David, you may not have intended to malign Marvel with your story but leaving out the fact that Marvelmania was the one who didn't pay Kirby does just that. Before throwing out stories one should put all the facts into place. Even if Marvel asked the poster to be redrawn they didn't control who got paid in that instance. They were just giving approval when another company was putting out materials based on their properties. While the comics industry is known for not paying their artists to redraw projects, they do have a firm history of actually paying them for work used or unused.

Marvel did many things to disrespect Kirby, however, this does not sound like one.

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David, you may not have intended to malign Marvel with your story but leaving out the fact that Marvelmania was the one who didn't pay Kirby does just that.

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And Paul provides us with precisely the reason books like this -- and the recent Marvel "history" -- do more harm than good. Even if the writers have no agendas (in a perfect world. . . ) too many of the readers will.

it becomes fashionable to champion the underdog-- it's just a characteristic of american culture. we gravitate to whoever we think of as "the little guy" and kirby was the david versus marvel's goliath.

when that happens, we imbue "david" with a lot of virtues and achievements that might not rightfully be his, in the name of making him more heroic and thus worthy of victory over the bad guy. this often means that other quasi-davids are robbed of their due. and then partisans and "sides" form up and civil wars are waged within a community over who is right and who is wrong (because it has to be one or the other, right?).

as JB said, the marvel universe as we know it would not have happened without jack kirby; also as noted, it would not have happened (again, as we know it) without stan lee, don heck, and a legion of others. kirby was a huge figure in creating marvel but he was not the only one.

give caesar what is due caesar and all.

It took a long time for things to change, and when they did, there were many who felt those changes should be retroactive. One of the many reasons I respect Steve Ditko is that he is not a member of that tribe. He knows things would have been much better for him, if the industry itself had been better. But it wasn't, and that is the reality he accepts. He might not like it. He might be angry and bitter about it (don't know, haven't talked to him about it), but the Past is the Past, and when we fix it, we do so going forward.

It took a long time for things to change, and when they did, there were many who felt those changes should be retroactive. One of the many reasons I respect Steve Ditko is that he is not a member of that tribe. He knows things would have been much better for him, if the industry itself had been better. But it wasn't, and that is the reality he accepts. He might not like it. He might be angry and bitter about it (don't know, haven't talked to him about it), but the Past is the Past, and when we fix it, we do so going forward.

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My grandfather had a job where he worked with asbestos when he was younger. In his 80's he started getting phone call after phone call from former coworkers and lawyers because they were trying to sue the company. Every time they called he would tell them that they had all been informed as they were working with the asbestos that it was cancerous and they all knew that while they were working with it and hang up on them. He said that they should have quit their jobs and found something else at the time and had no right to sue the company for something that was never a secret.

That Ditko example reminded me of that.

Chad Carter wrote: ...Which didn't stop Stan from soaking every ounce of creativity from Kirby's brow and allowing the world to believe these pencil-pushers had no input...

Good lord! How many times is THAT lie going to be passed around????

FACT! Before STAN LEE, credits in comics were NOT the standard! Stan Lee was the fella that made those credit boxes the norm, AND he brought special attention to the creators with his nick-names.

ALSO...

Read this book:

-- I did! -- Back in the 1970's! It's how I knew that Jack Kirby came up with The Silver Surfer (though, as pointed out above, Stan was the guy that gave Silver Surfer his personality, which was a big part of that character). Guess who revealed that fact about Kirby? Stan Lee, himself. And back then, Stan Lee wasn't yet being crucified by over zealous fans who wanted to say he contributed NOTHING to Marvel other than hype.

Stan Lee AND Jack Kirby AND Steve Ditko (with help from some others here and there) created Marvel. ALL OF THEM! We wouldn't have Marvel without any of those guys, and that includes Stan Lee.

My favorite thing about Stan-bashers: How they suggest that Stan Lee didn't write anything, then they will turn around and point out how Stan Lee ignored some notes from time to time on Jack Kirby's artwork regarding story, changing things in the process. Which means he rewrote some stufff... which means he WROTE some stuff. So, which is it? Did Stan Lee NOT write or did he?

And how many stories from artists at Marvel at the time are there about Stan Lee jumping up on his table and acting out scenes when brainstorming a story? That IS a form of writing, too. He acted out plots for his artists at times.

Stan Lee received a lot of credit fromthe media, yes. But Stan himself has acknowledged the contributions of his artists over and over again for decades.

I was discussing this thread with a friend, and I mentioned that I brought up how Jack Kirby's "Spider-Man" was riffing on the original Captain Marvel. My friend reminded me that CC Beck and Joe Simon first worked on that character, which later would become Archie Comics's The Fly.

This made me think of an interesting irony: Jack Kirby is said by some to have came up with Spider-Man because Stan Lee tapped him to work on the character at Marvel first. BUT, the design Kirby used based on several acccounts was a rehash of his design for the "Spider-Man" that would become The Fly, and THAT character was first worked on by Joe Simon and CC Beck.

SO... IF Jack Kirby "created" Marvel's Spider-Man, wouldn't that line of thinking mean that it was Joe Simon and CC Beck that created Archie's The Fly?

Edited to note additionally: And, by extension, following such logic, wouldn't CC Beck and Joe Simon really be the creators of Spider-Man?

The truth is the Spider-Man the public knows and loves was designed by Steve Ditko and the character's personality came from Stan Lee's scripting.