“You Sort of Believe It Actually Happened”- Examining Roy Thomas’s Comments On ‘The Great Stan Lee/Jack Kirby Debate’

At the time of this writing, Roy Thomas has just turned 83. And, in reaching another milestone in his Eighth decade I’d argue one of the more significant ones is the bestowment of the glorious nickname “The Forever Boy” by his own personal Scott Thorson/Manager/Leech John Cimino. Honestly, when this was brought to my attention, I could barely contain my sincere glee, though I freely admit I’m slightly adjusting how Cimino typed it.

Let’s all raise a glass to The Forever Boy, if an 83-year-old man with an Emo haircut wearing t-shirts geared towards men at least five decades younger can truly be called such a thing, before throwing that glass at Cimino’s stupid fuckin’ face. You’re welcome.

We’re not here to discuss Roy the Forever Boy’s career today, unfortunately, but rather to cover a recent interview he gave on YouTube in which he offered his unvarnished and biased views on the ongoing “debate” regarding Stan Lee and Jack Kirby’s contributions to the creation of the Marvel Universe.

Aptly titled ‘ROY THOMAS SHARES HIS VIEWS ON THE GREAT STAN LEE/JACK KIRBY DEBATE!‘, this interview was streamed on November 13th, 2023 over YouTube, courtesy of the horrid channel POPXP! Network!– because you need two exclamation points to fully deliver its excessive terribleness- and consists of enabling and fawning guys in their late fifties and early sixties essentially reinforcing the groundwork for Thomas to repeat his usual nonsense.

The intro itself is charmingly laughable in that it is computer animated with “edgy” graffiti promising to be “uncensored” and “unscripted” over heavy metal music with blood splatter and static on the screen, all the while showing photographs of these balding, awkward looking dorks.

I had given Billy Tucci a slight pass for several years simply due to, in my opinion, a resemblance to actor-comedian Scott Thompson from Canadian comedy troupe The Kids in the Hall. I think you’ll agree that my hesitation to confront his shittiness due to my KITH fandom was an enormous error!

Tucci opens up by welcoming a “fellow bro“, artist Graham Nolan. Sigh.

It really is worth pointing out that NONE OF THESE GUYS seem to know ANYTHING about the subjects at hand- not a judgment, an observation- as such, Thomas is free to spout off all sorts of untruths and they eagerly nod and grin and lap it up.

• “A few weeks ago we had done a show about, for those of you that may or may not know, Jack Kirby’s infamous or famous, uh, 1990 interview with, um, with Gary, uh, over at Comics Journal. And it’s uh, you know, it’s… it’s Jack’s, Jack’s perspective on the whole thing of what happened, talking about who created what, who owns, you know, who owns these characters, who deserves these characters, and for those of you that follow comics, you know about a lot of the controversy…” – Billy Tucci

Already I feel the need to point out the flaws in Tucci’s delivery. Was it Jack Kirby’s perspective that his artwork was stolen, was it his perspective that he was denied writing/plotting credit, was it his perspective that Stan Lee got the credit as the creator and originator or is this factual history, proven by both men’s entire recorded output and bodies of work?

• “Then I got a delightful, well thought out long e-mail from the legendary Roy Thomas that he had caught our show, and um, he wanted to put HIS perspective on it because, as we all know that he was THERE… you know? Roy was THERE…” – Billy Tucci

Tucci’s enthusiasm is palpable as he breaks into a huge, childlike grin when he says Roy Thomas caught their show. But consider his phrasing and its subtle architecture- “because, as we all know, Roy was there…”

It’s both sinister and leading for him to phrase this is “AS WE ALL KNOW“- immediately making the listener a co-conspirator, making his fanfiction all inclusive. We all don’t know that Roy was THERE, notably, because Roy himself helpfully testified on the stand that he was NOT there:

Also, it’s of great significance that the 83-year-old Thomas reached out to THEM, and not vice versa. Thomas continues a pattern that’s repeated throughout his entire adult life, writing or calling in whenever he sees fit to bend or adjust the narrative. Very disturbing.

Graham Nolan introduces Thomas as “Roy the Boy” and “the man who was handed the baton from Stan Lee himself to take over Marvel Comics when Stan decided he was going to, you know, pull back a little bit and eventually head out to Hollywood…” So, we know where these guys are in terms of their accepted history.

At 3:46, Roy Thomas appears complete with added in applause track. Tucci immediately cuts off whatever Thomas is saying at the outset by launching into two anecdotes about the delivery of a new lamp for his desk and then a porch Cam photo of a deer he’s trying to hunt.

“What kind of propelled you to reach out to us?”

Thomas explains he caught the episode by chance, and that he remembers the Kirby interview from reading it at the time and “being outraged“:

• “So, I hear you’re going to talk about it, oh God, it’s another round of Stan-Bashing, we’ve had plenty of those from the willfully ignorant over the last few years since Stan passed away…. not that Stan didn’t deserve any criticism and got plenty of it from me and other people… but, you know, the insanity of some of the people that are trying to bring him down to make Jack look good…” – Roy Thomas

Wait a second. Is this what they tell themselves? That any criticism of Stan Lee is motivated by an attempt to make Kirby “look good“- the implication of this logic is disrespectful beyond belief as it implies that, even to the Kirby supporter, the perception and talent of Stan Lee and Jack Kirby is already imbalanced so that one needs to dilute and diminish Stan Lee in order to raise Kirby to be his equal!

