He was a sharp promoter and businessman who knew how to negotiate contract, which is more than you can say for Jack Kirby (who never dared to try for better terms from any publisher). Lee built eight obscure monthly titles into the Marvel brand which was more popular and better selling after Kirby and Ditko left. Just saying.
Kirby got better contracts after leaving Marvel and DC, most notably from Pacific. Lee was undoubtedly a great marketer but by his own admission either handed in outlines or contributed to plotting but wasn't the main spark for much at all- Thor being the only exception since he and Larry worked on the initial idea.
Marvel would never have had the stable or the work that turned it into the brand without Ditko or Kirby but Lee could have been replaced by any marketing guy.
I'd have to disagree. Lee's blend of cheeky humor and melodrama was exactly right for that era. Reading his teen comedy strips from the 1950s like Patsy Walker, you see the same irreverent attitude that made early Marvel such a sensation. Lee tried a dozen other scripters but none of them had his knack. And of course Ditko and Kirby were very creative but neither of them developed anything on their own that sold well; Kirby's best and most successful work was with a partner, either Joe Simon or Stan Lee.
Late in his career, Kirby had enough help from fans that he did get better contracts. But then, Joe Simon and Will Eisner did that starting in the 1940s. It wasn't enough to be talented, you had to be shrewd and assertive for real success in the comics.
I'd want to emphasize that dialogue and captions (and editing of the art) was all Stan Lee. Steve Ditko didn't suggest any when he took over the plotting. Jack Kirby's notes in the margins were simple things like "Thor says, Let's get them, men!" or "Cap catches his shield just in time" All the personality, humor and poetry came from Stan.
>Jack Kirby's notes in the margins were simple things like "Thor says, Let's get them, men!" or "Cap catches his shield just in time" All the personality, humor and poetry came from Stan.
I'd call that a gross oversimplification. Lee added some repetitive quips that at times completely destroyed the mood of the work. Up to at times adding captions on splash pages with no need at all for dialogue.
Kirby was responsible for the characters, their designs, their settings, their body language and the storytelling flow.
oh. and the plots. I don't envy Lee having to work on eight separate titles at a time.
However, there's nothing wrong with acknowledging that he took as many shortcuts as possible considering he wasn't invested in the work itself so much as killing time working for his uncle while thinking about the novel he was going to write.
2 years ago
Anonymous
Lee was responsible for getting eight comics a month to the printer on time and explaining to Martin Goodman if they weren't selling. It wasn't just filling in a few word balloons, it was co-plotting, assigning pencillers and inkers, approving covers, thousands of details every month without fail. Lee always said he greatly preferred the Westerns and teen comedy titles to superheroes, and I think his best work could be found in the short stand-alone stories in KID COLT or the breezy nonsense in PATSY WALKER and MILLIE THE MODEL. He also liked writing the romance comics better than superheroes but you know, whatever sells is what you profuce.
2 years ago
Anonymous
Sure, we can agree that Lee was a co-plotter and editor, those were the jobs assigned by Goodman. But we don't need to pretend he always did excellent work with the dialogue itself. He did enough to distinguish characters and give an emotional edge, yes, but we're also admitting there was a noticeable apathy. The dialogue was not the main reason the comics sold, it was the ideas and the plots, which Lee was at best quarter-half responsible for.
>Thor being the only exception since he and Larry worked on the initial idea.
what idea? lmao it's just a ripoff from norse mythology
that's called an adaptation, moron and adaptations of myth have been around longer than Mighty Thor.
2 years ago
Anonymous
>that's called an adaptation, moron and adaptations of myth have been around longer than Mighty Thor.
it's called a ripoff. they're not adapting the actual myths, just stealing the characters and other stuff.
2 years ago
Anonymous
"Stealing" is a poor choice of words. If Marvel had done straight adaptations of Norse or Greek legends in 1962, they would have sold poorly and lost money. You realize most of storytelling is revising and giving a new spin to old plots?
2 years ago
Anonymous
>"Stealing" is a poor choice of words.
It is what it is. Did they create it? No. Is it part of their culture? No. Did they profit from it? Yes. Did they take names, characters, and other details? Yes. It's just a lazy ripoff. >If Marvel had done straight adaptations of Norse or Greek legends in 1962, they would have sold poorly and lost money.
That's just speculation. You don't know that for certain. Either way it's a rip off. >You realize most of storytelling is revising and giving a new spin to old plots?
