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"Stan Lee, the legendary writer, editor and publisher of Marvel Comics whose fantabulous but flawed creations made him a real-life superhero to comic-book lovers everywhere, has died. He was 95."


https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/stan-lee-marvel-comics-legend-721450

He had a great life and his work will live on. He'll probably still be in the next half a dozen marvel films since they filmed a bunch of stuff with him a little while ago.
 
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I'm curious to really know about the deals of all those comic characters ...
he's listed as a co-creator on so many ...yet I feel as senior editor he got to change an item here or there, colour of a suit, personality trait etc and claimed rights and such.
[doublepost=1542051591][/doublepost]
His impact on movies and entertainment was profound. RIP.

One could argue his "impact" both positive and negative in terms of characters could've been a bit high-handed ... changing characters completely conceived by others seeking publishing to which he'd change items/etc and have partial ownership and other rights; taking in wealth outliving the creators.

This is something HEAVY to consider before praising.
 
I'm curious to really know about the deals of all those comic characters ...
he's listed as a co-creator on so many ...yet I feel as senior editor he got to change an item here or there, colour of a suit, personality trait etc and claimed rights and such.
[doublepost=1542051591][/doublepost]

One could argue his "impact" both positive and negative in terms of characters could've been a bit high-handed ... changing characters completely conceived by others seeking publishing to which he'd change items/etc and have partial ownership and other rights; taking in wealth outliving the creators.

This is something HEAVY to consider before praising.
Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko (Spider-man) were the main artists that drew the characters. Just because one isn't the artist doesn't mean a person did not create the characters. Stan Lee gave credit where it was due.
 
He put a lot of life into pencil drawings!!
He was also the bridge between reality and fantasy.

Thanks for the adventure and laughs, Stan!
 
Loved Spiderman comics growing up. Really absorbing, transported there. So well written you actually cared about the characters. Loved the first Iron Man movie too. RIP.
 
Damn. :( :( :(

https://www.npr.org/2018/11/12/106322838/a-marvel-of-a-man-stan-lee-dead-at-95

A Marvel Of A Man: Stan Lee Dead At 95
November 12, 20182:45 PM ET

American comic book writer, editor, publisher and former president of Marvel Comics, Stan Lee, died Monday at the age of 95.

Stan Lee gave us over six decades of work like The Incredible Hulk and The Amazing Spider-Man — superheroes we could identify with, characters that allowed us to suspend our disbelief because they reacted to bizarre situations like you or I might.

In a 1998 interview, Lee told me, "Before Marvel started, any superhero might be walking down the street and see a 12-foot-tall monster coming toward him with purple skin and eight arms breathing fire, and the character would have said something like, 'Oh! There's a monster from another world, I better catch him before he destroys the city.' Now, if one of our Marvel characters saw the same monster, I'd like to think Spider-Man would say, 'Who's the nut in the Halloween get-up? I wonder what he's advertising?'"

Robert Scott, owner of Comickaze, a San Diego comic book store, says Lee put the human in superhuman.

"He would talk about prejudice, racism," Scott says. "I mean the X-Men, here was a group of people who were only trying to do good things and only trying to help and they were constantly ostracized by being mutants."

For Lee, having compelling, thought-provoking subject matter was crucial to his business.

"The person viewing the cartoon or reading the book should have something to think about, not just look at mindless pages of running around," Lee said.

Born Stanley Lieber in New York City in 1922, he took the pseudonym Stan Lee in order to save his real name for more literary pursuits. But those pursuits never came. Instead, Lee devoted more than six decades to the comics industry, co-creating Spider-Man, Black Panther, the Fantastic Four, the X-Men, Iron Man and Daredevil. In 1970, he successfully challenged the restrictive Comics Code Authority with a story about drug abuse in Spider-Man.

But Lee also injected a sense of self-doubt in his characters.

That was the revolution that Stan Lee did," says David Goyer, who adapted the Marvel character Blade for the screen. "He was the first one to create, with Spider-Man, superheroes who doubted themselves, who were tormented, who were unhappy."

The increased complexity of Marvel's characters broadened their appeal to older audiences. Lee, always a savvy businessman, spearheaded the expansion of Marvel Comics from a division within a publishing house to a large multimedia corporation.

Lee's larger vision was to create a shared Marvel universe in which characters from one series would crossover into another. He cited one example at a 2008 fan convention: "There was one I loved, I think it was the Fantastic Four, and they were at a ball game at Yankee Stadium and there were a lot of press photographers there. So I told [comic book artist] Jack Kirby to draw Peter Parker in the background with a camera. And we made no mention of it, he was just in the panel, and we got about a million letters saying, 'We saw Peter Parker at the game. That's terrific.' And it made it seem like these were real characters who live in the same world and occasionally they get together. And that was something I got a big kick out of."

