Stan Lee, Exploitive Capitalist

I have been watching Marvel flicks since X-Men came out in 2000, and in almost all of them, Stan Lee had a cameo. Stan Lee (1922-2018) was the editor of Marvel comics during the period when their most lasting characters were created. It feels like a nice way to honor the guy by featuring him in movies derived from his creations. And as a fan of the movies, Lee was pretty good—he had the right attitude to be a background character who pipes up and says one usually mildly funny line.

Except that Stan Lee didn’t create all those characters, as explained in this article by Jeet Heer in the Nation. The idea that Stan Lee created Marvel’s money-spinning IP is a myth. Heer writes:

On June 16, just as the fury of the #ComicsBrokeMe conversation was reaching a crescendo, Disney released the documentary Stan Lee. Directed by David Gelb, this is a work of corporate propaganda designed to promulgate the idea that the Marvel superheroes were primarily the creation of Lee in his capacity as editor, with artists like Ditko and Kirby merely carrying out his vision.

This is a kind of astonishing thing for Disney to claim since Marvel’s exploitation of its workers is well-documented, and indeed they paid Jack Kirby’s heirs an apparently huge settlement. (If you are interested in Marvel’s rocky history, I recommend Sean Howe’s Marvel Comics: The Untold Story.)

Heer briefly sums up Lee’s life:

Lee joined Marvel Comics (then known as Timely) in 1939 at the tender age of 17. Starting as an office boy, he was elevated in less than two years to being an editor. The fact that he was related to publisher Martin Goodman (whose wife was Lee’s cousin) helped. But, beyond nepotism, Lee proved supremely useful to Goodman and future owners of Marvel because he stood as a shield against claims by freelancers. If Marvel could claim that Lee, as editor, was the creator of their work, then freelancers had no rights. Aside from a few bumpy years later in life, Lee maintained ties with Marvel till the end. When Marvel was fighting Kirby in court, they had Lee as their prize witness.

But Lee’s version of history is a pack of lies.

Heer then compares Lee’s version to the versions presented by Kirby (who created the Fantastic Four, Captain America, Thor, the X-Men and many others, by Ditko (who created Spider-Man and Dr. Strange), and many other sources. Lee comes up short and appears to be motivated by greed.

Heer concludes with a justified condemnation of Disney (for producing a “documentary” with no regard for the truth which justifies their ongoing exploitative habits) and of Lee.

None of this is deny that Lee played a significant role at Marvel. He was a gifted editor and talent scout, and the dialogue and captions he added had a distinctive hip and jocular voice that helped to knit the Marvel Universe together. But he was never the sole creator, which is the lie the Disney documentary insists is history. It’s a useful lie for Disney. If one staffer created everything, the IP remains secure. As such, the exploitation by Marvel in the 1960s remains a model for Hollywood today.

The fact that Disney is regurgitating this mythology in 2023 shows how deeply rooted historical exploitation in the comic book industry still is. Comics remains a predatory industry, and Stan Lee—even after his death in 2018—remains the avatar of corporate mistreatment of workers.

Even though he was charming in his movie cameos, it is impossible for me to forgive the guy.

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