That's a lazy excuse. Spider-Man is a more unique creation, rather than a ripoff. So it's possible to not be a lazy bastard.
2 years ago
Anonymous
Well, that's your attitude and you're free to express it. I think it's limiting and unnecessarily negative but I'm not going to change your viewpoint.
2 years ago
Anonymous
No one is pretending he always did excellent work, the same we admit Kirby was capable of padding out stories with lengthy fight scenes that go nowhere. But in the early 1960s. Lee's fresh approach to dialogue was a major reason why Marvel boomed. Give Kirby or Ditko or Colan pages to Gardner Fox or John Broome and you'd end up with a much blander, less exciting DC-like comic.
2 years ago
Anonymous
One thing you've got to give him credit for is that he was productive and relentless. Lee churned out all sorts of shit in the 40s and 50s looking for something that would sell.
2 years ago
Anonymous
Yep, that was his job. Most of it was mediocre (true for every comics publisher), but characters like Kid Colt and Patsy Walker sold very well indeed and made money for Martin Goodman.
Were going to disagree on that. Lee made the characters recognizable through dialogue. Over at DC at that time, you could switch word balloons from the Flash to Green Lantern to Aquaman and most of the time never know the difference. Swapping word balloons from Thor to Nick Fury or from Johnny Storm to Dr Strange shows that Lee understood showing personalities through dialogue. This was a huge reason for Marvel's success. Hundreds of pages of original Kirby art are online at THE JACK KIRBY COLLECTOR, and looking over them shows just how much Lee added to the final product. Without the dialogue and captions, it's mostly fights and gadgets.
2 years ago
Anonymous
You're just describing the Marvel Method.. Since the artist understood that the dialogue was going to be written by someone else, ofc they weren't going to take the time to fill in the speech bubbles and captions on their own.
It's a completely different story with things Kirby dialogued like New Gods or Silver Star, where Kirby did in fact do dialogue and captions well before the inks and final lettering. Personality is a different discussion and more of a grey area imo but you're basically just saying >Lee did his damn job after offloading plotting to the given co-worker
2 years ago
Anonymous
The so-called Marvel Method goes way back to the 1940s. Paul Reinman said it was the normal method at MLJ and most Timely titles were jam sessions with everyone pitching in.
I'm not saying that artists would have worked out full dialogue, of course not. That wasn't their job. Some artists preferred a full script (like at DC) but many like John Buscema enjoyed some freedom in how they told the story. And to be honest, Jack Kirby would never follow a script in any case. Other artists relate how he would work out a plot with Stan and then go home and draw something completely different. (This was a big reason why DC editors weren't nuts about Kirby in the 1950s.)
2 years ago
Anonymous
>And to be honest, Jack Kirby would never follow a script in any case
Few issues here.
He was absolutely fine with it when it came to Destroyer Duck according to those who worked on it. It sounds more like few people ever gave him a script because he had a *positive* reputation of taking an outline and making more creative stuff than Lee would have come up with on his own.
e.g. Galactus, i'm sure you know the story. >(This was a big reason why DC editors weren't nuts about Kirby in the 1950s.)
Not familiar with that but I do know he was fired more because Schiff and Dave Wood made a royalty agreement behind his back that Kirby had a lot to lose on financially by stalling on just concurring with it. As the potential artist, it should have been a three-man discussion but I digress
2 years ago
Anonymous
Or rather not fired but blackballed until Schiff left in the 70s
2 years ago
Anonymous
According to John Romita and and Gil Kane and others, Kirby didn't follow scripts, outlines or general plots. He went with what he wanted to draw. Lee often said it was a fun challenge to make the art coming in follow what had gone before and lead into where he wanted the title to go. Kirby was immensely creative but not very consistent. He tended to forget characters and sub-plots because he had so many new ones he wanted to introduce. That was why his best work IMO was produced when he had a partner.
Kirby was absolutely cheated on the SKY MASTERS strip, DC editors were crooks like the underworld couldn't match. But even before that, his wild plots on the Green Arrow strip weren't liked by DC. They thought his art was crude and rough, they wanted smooth sedate (and boring) art like DC always used.
2 years ago
Anonymous
Big facts.
2 years ago
Anonymous
It's like watching a movie with the sound and closed captioning off. You might be able to get a vague idea of what's going on, but you're missing more than half the cinema experience.
Well, to be fair, Norse mythology did not have a mortal turning into Thor and back again. "Rip-off" is a bit judgemental. Every comic book swipes influences from all over the place.
