Alan Moore explains why he doesn’t like Stan Lee
In the world of contemporary cinema, comic books are precious commodities, with the Marvel superhero universe alone having made almost $30billion across the course of its modern history. Such films have been based on the works of the American comic book writer Stan Lee, a man who is popularly known as being the founder of such characters as Iron Man, Hulk and Thor.
Yet, of course, Lee isn’t the only writer known for his proficiency in the world of comic books, English author Alan Moore also has his own group of dedicated fans from across the world. Where Lee is known for family-friendly works, Moore’s interests lie more in darker tales, including V for Vendetta, Watchmen and Batman: The Killing Joke, which is often called the very best tale from the stories of the ‘Caped Crusader’.
Speaking in an interview, Moore explained how he once adored the work of Stan Lee, only to have changed his opinion in recent years.
“I really don’t have a great deal of respect for Stan Lee,” he stated, “I had huge respect for him when I was a kid, I thought that he was possibly the best writer in the English language that had ever been…I don’t think of him as a particularly gifted writer. I’m not trying to slag somebody who’s an old man, but I met Jack Kirby, you know Kirby created those characters, I’m inclined to think that he created almost all of them by himself”.
Indeed, Moore’s dislike of Lee comes down to the question of how much input the Marvel mastermind really had in the creation of some of the company’s most famous comic books.
Lee purports to have created Captain America, yet, as Moore explains: “Stan Lee was about 12 when Jack Kirby and Joe Simon created Captain America…having seen Jack Kirby’s pencils you’ve got the whole thing broken down and Jack Kirby would have done all that. You’ve got Jack Kirby’s dialogue suggestions for every panel pencilled in the margins, and you start to realise that what Stan Lee had done was to fancy up Jack Kirby’s dialogue, put in a few ‘thees’ and ‘thous’, but essentially it was Jack Kirby who wrote and drew those comics, essentially it was him who created all of those, and that is wrong”.
Indeed, although Lee is credited as being the main man behind Marvel, as Moore details, the reality is quite different, with many hands being involved in the making of earth’s mightiest heroes.
Take a look at Moore discussing his thoughts on Stan Lee, below.
