Jack Kirby’s Son Says Disney+’s Stan Lee Documentary Minimized His Father’s Contributions

Neal Kirby, the son of the legendary Marvel artist, writer, and editor Jack Kirby, has released a statement that accuses Disney+’s Stan Lee documentary of minimizing his father’s contributions to one of the most beloved brands in history.

Kirby’s granddaughter, Jillian Kirby, shared Neal’s statement on Twitter, and he began by discussing how the documentary feeds into the legend of Stan Lee, who passed away at the age of 95 in 2018, that was built upon him having the “fortunate circumstance to have access to the corporate megaphone and media.”

“I understand that, as a ‘documentary about Stan Lee,’ most of the narrative is in his voice, literally and figuratively,” Neal 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).”

Kirby’s contributions to Marvel can’t be overstated, as he had a hand in the creation of such characters as Ant-Man, the Avengers, Black Panther, Fantastic Four, the Hulk, Iron Man, Thor, the X-Men, and so many more. Neal’s next comments touched upon this.

“If you were to look at a list and timeline of Marvel’s characters from 1960 through 1966, the period in which the vast majority of Marvel’s major characters were created during Lee’s tenure, you will see Lee’s name as a co-creator on every character, with the exception of the Silver Surfer, solely created by my father,” Neal wrote. “Are we to assume Lee had a hand in creating every Marvel character? Are we to assume that it was never the other co-creator 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. Indeed, most comics historians recognize that my father based the Fantastic Four on a 1957 comic he created for DC, ‘Challengers of the Unknown,’ even naming Ben Grimm (The Thing) after his father Benjamin, and Sue Storm after my older sister Susan.”

Neal then spoke about his experience growing up with his father and watching him work in his basement studio, which was called “The Dungeon,” and how he saw him bring so many Marvel characters to life. He saw first hand the “Marvel Universe being created.”

“I am by no means a comics historian,” Neal said. “But there are few, if any, that have personally seen or experienced what I have, and know the truth with first-hand knowledge.”

Kirby retired from the world of comics in the early 1980’s and passed away in 1994. This, according to Neal, led to “over 35 years of uncontested publicity” for Stan Lee alongside “the backing and blessing of Marvel as he boosted the Marvel brand as a side effect of boosting himself.”

“The decades of Lee’s self-promotion culminated with his cameo appearances in over 35 Marvel films starting with X-Men in 2000, thus cementing his status as creator of all things Marvel to an otherwise unknowing movie audience of millions, unfamiliar with the true history of Marvel comics,” Neal wrote. “My father’s first screen credit didn’t appear until the closing crawl at the end of the film adaptation of Iron Man in 2008, after Stan Lee, Don Heck, and Larry Lieber.

“The battle for creator’s rights has been around since the first inscribed Babylonian tablet. It’s way past time to at least get this one chapter of literary/art right. ‘Nuff said.”

For more, check out our look at the influence of Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko on the MCU and the cosmic side of things, how Stan Lee’s biography reveals the darker side of a Marvel icon, and our look the true legacy of Stan Lee at Marvel Comics.

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Adam Bankhurst is a news writer for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter @AdamBankhurst and on Twitch.