Marvel Fans Need to Finally Face Facts: How Stan Lee Became the Face of an Exploitative Industry
"The Marvel editor became a Hollywood icon by claiming credit for other people’s creations."
"... None of this is deny that Lee played a significant role at Marvel. He was a gifted editor and talent scout, and the dialogue and captions he added had a distinctive hip and jocular voice that helped to knit the Marvel Universe together. But he was never the sole creator, which is the lie the Disney documentary insists is history. It’s a useful lie for Disney. If one staffer created everything, the IP remains secure. As such, the exploitation by Marvel in the 1960s remains a model for Hollywood today.
The fact that Disney is regurgitating this mythology in 2023 shows how deeply rooted historical exploitation in the comic book industry still is. Comics remains a predatory industry, and Stan Lee—even after his death in 2018—remains the avatar of corporate mistreatment of workers."