>Well, to be fair, Norse mythology did not have a mortal turning into Thor and back again. "Rip-off" is a bit judgemental. Every comic book swipes influences from all over the place.
Sure, but in this case, they essentially copy-pasted the character. They didn't even have the decency to rename him like they did with Hulk and Hyde. It's like making a superhero out of Jesus Christ. Just lazy creation.
2 years ago
Anonymous
There's absolutely nothing wrong with using mythology for storytelling. it's been the norm since the myths themselves were based on earlier tales. In 1962 America, there were no worshippers of Thor or Hercules in any numbers worth mentioning, so the myths were up for grabs. Even depicting Jesus in a newsstand comic book would be asking for big trouble. (This changed eventually. as Neal Adams' Son-O-God strip in the NATIONAL LAMPOON showed.)
2 years ago
Anonymous
>so the myths were up for grabs
Correct, and they were ripped off by Stan Lee and whatshisname.
2 years ago
Anonymous
>There's absolutely nothing wrong with using mythology for storytelling
unless it's israeli mythology
2 years ago
Anonymous
Well, maybe Hollywood blockbusters like SAMSON AND DELILAH showed otherwise. But they had to stick closer to the original stories than say, Steve Reeves' Hercules movies did.
Like him or not, Lee was a massive contributor to mainstream comics, and people tend to either underrate him or overrate him.
He was a sharp promoter and businessman who knew how to negotiate contract, which is more than you can say for Jack Kirby (who never dared to try for better terms from any publisher). Lee built eight obscure monthly titles into the Marvel brand which was more popular and better selling after Kirby and Ditko left. Just saying.
On top of that, if you compare artists like Kirby and Ditko’s work without Lee to it, Lee really pushed an emphasis on the flawed and sympathetic hero, which became the staple concept of Marvel.
Ditko in particular. After assimilating Ayn Rand into his own philosophy, Ditko did not think heroes should have weaknesses or flaws. You can see this starting as he shows Peter Parker ditching his glasses, becoming more assertive and judgemental, losing any doubts or self-pity.
Kirby on his own was better with characterization. He liked characters struggling with a ferocious darker side, like Orion and Jason Blood. but he also wrote a convincing romance between Scott Free and Barda. His weakness was a tin ear for dialogue;.
i'd agree with that. I don't think it was that Kirby didn't want to show a variety of personalities but that he had trouble scripting believable, accessible dialogue. (Which isn't easy.)
There's that, but there's also the fact that most current fans have never actually read the 1950s Atlas comics or the early 1960s Marvels. They go by the trope that Lee took advantage of the artists but they never read the comics, letters pages and interviews or they would have a more nuanced view. It's like choosing whether it's the jockey or the horse that wins the race.
Oh, absolutely. If you ever read the first ten issues of CAPTAIN AMERICA by Simon and Kirby, they're all kinds of gruesome. No Comics Code, Cap and Bucky fought monsters like the walking dead.
Cinemaphile used to have such a wealth of people who knew their shit about classic horror and the influence on comics, as the Marvel comics of 1962/3 threads and the Horrorverse threads showed.
Now, idiots like pic related are becoming the norm.
Oh, I do miss those Marvel 1960s threads! I keep checking this board in vain... But yeah, most fans have no knowledge of comics history. That's the way it goes. I'm sure most people watching that Wednesday Adams show have never seen a Charles Addams cartoon.
They're ALL rip-offs, if you want to know. Everything has been done before. Spider-Man combined elements of Simon & Kirby's the Fly, DC's Tarantula and a 1940s character Spider Queen. Ant-Man was inspired by the movies THEM and THE INCREDIBLE SHRINKING MAN. It's all been done before, you just give the ingredients a little spin.
And a lot depends on how familiar you are with sources. If you like 1950s drive-in flicks, you see bits and pieces of them used in many comics. (And of course those movies themselves swiped from older movies or books or legends,. It's normal.)
Billions of dollars happens
Lee was a douche and cretin
He was a sharp promoter and businessman who knew how to negotiate contract, which is more than you can say for Jack Kirby (who never dared to try for better terms from any publisher). Lee built eight obscure monthly titles into the Marvel brand which was more popular and better selling after Kirby and Ditko left. Just saying.
