DBWI: Stan Lee with Marvel?

DC comics, with its flagship heros Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Spider Man, the Fantastic Four, and Iron Man, is the unquestionable king of the comic book industry, after Stan Lee joined the company and revived its fortunes in the Silver Age. There was this one obscure company named Marvel active around WWII (they were the ones who published Captain America) but I can't see them getting anyone as good as Stan Lee. What if, though? What might the comics industry be like if Stan Lee went with Marvel over DC?
 
Captain America punching Hitler in the face has assured him pride of place in every history of comics or WWII media montage, but I don't know how much gas there was in the tank after that. It's not really a character that could work outside a WWII context, imho.
 
Ok, all OOC
1: Captain America was Timely, not Marvel.

2: Lee was planning on leaving the industry around the time Schwartz revived the industry, making it unlikely that he'd jump ship so easily.

3: He was really a no-name around the 50s and got away with a lot of the things he did because Goodman gave him a chance to compete with DC.
He might not be able to pull off the same kinds of stunts under DC, and there's no real push for him to do Superheros the Stan Lee way.
 
Captain America punching Hitler in the face has assured him pride of place in every history of comics or WWII media montage, but I don't know how much gas there was in the tank after that. It's not really a character that could work outside a WWII context, imho.

Captain America could've been more representative of the Amercian Dream than the Amercian Military I think, but what do I know... I'm just excited for Batman V Spider-Man this summer!
 
Interesting question.

Well, I really doubt that Vista Comics would have caught on to the extent they did. I mean, the absence of a major mainstream competitor to DC up until the 1990s meant that when Vista appeared, with their darker heroes and more 'real' feel, they were an instant seller: First-Strike; WOLFHOUND; Devil-Dog...

OOC: 'Vista'=a better version of Image Comics :D
 
Ok, 1: Captain America was Timely, not Marvel.

2: Lee was planning on leaving the industry around the time Schwartz revived the industry, making it unlikely that he'd jump ship so easily.

3: He was really a no-name around the 50s and got away with a lot of the things he did because he was good friends with Goodman.

Actually, Lee was the nephew of Goodman's wife.
 
Well we certainly wouldn't have the creation of "Earth-2" which reinvented the Green Lantern, Flash, Atom, Batman, Wonder Woman, and Superman. Consider how reimagining charachters like Alan Scott into Hal Jordan, transformed the way we looked at characters. Who here would've considered "Wayne Williams v. Bruce Wayne" or "Salden v. Kal-El"?
 
Many people say the best of Stan's contributions at DC were due to Jack Kirby, his collaborator who had freelanced for DC earlier in 1956 and recruited Stan whom he knew from his days at Timely.

After all, "the Fantastic Four" was simply a spin off of Kirby's earlier work on Challengers of the Unknown when June Robbins officially joined the team after one of the original members died in that rocket accident.

When the Lee-Kirby team got success, Stan's editor assigned him to work with Murphy Anderson on Spider-Man. Many people credit Murphy's design and art as essential to that character's success.

If Lee stayed at Atlas/Marvel, it's hard to see how he'd achieve the same working with Don Heck, Joe Sinnott, and Steve Ditko.
 
A MAJOR reason why Stan Lee joined DC was the fact DC Comics had a much wider distribution system than the company that was holding the rights to the Atlas Comics characters in the middle 1950's. And DC in 1955 decided to truly revive superhero comics, and as such hired away a lot of the old Timely Comics writers and artists to revive Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman and the Flash--and it was decided to team them up in a new comic called Justice League of America, which became a gigantic hit when it started in 1958.

Flush with that success, it allowed DC to try comics aimed at older teen to early adult readers, led by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby. The result was the Fantastic Four, Spider-Man and Iron Man, all landmark series with characters facing more "real life" problems.
 
Top