The amazingly simple answer is this:
Most of it was created by a man named Jack Kirby. Nobody helped him. He sat at his drawing board and created, wrote, and illustrated almost every superhero at the company that came to be known as Marvel Comics. He created (with no help from anyone else):
The Fantastic Four (which did contain a re-imagined version of The Human Torch which was created by Carl Burgos).
Iron Man.
The Incredible Hulk.
The Mighty Thor.
Ant Man (who later became Giant Man).
The Wasp.
The X-Men.
The Avengers.
Sgt. Fury/Nick Fury.
The Silver Surfer.
Captain America (co-created with Joe Simon).
And all of the associated characters that went along with each of those main characters and titles.
It could even be argued that he created the Marvel version of Daredevil. The character's name was stolen from Lev Gleason (a company that had gone out of business). But the character images and concept was by Jack Kirby. The first issue and its origin story was written and illustrated by Bill Everett.
It's said that Kirby first suggested a character named Spider-Man, but his concept was rejected.
The other major creator at Marvel was Steve Ditko. He created, in those early days, the few things that Kirby did not. These were:
Dr. Strange. Again...no one helped Steve Ditko create Doctor Strange. He did it on his own with no help whatsoever from anyone.
Steve Ditko also revamped the character Iron Man when he was briefly assigned the comic when Kirby was too busy to do it. In the very brief time Ditko was there, he created Iron Man's sleek, re-imagined gold and red armor. This is the iconic Iron Man that has remained largely unchanged since that time (well over 50 years ago).And, of course, Steve Ditko created all of the associated characters who surrounded both his Spider-Man and Doctor Strange creations.
There is no "co-creator" for these men. Their ideas were basically stolen from them. Billions of dollars of profit have been generated from their works. If we can't properly credit them as the sole creators of that work, at least the party that now controls those properties can do the right thing and acknowledge that they have rights to a respectable portion of the vast sums of income generated from their work.
6 comments:
Let's not get carried away here. As I saidf on MY blog... Martin Goodman took the name "Daredevil". Jack Kirby designed the costume. BILL EVERETT did EVERYTHING ELSE. If anyone was the creator of Marvel's DAREDEVIL, it was BILL EVERETT! (His daughter Wendy was "legally blind". Where do people THINK the idea of a BLIND superhero came from, anyway???)
Wally Wood, of course, re-designed the costume (let's just say Jack didn't have his heart in it that day). Wood's designed STAYED, for decades.
If you wanna stop yourself from losing your lunch, avoid reading ANY of Stan Lee's introductions in any "ORIGINS" or "MASTERWORKS" books. I just re-read the one from the 1st X-MEN book today. Good grief... (He didn't even realize it was Roy Thomas who turned "The Beast" into a "big words" character.)
I'd never seen a photo of Steve Ditko before.
He looks just like Peter Parker.
I guess he considered himself Spiderman.
It is so obvious that he is Parker.
And it's so obvious that he recreated Lee as J. Jonah Jameson.
And Jack Kirby put himself in comics as Ben Grimm.
Henry: Lee can't stop himself from taking the credit for everything. He stole and stole and stole until he's lost track of the things he claimed and the things he can't possibly claim. They're all one with him.
"Steve Ditko also revamped the character Iron Man when he was briefly assigned the comic when Kirby was too busy to do it. In the very brief time Ditko was there, he created Iron Man's sleek, re-imagined gold and red armor. This is the iconic Iron Man that has remained largely unchanged since that time (well over 60 years ago)."
2015 - 60 = 1955.
This is true. Ditko was brilliant at that kind of thing. He had a great way of rendering iconic images.
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