Stan Lee‘s legendary career as a Marvel Comics writer is the subject of a glowing new documentary produced by the company that now owns his most iconic characters. “Stan Lee” began streaming on Disney+ on Friday following its premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival, and diehard Marvel fans have praised David Gelb’s film for paying tribute to a man who is synonymous with comic books. But others have criticized the film for oversimplifying a nuanced story.
Neal Kirby, the son of Lee’s longtime partner Jack Kirby, took to his daughter’s Twitter account on Saturday to release a statement condemning what he sees as the film’s omission of his father’s contributions. While Lee and Kirby are credited as co-creating most of their iconic characters, comic industry observers have long wondered if Lee’s media persona led to him getting a larger share of the credit than he deserved. Neal Kirby accused the documentary of perpetuating that narrative.
“I understand that, as a ‘documentary about Stan Lee,’ most of the narrative is in his voice, literally and figuratively,” Kirby wrote. “It’s not any big secret that there has always been controversy over the parts that were played in the creation and success of Marvel’s characters. Stan Lee had the fortunate circumstance to have access to the corporate megaphone and media, and he used these to create his own mythos as to the creation of the Marvel character pantheon. He made himself the voice of Marvel. So, for several decades he was the ‘only’ man standing, and blessed with a long life, the last man standing (my father died in 1994).”
He continued, “Are we to assume Lee had a hand in creating every Marvel character? Are we to assume that it was never the other cocreator that walked into Lee’s office and said, ‘Stan I have a great idea for a character!’ According to Lee, it was always his idea. Lee spends a fair amount of time talking about how and why he created the Fantastic Four, with only one fleeting reference to my father.”
Kirby also took a jab at Lee’s intelligence, saying that his father was more well-rounded and infused his comics with context that Lee would have been incapable of adding.
“It should be noted and is generally accepted that Stan Lee had a limited knowledge of history, mythology, or science.” he wrote. “On the other hand, my father’s knowledge of these subjects, to which I and many others can personally attest, was extensive. Einstein summed it up better; ‘More the knowledge, lesser the ego. Lesser the knowledge, more the ego.’”
