Vicious49 wrote:
This is going to sound ignorant, but as a kid when watching Spidey on TV, at the beginning of each episode I'd hear 'Stan Lee presents'. I'd see that in comic books and read Stan's Soapbox. So they can come up with whatever proof they want (valid or invalid) but I'll always be on Stan Lee's side. He's one of the things I associate most with Spidey from when I was young.

I think that is what stuck in Kirby's craw - The general perception that Stan had created the Marvel Universe almost unaided.

It's certainly easy to see how that happened. Stan was most often listed as Writer and Jack as Artist - a seemingly fairly indication of their respective roles. But it led to the simple conclusion that Stan had done all the creative work (he who wrote it, thunk it), while Jack had just drawn what he was told to draw. I sure didn't know what the "Marvel Method" was in the '60s.

When Marvel hit it's Pop Art phase and requests came in from the media, college campuses and the like for someone to talk about Marvel Comics, it was always Stan who was requested. His name was listed first in the credits. He was the Editor. He was the Writer. He was the voice of Marvel in the Bullpen Bulletins, Stan's Soapbox and so on. He was the name foremost associated with the Marvel Brand. That was fine at first for Jack because he wasn't that comfortable with being a public figure and Stan was born for the limelight. It was just in the nature of their personalities.

Inevitably, Stan would be asked the same question, "How did you come up with those crazy characters"? Stan did try to initially disabuse this notion, citing the input from his artists - but after the 2nd or 3rd time a derivative of the same question was posed in the same interview, he would grow tired of repeating himself and just start using "I" - as in "I had this idea" or "I thought" etc etc. This began to grate on Jack and was one of the issues at the crux of his initial divorce from Marvel.

So while I can certainly sympathize with Jack's feeling that his contributions were not recognized, I still can't join the "Stan is Evil" camp. Just wish there was someway that this issue could have been settled years ago (especially while Jack was still with us!).