BillyBatson4360 wrote:
First off, even in this suit, Lee freely admits that Jack created the Silver Surfer all by himself.

And yet I would argue that Lee is wrong. A good part of the creation of the Silver Surfer was his personality, which came entirely from Lee (and of which Kirby by all accounts strongly disapproved).

Which is, I think, a good indication of why it is so difficult and possibly futile to try to determine who "created" company-developed characters. The legal fiction that Marvel Comics is the author of the work is not entirely without logical merit.