Lee built a sense of community between fans and creators. He engaged readers through his column, Stan's Soapbox, and often signed off on his letters to fans with the catch-phrase " 'Nuff said." And he became as recognizable as his superheroes through his many cameos on TV and in movies.

After entering the comics industry as a teenager and helping to move the medium to mature and expand, Lee's impact on comics was recognized with numerous awards including the American National Medal of Arts in 2008.

By giving us superheroes that proved all too human, Lee has assured himself a permanent place in pop culture.

'Nuff said.

BL.
 
Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko (Spider-man) were the main artists that drew the characters. Just because one isn't the artist doesn't mean a person did not create the characters. Stan Lee gave credit where it was due.

I think you misunderstand me and my post is NOT isolated to just Spider-Man.

Stan Lee is credited with over 40 Marvel characters as "co-creator" ALL while working as a top editor at Marvel. This means;

- he had top control of content that makes it into production.
- he had ability to DENY characters from over being published.
^ remember as far back as the 50's it was DC or Marvel and hardly ever as many smaller publishers that made and distributed comics as widely as these two or didn't end up being bought out by those two.

Creative yes .. but I'll wager with some deep history super sleuth that Stan may have forced or co-erced even the most smallest changes to earn him the licensing and credit to be a part of licensing of so many characters
- a colour of a suit, size of a logo (let's say Spider-Man's very many logos and instances of the spider on any of those suits and characters: Spider-man, The Amazing Spider-Man, etc)
 
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Not unexpected, at the age of 95, but still very, very sad.

Always a Marvel fan in my youth, with Spider-Man (and - to a lesser degree - The Fantastic Four) as my personal favourite. The Marvel universe was always more interesting than DC, and the movies in the last couple of decades has only reinforced my fandom.

Nice obituary in the Guardian:
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/nov/12/stan-lee-obituary

And another tribute:
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2...-man-avengers-creator-last-pop-culture-legend

And yet another article:
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/nov/12/stan-lee-fans-stars-pay-tribute-to-comic

I'll miss you, Stan!
 
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In England as kids we had far better comic strips, Dennis the Menace, Tuffs And The Toffs, Bash St. Kids, Minnie The Minx, Numbskulls, Desperate Dan... no need for all these silly so-called superheroes and their nonsense. Not to mention the guys up in Newcastle STILL producing Viz comic for a more adult audience: Biffa Bacon, Fat Slags, Finbar Sauders And His Double Entendres, Roger Melly The Man On The Telly, Mrs Brady Old Lady, Sid The Sexist, Pathetic Sharks... Eat your heart out Stan, you missed the boat.
 
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I think you misunderstand me and my post is NOT isolated to just Spider-Man.

Stan Lee is credited with over 40 Marvel characters as "co-creator" ALL while working as a top editor at Marvel. This means;

- he had top control of content that makes it into production.
- he had ability to DENY characters from over being published.
^ remember as far back as the 50's it was DC or Marvel and hardly ever as many smaller publishers that made and distributed comics as widely as these two or didn't end up being bought out by those two.

Creative yes .. but I'll wager with some deep history super sleuth that Stan may have forced or co-erced even the most smallest changes to earn him the licensing and credit to be a part of licensing of so many characters
- a colour of a suit, size of a logo (let's say Spider-Man's very many logos and instances of the spider on any of those suits and characters: Spider-man, The Amazing Spider-Man, etc)


You are a little confused on this topic. Stan was the writer not the editor for most of the books where he co-created characters, he left being a writer to be a publisher for Marvel several years after the creation of the Marvel Universe. For example he wrote the first 100+ issues of both Spider-Man and the Fantastic Four. A bunch of early issues of Avengers, X-Men, Daredevil and Doctor Strange. Right there, just the heroes is 20, and that in the first 12-18 months of marvel, obviously with those 20 heroes and that many books we have even more villains and for the most part they are credited to both the artist (Kirby, Ditko, Romito, etc) and the writer Stan. He was a very prolific comic writer while he was writing most of the stories for the beginning of the Marvel Universe which started in 1961 when he and Kirby created the Fantastic Four (which was basically ripping off Kirby's early Challengers of the Unknown he had done for DC). Stan wrote all or virtually all the books for the first 3 or 4 years, that is why he is credited with being co creator for so many characters, he wrote their first stories. Black Panther, Silver Surfer, Galactus, all the classic spider villains (Green Goblin, Doc Ock, Vulture, Mysterio, Kraven, Sandman, Scorpion), the X-Men's foes (Magneto, Toad, Mastermind, Scarlet Witch, Quicksilver), the Inhumans and Dr Doom in the FF and all the Avengers original foes all first appeared in books he wrote so for the most part he helped create.
-Tig
 
