's allowed to get away with being connected so much with Spider-man is because Ditko doesn't care.

 

[CaptainCanada]

IIRC all he did as head writer at Marvel was dialogue related tasks in the comics.

My understanding is that it went:

1. Stan conceives an idea for a story.
2. Kirby/Ditko/Romita/Whoever maps out the plot and draws the story.
3. Stan does the dialogue.

Sometimes this results in really strange development histories, such as the "Coming of Galactus" trilogy, where Kirby elaborates on Lee's original pitch and decides that a god-like being should have some kind of herald, and creates the Silver Surfer; Lee is so taken with this design, one that he didn't ask for, that they decide that the rest of the story largely revolves around the Surfer.

 

[Zombie_Comics]

I love Stan and Jack the same. Stan really created the popular characters, while Jack brought them to life with cool costums and wonderfull artwork. This is super tough, i'd pick both, but if i had to only pick one it'd be Stan "The Man" Lee.

 

[Doc Destruction]

You guys are all responding incorrectly to this post.

What I really want to know is, WHO IS RESPONSIBLE FOR MAVELS SUCSESS???

THAT is the real question!