10 Stan Lee Facts For His True Believers

If you’ve seen the 1990 film, Captain America (which is spectacularly terrible,) you may have noticed that advertisements for the movie stated that Cap was “created by Stan Lee.” Although Stan’s first Marvel story was Captain America #3 (which debuted the Red Skull), Cap was created by Jack Kirby and Joe Simon.

Although Stan Lee devised the X-Men with Jack Kirby, the series tanked. X-Men only became successful 12 years later when Colossus, Storm, Nightcrawler, and Wolverine were introduced, none of which were made by Stan.

Not only did Stan Lee not devise the Guardians of the Galaxy, he barely heard of the characters until the film was announced. Although Stan Lee created Groot, the tree-like alien had none of the characteristics that the character is known for now. Stan Lee’s version of Groot was a gigantic evil monster who could speak. The inarticulate Groot that we are familiar with was devised by Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning in 2006.

Although Stan came up with the name “The Punisher,” that character was devised by Gerry Conway, John Romita Sr, and Ross Andru.

He came up with the idea of Iron Man but his debut comic was written by Don Heck, Jack Kirby, and Stan’s brother, Larry Lieber.

Even though Stan is credited for the iconic Spider-Man villain, Sandman, he admitted in the documentary, In Search of Steve Ditko, that the majority of the character was devised by his collaborator, Steve Ditko. Since Ditko was not a businessman nor did he give interviews, his name is unknown to anyone except die-hard Marvel fans.

It is not my intention to take away from Stan’s achievements but it’s important to remember that there were many other talented writers that helped shaped Marvel Comics into what it has become.