Stan Lee Lied: Your Handy Guide to Every Lie in The Origins of Marvel Comics

by Chaz Gower

In 1974, Stan Lee released the ‘Origins of Marvel Comics', laying claim to the creation of some of the greatest superheroes in the history of comic books. For 50 years, the lies and inaccuracies of this book have been overlooked or outright ignored by the mainstream media and even many comic journalists.
For the first time, an in depth look at just how inaccurate Lee's story is - fact-checked with modern updated means of information collection and later interviews with the people who were there.
Stan Lee Lied. A LOT.
And that's a fact.

Includes 24 additional essays

362 pages, Kindle Edition

Published September 9, 2024

About the author

Chaz Gower currently lives and works in Bangkok, Thailand, and has a great deal more stories to share with us,

Reviews

[Christopher M. · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's written a bit breathlessly with too many capitals and exclamations, it makes its point by about page 200 then repeats it in "appendices" that are actually new chapters, and arguably proves Stan was the greatest PR man who ever lived. But the sections where Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko create the Marvel Universe and have it stolen from them by a no talent hack are pretty convincing and offer copious receipts. Nuff said.

[Marc Steiner · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rating pending your familiarity and interest

This work is 3.5 stars and I rounded up. Kudos to Gower for his research, cited sources, and statistics.

An interesting note is that Gower doesn't mention is that Lee's book is in some part built around anecdotes he had been telling in speaking engagements and appearances since the mid 1960s.

Deductions on score for this book include repeating quotes, poor editing and formatting, too many negative comments on top of the given proof, and sometimes choosing to say something mean without giving his reasoning.

This is a deep dive into a large chunk of evidence of the amount of creativity and ideas brought to Marvel by Jack Kirby starting with his return in 1958, the additional creativity of Steve Ditko, and what Stan Lee brought to all of this. It is contrary to what Lee has been saying over the years and can give one a sour taste.

You may find this to be too much and too intense if you are a more casual Marvel fan.

I would have liked a little more on showing updates on how the Kirby estate and family are faring in light of getting more recognition of Kirby's efforts.

I also disagree on the author's opinion on Bob Kane righting his major wrong on Bill Finger's contributions to Batman. Kane did very little way too late.

[Benn Allen · Rating 2 out of 5]

I think it's fair to say Stan Lee habitually overstated his contributions to the creations of Marvel Comics' Silver Age characters. To the degree he denigrated the contributions of artists like Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko. I'm sure Lee made some contributions to Spider-Man, the Fantastic Four, Thor, Hulk, Iron Man, Dr. Strange, etc., but I think it's obvious Ditko and Kirby had a great deal to with those characters ' creations.

Chaz Gower, on the other hand, denies Stan Lee had any part of the process.

I'm not saying Lee was a very creative person (his history without Ditko and Kirby tends to reinforce that), nor was he by any means a great writer. But I don't think the comics the three worked on would have been so memorable if done alone.

Thing is, it becomes painfully obvious that Gower *hates* Stan Lee. And that he blindly worships Jack Kirby. If there's anything negative to say about Lee, Gower reports it while heaping nothing but praise on Kirby. This anti-Stan Lee stance of Gower's is to the detriment of the book. He doesn't have to shower praise on the late Stan Lee, but the blatant hatred Chaz Gower feels towards Lee weakens Gower's book, as does his uncritical eye towards Kirby.

Yes, Kirby was an amazing artist with an incredible imagination, but he was never a much better writer than Stan Lee. Honestly, most Silver Age and Bronze Age writers were, by any literary standards, horrible. Captions, dialogues, they were pretty much all painfully bad. If you think it's the medium these "authors" worked in you should try reading "The Bite of Monsters " by Dennis O'Neill, "The Lights of Zetar" by Wallace Moore (a pseudonym for Gerry Conway [and that's a particularly bad book, one of the worst I've read]) or any of the Marvel Pocket Books paperbacks from the late Seventies written by people like Marv Wolfman, Len Wein, Dave Micheline, Jo Duffy etc. Ugh. (The one exception I have found so far is Steve Englehart's Max August series ["The Point Man" was the start of this six book series]. It's not great, but it's well above average that I was interested in reading all six novels. It did kind of peter out towards the last entries.)

"Stan Lee Lied", being a basically a self-published work is filled with numerous grammatical errors, spelling errors and a horrible font. The footnotes are practically microscopic.

There are a few factual errors, too. At one point, Gower tries to make it sound like Roy Thomas was Marvel's editor-in-chief when Jack Kirby returned to Marvel in the mid-'70s. Except Thomas had resigned from that position roughly a year before Kirby's return. Maybe that wasn't so much an error as intentional?

Gower only spends 200 pages out of 359 rebutting Stan Lee's claims in "The Origin of Marvel Comics'". The remainder of the book is spent trashing Stan Lee and on Gower's hero worshipping Jack Kirby. Those are 150 some odd pages Gower could have omitted. It would have also helped if he hadn't reused several quotes multiple times throughout the book.

This could have been a good, honest, balanced rebuttal of Stan Lee's claims of practically being the sole architect of the Marvel Universe. Instead, it's a screed by someone who has some weird vendetta against Stan Lee.

[Kenneth · Rating 1 out of 5]

For the record, I have not read this and don't plan on reading this. The author really has some balls to call an amazing but deceased man a liar. And im sure everything he wrote in this book is a lie. I hope this Chaz Gower finds God and lots of help

[Patrick · Rating 2 out of 5]

It's a shame to have to give this book a bad review, as a very well-researched and well-informed critical reassessment of Stan Lee's role at Marvel, and his treatment of the likes of Kirby and Ditko, is long overdue.

Unfortunately, I found the format of the book let it down - if, rather than attempting a point-by-point rebuttal of every claim made in a 1974 book, it had used that book as a starting point for a more structured critique of Lee's claims, it would have been a more enjoyable read.

As it is, the book features too much repetition, and often reads like an over-long internet message board argument - complete with a confrontational tone towards the reader, plenty of repetition, and regular use of "LOL".

[Earl Dickens · Rating 5 out of 5]

Truth Triumphs

This was a great and well researched book. It was more fair than most on the subject and laid out a brilliant argument against the propaganda that is Marvel. I know first hand how they steal ideas from fans at conventions. It's common knowledge.

[Bmj2k · Rating 3 out of 5]

Factually, it is a good book which more than makes its point, over and over. However, it is written as if the author is sitting next to you at a bar, after a couple of drinks, telling you everything he's putting in the book. It is oddly organized as well.

[william john todd · Rating 2 out of 5]

Poor Jack (nuff said)

Poor Jack we know how bad it got at Marvel under Goodman so Stan did not help . They did a very good job on Stan rep to good??. If Stan is your man give this a miss Jack fans may need to get in line!

[Steve Boom · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very good book detailing what a charlatan was and how he ripped off so many talented creators