Stan Lee is dead at 95

[Mark S.]

Whether you call it *borrowing or stealing, storytellers have been doing it since we were gnawing mammoth bones over the campfire. It's pointless to argue over who did what first.

Stan Lee certainly was not original in creating the super hero or even in creating many of the powers or team dynamics of his super-heroes. Even Stan wouldn't claim that. But Stan was a revolutionary in that he made even the super of the super heroes still seem like real people.

Before Stan Lee, super hero comics were all about the super heroes. No one really cared about Clark Kent or Bruce Wayne, because those were just aliases. The real story was about Superman and Batman. Stan changed all that. Readers loved the Fantastic Four because they weren't just a super hero team; they were a family, with all of the loves and faults and bickerings and triumphs and defeats we all have in our families. People read Spider-Man because they truly loved and cared about Peter Parker, who had a real life with real blue-collar problems. The Hulk certainly was not the first misunderstood monster in comics, but Stan made the Hulk/Banner dynamic and the "fighting the man" themes so great that they nailed the '60s generation.


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RE: *borrowing or stealing. "All good artists borrow. Great artists steal." (A quote either from Pablo Picasso, D.H. Lawrence, Igor Stravinsky, William Faulkner, or Aaron Sorkin. No one really knows because the quote is so true that everyone has been stealing it from others for 10,000 years. I suspect it originated from Uk son of Thag.)

[AFtrEFkt]

Originally Posted by Mark S.

Whether you call it *borrowing or stealing, storytellers have been doing it since we were gnawing mammoth bones over the campfire. It's pointless to argue over who did what first.

Stan Lee certainly was not original in creating the super hero or even in creating many of the powers or team dynamics of his super-heroes. Even Stan wouldn't claim that. But Stan was a revolutionary in that he made even the super of the super heroes still seem like real people.

Before Stan Lee, super hero comics were all about the super heroes. No one really cared about Clark Kent or Bruce Wayne, because those were just aliases. The real story was about Superman and Batman. Stan changed all that. Readers loved the Fantastic Four because they weren't just a super hero team; they were a family, with all of the loves and faults and bickerings and triumphs and defeats we all have in our families. People read Spider-Man because they truly loved and cared about Peter Parker, who had a real life with real blue-collar problems. The Hulk certainly was not the first misunderstood monster in comics, but Stan made the Hulk/Banner dynamic and the "fighting the man" themes so great that they nailed the '60s generation.

Funny how you're on board with all this but when it comes to Kal-el/Clark Kent/Superman, making him relatable, i.e. a being whose inner crisis stems from the realization that he's isn't a standard human like everyone else around him, and he can't seem to wrap his mind around it — at least not for a few years — just isn't your cuppa.

Btw, it happened in the comics, not just Man of Steel. Writing stories with scenes like this makes Clark a much more interesting guy than the Silver Age Superjock who sports a cheesy grin while letting thieves' bullets bounce off his S-shield.

[Mark S.]

Originally Posted by AFtrEFkt

Funny how you're on board with all this but when it comes to Kal-el/Clark Kent/Superman, making him relatable, i.e. a being whose inner crisis stems from the realization that he's isn't a standard human like everyone else around him, and he can't seem to wrap his mind around it — at least not for a few years — just isn't your cuppa.

Trying to make the DC heroes "more human" and "more relatable" all happened post-Stan Lee --- and largely because of Stan Lee and the Marvel heroes. But to address your point ...

I'm just not a Superman fan. Never have been. I think he has a great origin story, but after that, he just isn't all that interesting. He's too powerful so that most writers just continually come up with bigger and stronger bad guys for him to punch. His rogues gallery isn't all that interesting either. The only incarnation of Superman I ever managed to enjoy for long were the Dini/Timm cartoons from 15-20 years ago. George C. Scott summed up why I just can't ever find Superman all that compelling:

"Superman isn't brave. He's smart, handsome, even decent. But he's not brave. No, listen to me. Superman is indestructible, and you can't be brave if you're indestructible. It's people like you and your mother. People who are different, and can be crushed and know it. Yet they keep on going out there every time."

But here again is where DC heroes have always been distinct from Marvel's.

Superman is Kal-El/Superman. Clark Kent is an assumed disguise. Batman is Batman. Bruce Wayne died in that alley with his parents, and billionaire playboy Bruce Wayne is the real mask. Wonder Woman is Diana of Themyscira, a demi-goddess. That's who she is. Diana Prince is just a disguise. Even with the second tier heroes like Flash and Green Lantern, their real-life identities were never very interesting. Only Green Arrow comes to mind as having an interesting real-world persona.

