Stan Lee Lied: Your Handy Guide to Every Lie in The Origins of Marvel Comics

It’s hard to fight propaganda from giant corporations, but Chaz Gower gives it his best shot in the provocatively titled Stan Lee Lied! Very well documented and sourced with scores of quotes and interviews that make Gower’s case: Stan did not write many of the stories attributed to him. Tha artist would plot the story as he illustrated it, writing on the page what was happening in the strip as notes, and then would turn the completed pages to Stan. He would then write the dialogue and then take credit for “writing “ the story. Obviously the artist who plotted the action, the characters and their motivations was the story’s true author. And that’s just a little part of this strange, sad tale. Buy the book for much more info. You’ll never look at Marvel Comics or the Disney corporation in the same way again.

This review is based on the free kindle unlimited version:Trying to read this on kindle is challenging due to very poor formatting and the need of a professional editor. This substandard style of publishing also leads into the context of the book.If you are a die-hard Jack Kirby fanatic that has an irrational hatred of everything Stan Lee you will find this work of unashamed character assassination reassuring to your thought process. If you are looking for a source of information to assist with helping research statements made by Lee that are questionable to the reality of business situations, you are going to be left lacking.The author Chaz Gower has a difficult time separating the reality that of the man “Stanley Lieber” with the fantasy of paid Marvel Comics hype man “Stan Lee”. This is shown most prevalent in Mr. Gower taking every available quote and stripping it of all nuance, context, and framework in a desperate attempt to “fact check” them against his own admitted bias. The author does this in a middle school discourse repetitive way of displaying a quote, creating an argument that many times is not subjective of that very quote, and finally using other out of context (or just completely unrelated) quotes to then prove the provided argument as “factual” proof.Once you understand how the author frames his arguments the book becomes a repetitive slog. The word usage of “Stan Lee Lied” in various forms is used no less than 6+ times in most single chapters. This insistent reiteration is purposefully done to make the reader believe a statement is true after reading it repeatedly. This manipulative influence occurs even when people know the statement maybe false, and is called the illusory truth effect.While Mr. Gower does try to convince that “Stan Lee Lied” his actual intention seems to be something even more underhanded. Sprinkled throughout his often-rambling diatribes of arguing quotes against his own applied premise is his outright desire to remove all credit attributed to Stan Lee. Not just Co-creator, writer credit, or often subjective creation of character credits but all of it! The author continuously repeats an argument that Lee never wrote comics, which is recurrent many times in the book as to be one of the “lies”. They can be proven very easily by his first work being a text-based story in Captain America Comics and an actual drawn comic book story in All-Winners 1 both from 1941. Mr. Gower purposefully omits these pretending they never existed in order to try to convince his readers of a falsehood be made truth.Others in the reviews have mention that Chaz Gower has a lengthy online presence where he sometimes becomes what can only be described as an unhinged Karen screaming into the void about how everything he says is true and that you are wrong. This as far as I can see on google has gone on for 20 years now. I think it would do some good for Mr. Gower to seek professional assistance for his obsession over the disagreement between two dead men he only knew by third hand account.This does lead me to end with offering you the idea that there is a difference between “Stanley Lieber” the Timely/Marvel writer and editor who did not properly credit the people who worked for him; and the very well-paid Marvel Comic carnival barker figure who said whatever outlandish claim needed to get the company attention and named “Stan Lee”.

Well done book by an author who did his homework. Makes a compelling argument that obviously has touched a nerve with the more fervent fanboys. Keep an open mind, and you'll really enjoy it. You don't have to agree with it to learn from it.For those complaining about it not being "balanced," that's not the point of the book. His intentions are clear. Do your own research for balance.

This book is an amazing read! The title makes a bold statement... a statement that contradicts nearly everything that any casual comic book or comic book movie fan has been taught to think over the past 60 years. The contents then back up every single thing said on the cover. This book is thoroughly researched and there are insights and interviews inside that will open your mind if you are willing allow yourself to be deprogrammed. This book provides what I think is irrefutable evidence that Stan Lee perhaps pulled off one of the biggest scams in modern times. He stole credit from better men than himself, which caused tremendous damage to anyone that worked with him, and continues to harm the families of the true geniuses behind the creation of the Marvel Universe. Before disagreeing with the premise of this book, read it yourself and then decide.

As a casual fan of various X-titles in the 90's, I never questioned the word of Stan Lee. I was far more interested in the stories and pictures than the oddly-worded twaddle in Stan's Soapbox. He invented Spiderman? Great. FF and the X-men too? Wow, what a dynamo. And he did it all by himself, at home on his typewriter, with no support from his colleagues - just a little encouragement from his wife? What a story. I guess this is another case of "if something sounds too good to be true..." Chaz Gower lays it all out. I've read bits and pieces of this Stan Lee "backstory" before, online, and in a book or two. But this book lays out the lies in clear step by step. I think the thing that's worst of all is the conspiracy and confederates working keeping these myths alive today... and taking credit for things they didn't do themselves. Yes, I'm sure - as the author said - Stan made many contributions over the years. But the fact he doesn't give credit where it's due for the big ones doesn't lend much weight to any legitimate claims he could make. I'm heartbroken for the real creators like Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko. I feel about Stan the same way I felt about Bob Kane after watching the Bill Finger documentary. Is it somewhat biased? Sure. It's hard not to show some bias when you are morally outraged. As you possibly will be too, after you read it. Five stars for the research.