Kirby got better contracts after leaving Marvel and DC, most notably from Pacific. Lee was undoubtedly a great marketer but by his own admission either handed in outlines or contributed to plotting but wasn't the main spark for much at all- Thor being the only exception since he and Larry worked on the initial idea.
Marvel would never have had the stable or the work that turned it into the brand without Ditko or Kirby but Lee could have been replaced by any marketing guy.
I'd have to disagree. Lee's blend of cheeky humor and melodrama was exactly right for that era. Reading his teen comedy strips from the 1950s like Patsy Walker, you see the same irreverent attitude that made early Marvel such a sensation. Lee tried a dozen other scripters but none of them had his knack. And of course Ditko and Kirby were very creative but neither of them developed anything on their own that sold well; Kirby's best and most successful work was with a partner, either Joe Simon or Stan Lee.
Late in his career, Kirby had enough help from fans that he did get better contracts. But then, Joe Simon and Will Eisner did that starting in the 1940s. It wasn't enough to be talented, you had to be shrewd and assertive for real success in the comics.
I'd want to emphasize that dialogue and captions (and editing of the art) was all Stan Lee. Steve Ditko didn't suggest any when he took over the plotting. Jack Kirby's notes in the margins were simple things like "Thor says, Let's get them, men!" or "Cap catches his shield just in time" All the personality, humor and poetry came from Stan.
>Jack Kirby's notes in the margins were simple things like "Thor says, Let's get them, men!" or "Cap catches his shield just in time" All the personality, humor and poetry came from Stan.
I'd call that a gross oversimplification. Lee added some repetitive quips that at times completely destroyed the mood of the work. Up to at times adding captions on splash pages with no need at all for dialogue.
Kirby was responsible for the characters, their designs, their settings, their body language and the storytelling flow.
oh. and the plots. I don't envy Lee having to work on eight separate titles at a time.
However, there's nothing wrong with acknowledging that he took as many shortcuts as possible considering he wasn't invested in the work itself so much as killing time working for his uncle while thinking about the novel he was going to write.
Lee was responsible for getting eight comics a month to the printer on time and explaining to Martin Goodman if they weren't selling. It wasn't just filling in a few word balloons, it was co-plotting, assigning pencillers and inkers, approving covers, thousands of details every month without fail. Lee always said he greatly preferred the Westerns and teen comedy titles to superheroes, and I think his best work could be found in the short stand-alone stories in KID COLT or the breezy nonsense in PATSY WALKER and MILLIE THE MODEL. He also liked writing the romance comics better than superheroes but you know, whatever sells is what you profuce.
Sure, we can agree that Lee was a co-plotter and editor, those were the jobs assigned by Goodman. But we don't need to pretend he always did excellent work with the dialogue itself. He did enough to distinguish characters and give an emotional edge, yes, but we're also admitting there was a noticeable apathy. The dialogue was not the main reason the comics sold, it was the ideas and the plots, which Lee was at best quarter-half responsible for.
that's called an adaptation, moron and adaptations of myth have been around longer than Mighty Thor.
>that's called an adaptation, moron and adaptations of myth have been around longer than Mighty Thor.
it's called a ripoff. they're not adapting the actual myths, just stealing the characters and other stuff.
"Stealing" is a poor choice of words. If Marvel had done straight adaptations of Norse or Greek legends in 1962, they would have sold poorly and lost money. You realize most of storytelling is revising and giving a new spin to old plots?
>"Stealing" is a poor choice of words.
It is what it is. Did they create it? No. Is it part of their culture? No. Did they profit from it? Yes. Did they take names, characters, and other details? Yes. It's just a lazy ripoff.
>If Marvel had done straight adaptations of Norse or Greek legends in 1962, they would have sold poorly and lost money.
That's just speculation. You don't know that for certain. Either way it's a rip off.
>You realize most of storytelling is revising and giving a new spin to old plots?
That's a lazy excuse. Spider-Man is a more unique creation, rather than a ripoff. So it's possible to not be a lazy bastard.
Well, that's your attitude and you're free to express it. I think it's limiting and unnecessarily negative but I'm not going to change your viewpoint.
No one is pretending he always did excellent work, the same we admit Kirby was capable of padding out stories with lengthy fight scenes that go nowhere. But in the early 1960s. Lee's fresh approach to dialogue was a major reason why Marvel boomed. Give Kirby or Ditko or Colan pages to Gardner Fox or John Broome and you'd end up with a much blander, less exciting DC-like comic.
One thing you've got to give him credit for is that he was productive and relentless. Lee churned out all sorts of shit in the 40s and 50s looking for something that would sell.