With Marvel heroes, all the pathos is with the actual people. Spider-Man is an assumed identity. Peter Parker is the real hero. The FF don't have disguises, and 3 of the 4 see their powers as more of a curse than a blessing. Banner wants to be rid of the Hulk. Daredevil is just a disguise for the much more interesting Matt Murdock. Iron Man is just a suit Tony Stark wears. All the real drama is in Tony's psyche. Thor and Doctor Stranger are really the only major Marvel super heroes in the DC vein of things.

[AFtrEFkt]

Originally Posted by Ralph_Kirk

You know they were friends, but as I said, that was a very, very small world in those days. Most of the writers and artists knew each other or knew of each other--not more than two degrees of separation between any of them.

Once Timely begat Marvel, and National Periodical begat DC, a different atmosphere emerged wherein the creators became more valuable than just the guys "who filled each pages with words and pictures." They fell out with editors, and with each other. Stan and Steve Ditko weren't on speaking terms by the end of their tandem run on Amazing; Steve would get Stan's script in the mail and draw it. Both guys blamed the other for the fallout. When Ditko left Marvel suddenly in 1966, he wouldn't return till 15 years later, after Stan had left the publishing arm and was here on the west coast working on the live action iterations of his characters.

Kirby left Marvel for DC when the rivalry was at full boil. He was already pissed off over the growing loss of creative control he was once afforded, in spite of being involved in the co-creation of so many of Marvel's greatest characters. Kirby left because he didn't want to renegotiate a new contract, one that Marvel shoved in his face, one that read "You still wanna work here? Well, you're gonna this and you're gonna that, and you're NOT gonna this and you're NOT gonna that!" And Kirby said "Yeah? Well F THAT. Hello again, DC!"

Originally Posted by Ralph_Kirk

Twenty-five years ago was a whole different planet from the Golden and early Silver Ages. Comics had grown to big business with lots of young artists and writers (and lawyers) getting in on it by the 80s.

You're off by a decade. Once you had a number of publishers in the game, editors and creators became wary. Hence the deal with the "-Thing" guys. By the end of the decade, they were less lenient, less forgiving. Captain Marvel isn't really "Shazam!" (that's a word), but Marvel isn't going to let it go, right?

Originally Posted by Ralph_Kirk

A lot of people do claim that the Fantastic Four was a ripoff of Challengers of the Unknown.

Yeah, I'm one of them. The Challengers were discernibly the insipiration for the FF.

Originally Posted by Ralph_Kirk

But both were created by the same man--which would account for some similarities. Yet they are very different. The Challengers were just normal humans having adventures; the FF are superheroes.

What happened there was serendipitous. Lee was directed to create a super-team book because DC's biggest seller overall was Justice League of America. Now at Marvel, Kirby refined what he did, and based on who told the story, Jack either only designed the costumes, or did that and gave them all their names and that Stan only dubbed them the "Four" and said the suits should have the "4" insignia. Either way, the Fantastic Four's regarded as created by Lee/Kirby, and nobody these days seems too concerned with the particulars.

Originally Posted by Ralph_Kirk

Take a look at these discussions:

https://bookriot.com/2018/09/06/who-is-the-doom-patrol/

Byrne Robotics: Jack Kirby indirectly helps create the Doom Patrol?

The Doom Patrol May Have Been a Rip-Off After All

A lot of riff-raff in there, a lot of speculation. Marvel had nothing like the Doom Patrol. But then Lee & Kirby created the X-Men, who were obviously based on Doom Patrol. Patrol's official debut was three months earlier, but they were in production roughly six months earlier, and all Stan had to do was brainstorm a script and have Jack the speed king draw it.

He was regarded as a hard working artist, and it has been calculated that he drew at least 20,318 pages of published art and a further 1,385 covers in his career. He published 1,158 pages in 1962 alone.

That's over three pages a day. That's incredibly fast. Nobody today that I know of does that.

FF=Challengers, X-Men=Doom Patrol, Avengers=Justice League. Marvel needed an overhaul and Lee and various artists (Kirby, Ditko, Everett) provided it.

Originally Posted by Ralph_Kirk

How do you figure I meant FDR when I said "...in NYC in the early 60s?"

You seemed to be pointing to a singular individual with your wording. I figured maybe you were off by a decade and change.

[AFtrEFkt]

Originally Posted by Mark S.

But here again is where DC heroes have always been distinct from Marvel's.