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You are a little confused on this topic. Stan was the writer not the editor for most of the books where he co-created characters, he left being a writer to be a publisher for Marvel several years after the creation of the Marvel Universe. For example he wrote the first 100+ issues of both Spider-Man and the Fantastic Four. A bunch of early issues of Avengers, X-Men, Daredevil and Doctor Strange. Right there, just the heroes is 20, and that in the first 12-18 months of marvel, obviously with those 20 heroes and that many books we have even more villains and for the most part they are credited to both the artist (Kirby, Ditko, Romito, etc) and the writer Stan. He was a very prolific comic writer while he was writing most of the stories for the beginning of the Marvel Universe which started in 1961 when he and Kirby created the Fantastic Four (which was basically ripping off Kirby's early Challengers of the Unknown he had done for DC). Stan wrote all or virtually all the books for the first 3 or 4 years, that is why he is credited with being co creator for so many characters, he wrote their first stories. Black Panther, Silver Surfer, Galactus, all the classic spider villains (Green Goblin, Doc Ock, Vulture, Mysterio, Kraven, Sandman, Scorpion), the X-Men's foes (Magneto, Toad, Mastermind, Scarlet Witch, Quicksilver), the Inhumans and Dr Doom in the FF and all the Avengers original foes all first appeared in books he wrote so for the most part he helped create.
-Tig


Very informative and interesting post ... BUT!

Just this one ...

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Panther_(comics)

Black Panther is a fictional superheroappearing in American comic bookspublished by Marvel Comics. The character was created by writer-editor Stan Lee and writer-artist Jack Kirby, first appearing in Fantastic Four #52 (cover-dated July 1966) in the Silver Age of Comic Books.

If you pay attention to te timeline you’d see it fits just in line with your post details before Marvel Universe ;)

And yes Stand was an editor a Very long time before most realized. The best way to know is if anyone has the original copy and can see the editor penned therein.
 
Very informative and interesting post ... BUT!

Just this one ...

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Panther_(comics)



If you pay attention to te timeline you’d see it fits just in line with your post details before Marvel Universe ;)

And yes Stand was an editor a Very long time before most realized. The best way to know is if anyone has the original copy and can see the editor penned therein.

He was credited as Editor in the book, I have the complete run, but thats not the point I was trying to make for you, and instead of editor I had meant to say publisher which is the job Stan took when he stopped writing books in 1972. Stan has credit for creating characters because he wrote the stories, not because he was editor, or later publisher and even later president of Marvel. If he wrote the 1st story with a character he and the artist who drew the character are credited as cocreators on almost every occasion. With the exception of She-Hulk which he wrote the first issue of much later in life, and a character or two for the New Universe on the 25th anniversary of Marvel, Stan's Marvel creations date from the early days of Marvel. But if you write most of the books for the decade of the 60s for Marvel, you end up with alot of characters you help create. When you create a book like the Fantastic Four, you get 4 characters there, then a villain every couple of issues, you write 125+ issues of the Fantastic Four and you get alot of characters. Same with Spiderman, Iron Man, Thor (with Thor we have all the Asgardians), the Inhumans (a dozen members of the Royal Family). When Marvel did the 100 greatest stories of all time in 2001, 35 of them were written by Stan, despite all of them being 25 years old at that time.
-Tig
 
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He was credited as Editor in the book, I have the complete run, but thats not the point I was trying to make for you, and instead of editor I had meant to say publisher which is the job Stan took when he stopped writing books in 1972. Stan has credit for creating characters because he wrote the stories, not because he was editor, or later publisher and even later president of Marvel. If he wrote the 1st story with a character he and the artist who drew the character are credited as cocreators on almost every occasion. With the exception of She-Hulk which he wrote the first issue of much later in life, and a character or two for the New Universe on the 25th anniversary of Marvel, Stan's Marvel creations date from the early days of Marvel. But if you write most of the books for the decade of the 60s for Marvel, you end up with alot of characters you help create. When you create a book like the Fantastic Four, you get 4 characters there, then a villain every couple of issues, you write 125+ issues of the Fantastic Four and you get alot of characters. Same with Spiderman, Iron Man, Thor (with Thor we have all the Asgardians), the Inhumans (a dozen members of the Royal Family). When Marvel did the 100 greatest stories of all time in 2001, 35 of them were written by Stan, despite all of them being 25 years old at that time.
-Tig

Perfect.

