Thread by @Jacob_deNobel

Stan Lee was neither the sole creative force behind Marvel that he’s often painted as by the mainstream public nor was he the credit-hungry backstabber that comic fans often like to overcorrect his legacy to.

He was a complicated figure in comics history, but there is no doubt in my mind that superhero comics would be worse off (or honestly a non-entity again) without him

Lee may have often left plotting to his co-creators (and frankly should have credited and paid them as such) but I don't know how you can read the solo work of Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko and not see the tremendous contribution he made in dialogueing those stories

The Marvel Universe is defined by the collision of the fantastic and the mundane. Kirby provided the former but it was Lee who grounded everything.

What made Marvel comics stand out among its peers was its effortless heightened naturalism (a contradiction if there ever was one)

'60s Marvel comics are genuinely funny, hip, earnest, honest, flippant and oftentimes irreverent, and that all comes from Lee.

It's when those qualities combined with the work that was bombastic, emotional, heartfelt, cosmic and deeply felt that the magic of that era is felt

Lee as the sole creative figure dictating to a bullpen of artists was never an image he himself promoted. It developed due to profiles of the era written by journalists who didn't understand the Marvel method.

If you read the letters pages, Stan's Bullpens and direct Q and A style interviews of the era, he is never shy about giving plotting credit to his collaborators.

Kirby long held a grudge because he was never paid for the plotting he was doing, and in fact, Lee often abused the collaboration by having him do "layouts" for artists he was trying out (a way to get a Kirby plot in a book he didn't have time to finish)

But while Kirby was being screwed over by Marvel for his original art in the '80s, he started to claim that Lee barely had any input on the final stories, and that he was doing most of the scripting himself.

I believe Kirby genuinely believed this, but it wasn't true.

If you look at his original penciled pages, he would go through and provide rough dialog for an entire book, but Lee rarely followed it, and what he contributed was that breezy Marvel style that you don't find in Kirby's solo work .

Kirby was such a forward momentum guy, I don't think he ever picked up a published book, and probably never saw/remembered how different the final version was from what was originally there

That said, one of the most damaging parts of Lee's career was his oftentimes benevolent sometimes malicious (always damaging) sexism.

Comparing Kirby's pencils to final issues, you constantly see moments of action from women dialogued to give the credit to men

And other than Spider-Man's cast which thanks to the empahsis on romance, gave you several developed women, almost every woman written by Lee sounded exactly the same and that composite "female character" was not a flattering one

I started with his creative contributions, because those are often underplayed by the comics community (and overplayed by the general population) but the one thing everyone agrees is that his role as Marvel's face was new, original and hugely important to their success

Reading DC letters pages from the era often felt like being scolded by a grouchy elder, but Lee's letter pages and Bullpen Bulletins made you feel like you were a part of the in-crowd.

And the nicknames, back-matter jokes, and general culture of Marvel comics made it so the artists, inkers, letterers, and staff became household names among their readers. Artie Simek, Sam Rosen, Fabulous Flo Steinberg are unforgettable contributors thanks to this.

All while in an era where it felt like DC's comics were produced by a nebulous "DC Comics" Marvel Comics always felt like they were created by creators

Politically, Stan sometimes settled into a nebulous "we should all treat each other with respect and love" that maybe struck more radical folks as not very nuanced, but given the culture today and of the era, there is still power to these genuinely sweet sentiments

Pictured: The juxtoposition of the epic and the mundane that gave the Marvel Age its power

Comics can often cross too far into naturalism, but Lee was always careful to walk the tightrope between humanity and the comic book world and it's moments like this that make them worth reading.

While it often felt like DC took their universe deadly seriously even as the actual stories were much goofier, Lee took the whole enterprise with a charming grain of salt.

Basically, this is all to say that the Marvel Age of comics from Fantastic Four #1 through when Kirby left the company and they started using periods instead of exclamation points is my choice for the greatest run in comics history, and Stan Lee is at the center of that.

'60s Marvel Comics are art pieces that are the perfect blend of funny, dramatic, daring, earnest, cosmic, human, bombastic, weird, timely and timeless. They're like no other form of entertainment past or present, and they would not exist without Stan Lee.

I leave you with this panel from the Hulk's second appearance, published just a few months after the debut of the Fantastic Four and at the dawning of the Marvel Universe.

Stan had no idea how right he'd turn out to be.

One last thought:

Without Stan Lee changing the intent of Ditko’s paneling, Spider-Man would have been an Ayn Randian Objectivist asshole so don’t let me hear you downplaying his creative contributions today

Gonna spend my evening with my favorite portions of my four favorite Lee titles tonight