Superman is Kal-El/Superman. Clark Kent is an assumed disguise. Batman is Batman. Bruce Wayne died in that alley with his parents, and billionaire playboy Bruce Wayne is the real mask. Wonder Woman is Diana of Themyscira, a demi-goddess. That's who she is. Diana Prince is just a disguise. Even with the second tier heroes like Flash and Green Lantern, their real-life identities were never very interesting. Only Green Arrow comes to mind as having an interesting real-world persona.

With Marvel heroes, all the pathos is with the actual people. Spider-Man is an assumed identity. Peter Parker is the real hero. The FF don't have disguises, and 3 of the 4 see their powers as more of a curse than a blessing. Banner wants to be rid of the Hulk. Daredevil is just a disguise for the much more interesting Matt Murdock. Iron Man is just a suit Tony Stark wears. All the real drama is in Tony's psyche. Thor and Doctor Stranger are really the only major Marvel super heroes in the DC vein of things.

Every time you write stuff like that, I get the whiff that you're using these as guidelines for why one publisher's characters are "better" than the other.

If you don't like Superman, that's fine. I have no issue with that. It's your continual anti-Snyder campaign I find suspect, since 1) Goyer wrote it, and 2) stuff like that has happened in the comics (example posted above).

Bruce being Batman (or vice versa) is exactly why he's the most interesting of them all. He is literally a guy with NO superpower, NO heightened senses, NO enhanced healing. He has his mission. To enact the mission, he has his intuition, his advanced stealth and combat techniques, and the tech at his disposal — which is far more plausible than Tony Stark's wafer-thin everything-but-the-kitchen-skin armor. I mean, when I opened the first issue of AvX and I saw Iron Man fire off something like "3000" miniature magnetic discs (apparently the armor had an exact count) to overwhelm Magneto, or something like that, I knew Marvel had long since ceased trying to publish the "more realistic" stories they purportedly built a foundation on.

[Mark S.]

Originally Posted by AFtrEFkt

Every time you write stuff like that, I get the whiff that you're using these as guidelines for why one publisher's characters are "better" than the other.

That's not why. It's all in the writing. If the writing is good, I'm in, no matter who the publisher is.

But DC heroes and Marvel heroes are different. DC heroes tend to be more classically mythic. More concerned with archetype. They tend toward godhood (with little g). Marvel heroes are more blue collar and more concerned with the inner lives of the characters.

DC is classical mythology. Marvel is Shakespeare. One isn't inherently better or worse than the other.

Originally Posted by AFtrEFkt

It's your continual anti-Snyder campaign I find suspect, since 1) Goyer wrote it,

I have lightened up on Snyder for that very reason. I do think the guy is talented when it comes to the visuals. His movies often look great. But the stories are a mess. That is primarily the fault of the screenwriter. Directors do have some control in that area, but less so when they are dealing with "owned" branded characters like super heroes. So yes, I am trying to give Snyder a break.

Originally Posted by AFtrEFkt

Bruce being Batman (or vice versa) is exactly why he's the most interesting of them all. He is literally a guy with NO superpower, NO heightened senses, NO enhanced healing. He has his mission. To enact the mission, he has his intuition, his advanced stealth and combat techniques, and the tech at his disposal — which is far more plausible than Tony Stark's wafer-thin everything-but-the-kitchen-skin armor.

Agreed. Batman is probably the best super hero of all time. He is a scared little boy who chose to become a monster that fights other monsters. That's great drama. But honestly, I have always found the Bat-tech to be the least interesting aspect of his character --- which is why the movies so often lose me, since they want to dwell on that so much. Batman isn't formidable because he has the best toys. He is formidable because he is always the scariest guy in any room. But there is a line he won't cross, which keeps him from becoming a villain. (Something the more recent movies have abandoned altogether.)

Originally Posted by AFtrEFkt

I mean, when I opened the first issue of AvX and I saw Iron Man fire off something like "3000" miniature magnetic discs (apparently the armor had an exact count) to overwhelm Magneto, or something like that, I knew Marvel had long since ceased trying to publish the "more realistic" stories they purportedly built a foundation on.

Yeah, Marvel has largely gone off the rails for me. Their entire publishing program for the past five years is centered around a build-up of two major factions getting together and punching each other for 12 issues, the aftermath, then rinse and repeat. Avengers vs. X-men. Avengers vs. Dark Avengers. Heroes vs. heroes. Cap is dead. Cap is alive. Wolverine is dead. Wolverine is alive. Thor is a woman now. It's all gimmicks devoid of any real creativity.

I was really into Marvel about 10 years ago, but they have largely left me.

[AFtrEFkt]

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