I'm under the negative view, yes negative or precautionary view that with Stan Lee as a writer, editor - those fields have very distinctive labels - but in practice at Marvel can be one and the very same.

Example.

Stan Lee himself specifically stated that upper management stated an oversight such as the original Hays Code, wherein any character of dark colour would be portrait not in a very positive or global appealing light. He's stated himself (I'll be damned to find the video right now but it was a right at the official trailer release for Black Panther) that previous Marvel characters of African American heritage got a bum write up ... such as a character who's power was to scream - stating we're all loud mouths (and not to be likened like the X-Men/Factor character). Black Lightning was the change, Luke Cage and Black Panther.

Now not just focusing on that ... but what I'm saying with your details just above that I've quoted ... Stan Lee had a VERY strong influence in the decision process of WHICH characters got a comic appearance and their own comic when brought in by the creators (I mean the REAL original creators); which differs from Spiderman (which Ditko was also a Marvel employee).

This is where I'm saying Stan Lee is credited on so many Marvel characters ... his juice/clout ... has THAT much influence that if say You and I came in with a great character that appealed to Marvel's stable and that character is fully formed ... what's the say that the following changes would no longer just have Stan be credited as an Editor vs a Writer

- Character's suit changes, how he changes into the suit, scenarios that would allow and prevent that
(you'd have to write this into the comic for each or most issues)
- Character's history and how that will eventually play out or for the comic to come back to.
- Character's link to us ordinary people in daily life
- Character's influences, changes to the arch nemises or maybe You and I the original creators never came UP with a nemises and most writers back then and now still don't.
(THIS Is the KEY that a writer or Editor can fully be involved in the writeup of comic.)
This means ...

You're no longer an editor ... you're no longer just the comic strip author/writer of said issue ... you're now the Co-Creator! And thus also hold rights to any sales, use of, etc of said comic character (unless Marvel does and still may need to seek and pay you for your approval).

Now if You and I chose NOT to agree to those changes above ... are character never gets published at Marvel. DC is the other major distributor and if not a fit for them ... well our character doesn't have much more than a half-shelf life from some lower independent with poorer artists with less tools, experience and skills etc.

I can't believe I'm the ONLY one that is speculative of this with over 40 characters under Stan Lee as co-creator and many of them don't have his consistent narration of the likes of Spiderman. Heck I recall Saturday morning cartoons watching the OG animated Spiderman from the 70's on rerun and "Spiderman & His Amazing Friends" on buffalo 29 and even THEN the narration was ALL Stan Lee!
- it all just doesn't sit right.

I'm curious ... in all that time how many major characters in heavy rotation at Marvel were NOT Co-Created by Stan Lee??
 
Perfect.

Snip..

I'm curious ... in all that time how many major characters in heavy rotation at Marvel were NOT Co-Created by Stan Lee??

Just to name a few off the top of my head...

Punisher
Deadpool
Domino
Darth Vader (star wars universe)
Cable
Wolverine
Moonknight
Ms. Marvel
Cloak & Dagger
Captain America

That is all I can think of. I haven't read a Marvel comic in a long time. The last run was Death of Wolverine... Which he is now back! :)

The rest, if not almost all are based on Stan in one way or another. There are several X-Men titles out, as well as Spiderman comics. Some of the more popular ones at my comic book store are still the X-Men titles.
 
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Perfect.

Now not just focusing on that ... but what I'm saying with your details just above that I've quoted ... Stan Lee had a VERY strong influence in the decision process of WHICH characters got a comic appearance and their own comic when brought in by the creators (I mean the REAL original creators); which differs from Spiderman (which Ditko was also a Marvel employee).

This is where I'm saying Stan Lee is credited on so many Marvel characters ... his juice/clout ... has THAT much influence that if say You and I came in with a great character that appealed to Marvel's stable and that character is fully formed ... what's the say that the following changes would no longer just have Stan be credited as an Editor vs a Writer

You kinda are looking at a current version of the industry vs how it was in the 60's, and really missing the point and making it seem that Stan was a powerful person at Marvel in the 1960's, and that he was stealing co-creator rights on characters and he wasn't. You literally have me defending Lee when I was a Kirby guy on the lawsuit for alot of reasons, but none of them are that Stan stole credit for the characters he helped create. Biggest proof that he wasn't stealing credit for characters is that despite what I said early, Kirby alone is given credit for the Silver Surfer because he wasn't in the original outline for FF #48, he was a character that Kirby drew in and added without Stan's help and Stan isn't listed as a creator, and arguably he was Stan's favorite character given all the stories, miniseries and graphic novels he did with him long after he'd retired from writing anything else.

