>>86387260He took too much credit, but then he was the face of Marvel, still is.
He's an incredibly charismatic person, a real personality if you will, so when people want to write articles about Marvel, they go to him. Invariably this leads to him getting more and more praise than he probably deserves, but to be fair at this point he's had 50 odd years of being told he's the genius behind Spider-Man, Hulk, FF etc. It would go to anyone's head.
I'm not trying to say that Lee is blameless because he isn't. I've certainly spent many years hating the old hack, I'm just saying I've come to terms with it.
Lee is one of the key driving factors behind Marvel's success. His personality informed those first Marvel comics in the 60's with his jovial tongue in cheek wink and nod to the reader, with their engagement with their fans. The man could sell sand to an Arab and that's apparent on the page
As it is, I don't think I've seen or read many interviews with him where he doesn't in some way talk about the artists at the time, usually Ditko, Kirby and Romita. Sure he's all about him, but he's a grandstanding showoffy cunt, but its not like he doesn't mention them. And he made the point of having the Spider-Man films say "Spider-Man created by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko"
The way I see it you go through 3 phases with Lee.
Love. You think he's great amazing EXCELSIOR TRUE BELIEVER!
Then you find out about the Kirby/Ditko thing and you hate the doddering old hack
Then you come to accept that he isn't entirely to blame for having a huge public personality that Kirby and particularly Ditko lacked.
At least he's not Bob fucking Kane. Pic related.
