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Matt Hawes
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Posted: 30 July 2011 at 3:13pm | IP Logged | 1  

Steve Ditko' opinion on the creation of Spider-Man:

Joe Simon and CC Beck's Silver Spider, and Joe Simon and Jack Kirby's The Fly comparison:



Edited by Matt Hawes on 30 July 2011 at 3:16pm
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Matt Hawes
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Posted: 30 July 2011 at 3:20pm | IP Logged | 2  

 Michael Todd wrote:
...So...the story Stan used to tell about trying to think up a new Super-Hero then noticing a fly crawling on a wall, then going down a list of insect names until he comes to "Spider-Man" is it untrue? Was it a pitch from Jack Kirby with the name of "Spider-Man" that was what prompted the character?...

Hard to say. Maybe Stan came up with the idea as he described and went to Jack, who recalled the character Joe Simon had been working on, and suggested that kind of story. And maybe Stan chose to go a different way because that's not how he envisioned his Spider-Man? Or maybe Jack brought up the idea and Stan went a different way, regardless. It's hard to say, and we'll probably never know exactly how the character we know now as Spider-Man came to be, but I am sure that the character we do know is not the one Jack says was his character.

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Robert Bradley
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Posted: 30 July 2011 at 3:46pm | IP Logged | 3  

I have a hard time finding either Stan or Jack's recollections 100% believable.

Stan is well-known for his bad memory (which he himself had admitted to a number of times) and Jack's stories changed in some instances over the years.

Sure, it would have been great if Kirby (as well as Romita, Sinnott, Ditko, Ayers, Heck, and many others) would have profited more from their work in the '60s, but unfortunately, under the system that was being used at the time (and as JB notes - used by Kirby when he ran his own shop) that wasn't the case.

And just because we might think they deserved more doesn't mean they were legally entitled to it.

It was very interesting to read the decision in the link that Jason posted.



Edited by Robert Bradley on 30 July 2011 at 3:49pm
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John Byrne
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Posted: 30 July 2011 at 6:38pm | IP Logged | 4  

...So...the story Stan used to tell about trying to think up a new Super-Hero then noticing a fly crawling on a wall, then going down a list of insect names until he comes to "Spider-Man" is it untrue? Was it a pitch from Jack Kirby with the name of "Spider-Man" that was what prompted the character?...

++

Hard to say. Maybe Stan came up with the idea as he described and went to Jack, who recalled the character Joe Simon had been working on, and suggested that kind of story. And maybe Stan chose to go a different way because that's not how he envisioned his Spider-Man? Or maybe Jack brought up the idea and Stan went a different way, regardless. It's hard to say, and we'll probably never know exactly how the character we know now as Spider-Man came to be, but I am sure that the character we do know is not the one Jack says was his character.

••

You seem to both be forgetting the third corner of this "triangle". Ditko has described how the character of Spider-Man came to be created, and his version jibes with what Stan has said since the beginning. Given what we know of Steve Ditko, I very much doubt he would back up Stan's story unless it was TRUE.

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Eric White
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Posted: 30 July 2011 at 8:53pm | IP Logged | 5  

Yeah...... on this one I'll go with Lee and Ditko's version when it comes to the creation of Spider-Man.
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Jason Czeskleba
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Posted: 30 July 2011 at 10:03pm | IP Logged | 6  

The part of Stan's story Ditko does not corroborate, however, is how the first Spider-Man story was created, including his origin, the specific nature of his powers and how they work, his personality, etc.  If I'm not mistaken Stan says he came up with the plot and everything in it entirely by himself, doesn't he?  Ditko says he came up with the concept of web shooters but says nothing about how the story was plotted or what he contributed to that first story.
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John Byrne
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Posted: 31 July 2011 at 4:12am | IP Logged | 7  

If I'm not mistaken Stan says he came up with the plot and everything in it entirely by himself, doesn't he?

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You are mistaken.

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Matt Hawes
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Posted: 31 July 2011 at 11:02am | IP Logged | 8  

 John Byrne wrote:
...You seem to both be forgetting the third corner of this "triangle". Ditko has described how the character of Spider-Man came to be created, and his version jibes with what Stan has said since the beginning. Given what we know of Steve Ditko, I very much doubt he would back up Stan's story unless it was TRUE...

True, I did forget! Thanks for reminding me.

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Michael Todd
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Posted: 31 July 2011 at 11:03am | IP Logged | 9  

And I never knew.
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Jason Czeskleba
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Posted: 31 July 2011 at 12:00pm | IP Logged | 10  

 John Byrne wrote:
You are mistaken.


Yes, I guess I was thinking of the Fantastic Four.  Stan does say (in his deposition) that he wrote the plot synopsis for Fantastic Four #1 without any input from Kirby.  Regarding the first Spider-Man story, I can't find any comments from Stan about how the story was plotted.  His oft-repeated story is that he came up with the character, gave it to Kirby, didn't like the way Kirby's visuals looked, so he then gave it to Ditko instead.  That implies that Ditko's only contribution was visual, though of course it doesn't explicitly state it.  Has Stan ever discussed the specifics of the plotting of the first Spider-Man story, and whether Ditko contributed to that plot? 
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John Byrne
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Posted: 31 July 2011 at 12:28pm | IP Logged | 11  

I guess I was thinking of the Fantastic Four. Stan does say (in his deposition) that he wrote the plot synopsis for Fantastic Four #1 without any input from Kirby.

••

Indeed he does. And when Roger Stern was an editor at Marvel, the desk he was given happened to have been Stan's, formerly, and in it Roger found two things. One, he called "Stan Lee's Magic Thesaurus", which I assume is self-explanatory, and the other was a copy of that original FF plot. That has now been reprinted many times.

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Roger A Ott II
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Posted: 31 July 2011 at 12:59pm | IP Logged | 12  

I absolutely wanna see Stan Lee's Magic Thesaurus.
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