You're no longer an editor ... you're no longer just the comic strip author/writer of said issue ... you're now the Co-Creator! And thus also hold rights to any sales, use of, etc of said comic character (unless Marvel does and still may need to seek and pay you for your approval).
In the 1960s (actually in some ways even now), none of that is true, you come up with a character for Marvel, and Marvel owns it. The creator of Wolverine doesn't get royalties or decide what his character does each month. Chris Claremont doesn't get a bunch of money for all the characters he helped create (a bunch of the X-Men for instance). So co-creator doesnt mean alot, in our new multimedia age, that has changed somewhat, as in same cases creators have gotten paid for TV and Movie use of their characters, but co-creator of Cyclops (Stan Lee) made him absolutely no money. Also the reason Stan is listed as Editor is because for whole lot of the books, he was the only actual employee of Marvel, many of the Artists, Inkers and colorist were freelancers, and there is no way they would list a freelancer as the editor of the book, and literally they were paying Stan to write the books and making him edit them all for the same pay. Stan first became editor at 19 because Kirby and Simon quit, literally making him one of the only employees, most of the rest were freelancers.

Now if You and I chose NOT to agree to those changes above ... are character never gets published at Marvel. DC is the other major distributor and if not a fit for them ... well our character doesn't have much more than a half-shelf life from some lower independent with poorer artists with less tools, experience and skills etc.
People weren't designing characters and trying to get Marvel to publish them and Stan keeping that from happening as you seem to be implying. Characters weren't this huge value you seem to be placing on it. Superheroes were a huge gamble then. In 1961 they published 1 Superhero comic, more in 62 and 63 but it was years before the superhero comics were the majority of the books they were putting out.

I can't believe I'm the ONLY one that is speculative of this with over 40 characters under Stan Lee as co-creator and many of them don't have his consistent narration of the likes of Spiderman. Heck I recall Saturday morning cartoons watching the OG animated Spiderman from the 70's on rerun and "Spiderman & His Amazing Friends" on buffalo 29 and even THEN the narration was ALL Stan Lee!
- it all just doesn't sit right.
Its alot more then 40 characters, but you keep thinking thats alot and its really not. Literally after issue #1 of Fantastic Four, Spiderman, Avengers and X-Men (so 4 issues), Stan is credited with creating I believe 22 characters. The Wikipedia article lists alot more then 40 that he created which is true, obviously if got 22 in just 4 issues.

I'm curious ... in all that time how many major characters in heavy rotation at Marvel were NOT Co-Created by Stan Lee??

I don't know what you mean by all that time, so not sure how to answer the question. Captain America, Silver Surfer and Namor are three obvious ones he isnt creator for that existed when he was actually writing, and then almost none of the characters who came out after 1972 (She-Hulk and a few others being the exceptions there) after he stopped writing full time and became the publisher.
-Tig
 
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@Tigger11 I thought Stan was a co-creator for Silver Surfer? That is why Fantastic Four #48 is one of the "grails" to a lot of folks in the comic book world.

Fantastic Four 48-50 are commonly known as the Galactus Trilogy and is regarded as a one of the great stories of Marvel. It was scripted by Lee and then drawn by Kirby. However an interesting thing happened, Kirby added a character the Silver Surfer while drawing the story as a herald for Galactus. At first Lee was pissed off at Kirby but eventually came to love the character, as I said earlier it may have been his favorite but even Stan admitted he is Kirby’s creation. I kind of forgot that when this thread started since I knew he wrote all the early FF and Spider-Man.
-Tig
 
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In England as kids we had far better comic strips, Dennis the Menace, Tuffs And The Toffs, Bash St. Kids, Minnie The Minx, Numbskulls, Desperate Dan...

...and if anybody thinks that they are for a younger audience than US Superhero comic books - I give you 2000AD and Judge Dredd (very dark and satirical - and harder SciFi-wise - c.f. the US comics) - plus lots of stuff based off Dr Who and the Gerry Anderson TV shows (I had Countdown as a kid).

Or if you want something of a vintage more comparable with Stan Lee, Dan Dare...

Still - respects to Stan Lee, though.
 
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