Yep, that was his job. Most of it was mediocre (true for every comics publisher), but characters like Kid Colt and Patsy Walker sold very well indeed and made money for Martin Goodman.
Were going to disagree on that. Lee made the characters recognizable through dialogue. Over at DC at that time, you could switch word balloons from the Flash to Green Lantern to Aquaman and most of the time never know the difference. Swapping word balloons from Thor to Nick Fury or from Johnny Storm to Dr Strange shows that Lee understood showing personalities through dialogue. This was a huge reason for Marvel's success. Hundreds of pages of original Kirby art are online at THE JACK KIRBY COLLECTOR, and looking over them shows just how much Lee added to the final product. Without the dialogue and captions, it's mostly fights and gadgets.
You're just describing the Marvel Method.. Since the artist understood that the dialogue was going to be written by someone else, ofc they weren't going to take the time to fill in the speech bubbles and captions on their own.
It's a completely different story with things Kirby dialogued like New Gods or Silver Star, where Kirby did in fact do dialogue and captions well before the inks and final lettering. Personality is a different discussion and more of a grey area imo but you're basically just saying
>Lee did his damn job after offloading plotting to the given co-worker
The so-called Marvel Method goes way back to the 1940s. Paul Reinman said it was the normal method at MLJ and most Timely titles were jam sessions with everyone pitching in.
I'm not saying that artists would have worked out full dialogue, of course not. That wasn't their job. Some artists preferred a full script (like at DC) but many like John Buscema enjoyed some freedom in how they told the story. And to be honest, Jack Kirby would never follow a script in any case. Other artists relate how he would work out a plot with Stan and then go home and draw something completely different. (This was a big reason why DC editors weren't nuts about Kirby in the 1950s.)
>And to be honest, Jack Kirby would never follow a script in any case
Few issues here.
He was absolutely fine with it when it came to Destroyer Duck according to those who worked on it. It sounds more like few people ever gave him a script because he had a *positive* reputation of taking an outline and making more creative stuff than Lee would have come up with on his own.
e.g. Galactus, i'm sure you know the story.
>(This was a big reason why DC editors weren't nuts about Kirby in the 1950s.)
Not familiar with that but I do know he was fired more because Schiff and Dave Wood made a royalty agreement behind his back that Kirby had a lot to lose on financially by stalling on just concurring with it. As the potential artist, it should have been a three-man discussion but I digress
Or rather not fired but blackballed until Schiff left in the 70s
According to John Romita and and Gil Kane and others, Kirby didn't follow scripts, outlines or general plots. He went with what he wanted to draw. Lee often said it was a fun challenge to make the art coming in follow what had gone before and lead into where he wanted the title to go. Kirby was immensely creative but not very consistent. He tended to forget characters and sub-plots because he had so many new ones he wanted to introduce. That was why his best work IMO was produced when he had a partner.
Kirby was absolutely cheated on the SKY MASTERS strip, DC editors were crooks like the underworld couldn't match. But even before that, his wild plots on the Green Arrow strip weren't liked by DC. They thought his art was crude and rough, they wanted smooth sedate (and boring) art like DC always used.
Big facts.
It's like watching a movie with the sound and closed captioning off. You might be able to get a vague idea of what's going on, but you're missing more than half the cinema experience.
>Thor being the only exception since he and Larry worked on the initial idea.
what idea? lmao it's just a ripoff from norse mythology
Well, to be fair, Norse mythology did not have a mortal turning into Thor and back again. "Rip-off" is a bit judgemental. Every comic book swipes influences from all over the place.
>Well, to be fair, Norse mythology did not have a mortal turning into Thor and back again. "Rip-off" is a bit judgemental. Every comic book swipes influences from all over the place.
Sure, but in this case, they essentially copy-pasted the character. They didn't even have the decency to rename him like they did with Hulk and Hyde. It's like making a superhero out of Jesus Christ. Just lazy creation.
There's absolutely nothing wrong with using mythology for storytelling. it's been the norm since the myths themselves were based on earlier tales. In 1962 America, there were no worshippers of Thor or Hercules in any numbers worth mentioning, so the myths were up for grabs. Even depicting Jesus in a newsstand comic book would be asking for big trouble. (This changed eventually. as Neal Adams' Son-O-God strip in the NATIONAL LAMPOON showed.)
