Source: awn.com

6. Myth: “Stan Lee Deserves All/None of the Credit for Marvel.”

The Truth:

Here is one of the few misconceptions that happens in both directions.

People who don't know much about what happened behind the scenes seem to believe that Stan "The Man" Lee single-handedly created everything about Marvel Comics. The truth is that Stan worked with an amazing stable of artists, like Jack Kirby, Steve Ditko, and John Romita, who deserve as much credit as he does, if not a tiny bit more.

Since Stan was writing so many books, he tended to just give artists a loose plot summary and let them figure out the content of the issue. Then he'd come back and write in the dialogue. This was what's known as "The Marvel Style" of plotting. To be fair, Stan's presence is still very much in those comics and he was writing like ten comics every month, so I'd cut him a little slack.

But there are also people in the opposite camp who say that Stan did "nothing" and took all the credit. This is also not true. The tone of the Marvel universe, especially the "real people with real problems" angle and the realistic (for the time) dialogue is fully Stan Lee. And without him, a lot of those Marvel characters would not be nearly as interesting or successful.

Spider-Man co-creator Steve Ditko, while an amazing artist, was a serious Ayn Rand-ian objectivist. Like, If he'd been allowed to write the book it woulda been 18 pages of narration about the triumphs of the individual. At least give Stan credit for saving us from that.