It's fascinating to study the Internet chatter about the current lawsuits of Marvel's first editor (Joe Simon) and its second (Stan Lee) against the company. Some fans are worried sick that one or both legal actions will harm their favorite comic book company, or that Captain America will somehow be wrested out of the Marvel Universe. Still others are asking how Marvel could have been so "stupid" — that's the usual word — to give Stan terms that, if honored in spirit, would yield such an avalanche of cash.
None of these opinions seem particularly on-target to me. What with corporate takeovers, in-fighting, and occasional gross mismanagement, Marvel has survived major financial holocausts the last decade or so. This, after all, is the company that paid $286 million for the Fleer trading card company, then paid $150 million for the Skybox trading card company, then sold the combined Fleer-Skybox operation for $26 million. Compared to that kind of fiduciary wizardry, Mssrs. Simon and Lee are pretty small threats. A likely outcome of the Simon matter is that Joe will get money and Captain America will stay right where he is. The charge that Stan is greedy is even more unfounded.
I think some folks don't get that Marvel has been a major cash cow for various executive-types for a long time. People who have had a lot less to do with its success than Stan — some of whom did darn near everything wrong except to negotiate good contracts for themselves — have walked away with more loot than he will ever see. Those who think he's greedy are comparing him not to other execs but to guys like Kirby and Ditko, who saw just about nothing from their brilliance. That fact still troubles me, and probably always will. But if Stan doesn't fight for what his contract guarantees him, the money in question will not instead go to Ditko or the Kirby estate…or to anyone who ever had anything to do with creating a comic book that I liked.
Ultimately, these battles are (sadly) not about who merits what for past creative efforts, but about the interpretation of clauses in contracts and how a very large money pie will get divided. It is an unfortunate reality of business that you never get the compensation you deserve just because you deserve it. If you get it, you get it because you made the right deal at the right time with the right language…and sometimes because you filed a lawsuit at the right moment. It shouldn't work like that but it does.
Lastly, some folks have commented that, wherever he is, Jack Kirby must be laughing his ass off at these developments. No, I don't believe so. I can't really explain why I think that, other than that Jack never smiled about much of anything that related to the topic of Marvel Comics and money. He wouldn't be too thrilled with all those news articles that identify Stan as the sole creator of all those characters, either…