>so the myths were up for grabs
Correct, and they were ripped off by Stan Lee and whatshisname.
>There's absolutely nothing wrong with using mythology for storytelling
unless it's israeli mythology
Well, maybe Hollywood blockbusters like SAMSON AND DELILAH showed otherwise. But they had to stick closer to the original stories than say, Steve Reeves' Hercules movies did.
Like him or not, Lee was a massive contributor to mainstream comics, and people tend to either underrate him or overrate him.
On top of that, if you compare artists like Kirby and Ditko’s work without Lee to it, Lee really pushed an emphasis on the flawed and sympathetic hero, which became the staple concept of Marvel.
Ditko in particular. After assimilating Ayn Rand into his own philosophy, Ditko did not think heroes should have weaknesses or flaws. You can see this starting as he shows Peter Parker ditching his glasses, becoming more assertive and judgemental, losing any doubts or self-pity.
Kirby on his own was better with characterization. He liked characters struggling with a ferocious darker side, like Orion and Jason Blood. but he also wrote a convincing romance between Scott Free and Barda. His weakness was a tin ear for dialogue;.
I would say though that Kirby’s characters, while sympathetic, didn’t really emphasize relatable flaws to the level his Lee tied creations did.
i'd agree with that. I don't think it was that Kirby didn't want to show a variety of personalities but that he had trouble scripting believable, accessible dialogue. (Which isn't easy.)
best showman and conman you've ever seen
Nah, politicians and TV evangelists have Lee beat by miles.
What if Jack Kirby turned in a sketch of a monstrous brute and his weakling alter ego and I turned it into the Incredible Hulk?
What if Jack Kirby did what his editor and co-creator suggested and then thirty years later claimed he did everything by himself?
He generally gets too much credit, but when people try to correct this they tend to overcompensate and end up giving him too little.
There's that, but there's also the fact that most current fans have never actually read the 1950s Atlas comics or the early 1960s Marvels. They go by the trope that Lee took advantage of the artists but they never read the comics, letters pages and interviews or they would have a more nuanced view. It's like choosing whether it's the jockey or the horse that wins the race.
Your family and nurses will keep you alive just long enough to milk you for everything you're worth?
Elder abuse is SO common. I worked in a nursing home and some families rob grandma and grandpa with both hands.
>50 years latet and people are still regurgitating stale journalist clickbait
Got I gucking hate this fanfom
what are they regurgitating?
OP cares so much about Dr. Jekyll being “ripped off” that he doesn’t know how to spell the name.
What makes you think OP is the one angry about myths being "ripped off?" I thought that was someone else entering the thead?
whoa you really showed him.
>OP finds out that early comics are heavily influenced by horror
Oh, absolutely. If you ever read the first ten issues of CAPTAIN AMERICA by Simon and Kirby, they're all kinds of gruesome. No Comics Code, Cap and Bucky fought monsters like the walking dead.
Cinemaphile used to have such a wealth of people who knew their shit about classic horror and the influence on comics, as the Marvel comics of 1962/3 threads and the Horrorverse threads showed.
Now, idiots like pic related are becoming the norm.
Oh, I do miss those Marvel 1960s threads! I keep checking this board in vain... But yeah, most fans have no knowledge of comics history. That's the way it goes. I'm sure most people watching that Wednesday Adams show have never seen a Charles Addams cartoon.
My parents had the CA Treasury in hardback, it was great
Are those threads gone already? I stopped visiting Cinemaphile while I was finishing my Hons year
>Delete
I haven't seen one in weeks and frankly I am CRUSHED by their absence.
We all know many Marvel characters are ripoffs, but what do you guys think about Hulk Grey by Tim Sale? Is it kino?
They're ALL rip-offs, if you want to know. Everything has been done before. Spider-Man combined elements of Simon & Kirby's the Fly, DC's Tarantula and a 1940s character Spider Queen. Ant-Man was inspired by the movies THEM and THE INCREDIBLE SHRINKING MAN. It's all been done before, you just give the ingredients a little spin.
>They're ALL rip-offs, if you want to know.
I suppose, yea. Some more blatant than others.
And a lot depends on how familiar you are with sources. If you like 1950s drive-in flicks, you see bits and pieces of them used in many comics. (And of course those movies themselves swiped from older movies or books or legends,. It's normal.)
>Dr. Jekyl turns into another but more insane doctor
Okay then.
I was waiting for someone to mention that "Frankenstein" was the mad scientist's name, not the Monster's.