I've touched on the whole Steve Ditko-Stan Lee-Jack Kirby thing in the past and to be honest people just love to crap on certain creators. Ditko was unhappy that Lee wanted Peter Parker to progress on to university and fit in with the hip readers. We all know about Ditko's own personal philosophy so let's not go there.
I read, it seems a lot of people do not and base opinions upon internet tripe and comic "gurus" who talk more trash. I have interviews going back to the 1960s in which Lee credits Ditko for his "brilliant visual input" as well as contributing ideas but, as with most other books Lee wrote the scripts -read up on "The Marvel Method". We have learnt that Ditko may well have 'borrowed' the Spider-0Man costume design from one Kirby designed as a fancy dress outfit
https://hoopercomicart.blogspot.com/2016/02/have-you-heard-about-billion-dollar.html
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In every sense of the word Ditko was co-creator. Stan Lee made that clear over and over again over the decades and that despite Ditko apparently alienating most colleagues and people he worked for. Lee even pushed to get Ditko credit and money from the Spiderman movies and...got a spit in the eye. Lee even put into writing that as far as he was concerned Ditko was co-creator of Spiderman...Ditko huffed and rejected that wanting full credit for everything. Ditko was a brilliant artist and one of my all time favourites but he was a pain in the ass. And Lee and Kirby. It was reported that at a convention Kirby approached him when Kirby was by himself and said "I'm sorry Stan I know its not you" -that was confirmed by Lee later on after Roy Thomas reminded him. This was probably Kirby referring to the Marvel company refusing to return his artwork -some had been stolen by other Marvel creators but Lee had no say because, as people seem to forget, he was an employee of Marvel under contract, but he did apparently try to get some of the Kirby art returned unsuccessfully.
The persona people want to put on Lee, and to be honest when I looked into his career I was expecting to find dirt, is prejudicial based on what they want to believe. Lee pushed to get creators more work and when Marvel bosses decided artists had to be "let go" Lee decided that it was better if he told the artists personally rather than some form letter. It was reported by more than one person that that hit Lee hard and he was dry-heaving after each artist was told. Something that no one talks about (if you know your comic history you'll know who I am talking about); Lee gave work to artists he knew were gay and at that time that was taboo but he covered for them. Artists with various problems including alcoholism he kept on and tried to cover for them until they were too far gone.
If you are going to try to slap someone down then do your research. Alan Moore is provably incorrect when he stood on a stage and announced that Lee was a liar and could not have worked at Timely Comics as he was only 12 years old -he was much older and there are company photos of him. Moore stating that Lee claimed to have created Captain America is wholly incorrect. Lee stated (part of the historical record) that one of his first jobs was writing a Captain America text story as a filler. In the 1960s he stated that he and Kirby decided to bring back Captain America.
This type of bullshit from people who do not do any research or think for themselves is common because...the internet.
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