• “It offended me in that interview, and I was really pleased with the discussion that I thought was an intelligent discussion, trying to get to the FACTS… and, you know without, just from what you remembered from reading… I don’t have all the answers, I’ve never claimed I was there when most of these things were created… I came on board in early July of 1965…” – Roy Thomas

We will give Thomas credit for subtly correcting Tucci here without overtly correcting him, as to allow for the fanboys to keep thinking he “was there” in full capacity.

Graham Nolan asks Thomas to clarify what year that was, complete with visible confusion on his face. This is just the beginning of these guys displaying how woefully ignorant they are about specifics regarding this exact interview and argument they’re discussing.

• “Not to outrage any of these other people who don’t need any help!” – Roy Thomas

The first thing Billy Tucci says again after Thomas clarifies when he started and Nolan asks Thomas to repeat it, is literally “As I said in the intro, YOU WERE THERE, so you WITNESSED so many of these creations…“

What the actual Fuck. Roy Thomas literally just told him “I never claimed I was there when most of these things were created.” But Tucci is beside himself, smiling and shaking his head in disbelief since Thomas referenced The Inhumans, asking Roy if “it was a script or an idea“- is Tucci really that ignorant of the fact that literally NO SCRIPTS WRITTEN BY STAN LEE HAVE EVER SURFACED, SURVIVED, OR ARE KNOWN TO HAVE EXISTED. HOW COULD THERE BE A SCRIPT.

Roy tells him: “It was drawn already” because of course it was. Of course, The Inhumans are one of the creations which Kirby freely claimed credit for as early as in a Sixties interview.

Thomas claims the first appearance of the Inhumans was “going through an artwork farm, those stories…“

Interestingly, Thomas claims he couldn’t write in front of people at the Marvel offices, because it was a “mad house” and “I couldn’t write in that environment” of people running around, etc. It’s well documented that Marvel had an in-house staff of 3 at that time, which consisted of Lee, Flo Steinberg and Sol Brodsky. It’s very telling and interesting that Thomas says he couldn’t write because of this apparent mad house.

Also worth noting- and perhaps to Thomas’s credit (!)- that Tucci says that Beau Smith (one of comics’ most persistent hanger-ons and poseurs) told him that, unlike a Robert Kanigher, Stan used to “beg” the artists to be part of interviews, and that the artists would flippantly and annoyingly tell Stan “I have pages to draw, I don’t have time to talk to these college kids!“- to which Thomas responds that he never remembers this ever happening, with the exception of Lee attempting to include John Romita Sr. later on- and that Stan was “quite happy” to be the sole subject of press interviews. Tucci seems oblivious and obtuse to anything contradicting his projections, though.

• “NO ONE HERE IS BASHING JACK KIRBY, WE ADORE JACK KIRBY, HE’S A HERO TO EACH AND EVERY ONE OF US…” – Billy Tucci

There’s so much to this grueling and gross display, that going over it word for word would just limit all of our lives, so I am going to touch on just a selection of the more notable statements that The Forever Boy makes during this conversation.

• “I don’t think Stan had any special interest in doing super-heroes again… they’d failed for Stan a couple of times, they’d at DC once or twice…” – Roy Thomas

If nothing else, this lends weight to Martin Goodman and Jack Kirby both being the initial instigators of what became the Marvel Universe, as Lee claimed Goodman gave him a directive and Kirby claimed that he went to Lee with the idea to do super-heroes again.

• “Even MARVEL… he forgot later, but even calling it Marvel wasn’t Stan’s idea though he later thought it was…” – Roy Thomas

Correct. It was Martin Goodman that implemented this, yet there are literally over a dozen recorded accounts of Lee claiming it was his idea because he could “have more fun” with the word ‘Marvel’ in all of his various promotional writing.

When Graham Nolan makes the obvious statement that the name Marvel “connects to their first book, too“- Thomas points out that Lee didn’t even remember THAT. Yikes.

• “That’s why when he started telling stories, he gets so much stuff WRONG… and once he’d get a story that he kinda liked, he would convince himself it was TRUE… sometimes, I could tell it was kinda true, sometimes it was HALF true… sometimes, there wasn’t much truth in it… but, y’know, after you tell a story often enough, you sort of believe it must have actually happened.”

Which is very similar to what the collected interviewer fanboys here are doing, and what thousands of sentimental fans do on a regular and continued basis. Which is a huge part of the problem.

• “Joe was hired earlier that year by Martin Goodman to be the Editor of the comics department… and he was hired over because, uh, Goodman saw some of his artwork… all that happened is, Goodman hires Simon.. and Simon has this… this GUY that works with him, this guy named Jack Kirby… and he says, “I’ll come, but only if I can bring my partner with me!” And that is how Jack Kirby FIRST came to Marvel, as an “Add-On” to Joe Simon.”

Wow, that’s somewhat rewriting history I’d say. Per Simon in his 2011 autobiography, “My Life in Comics“, Simon says that Goodman wanted the Simon & Kirby team, but that Kirby was reluctant to leave the security of working for Victor Fox unless Goodman agreed to put them on salary. Summarizing and misconstruing this as Kirby being an “add on” is condescending and disrespectful.

• “When Joe Simon sued in the late Sixties to try to get Captain America back… Carl Burgos did it around the same time with the Torch… guess who testified against Joe Simon and in favor of Marvel owning Captain America? A freelance semi-staff artist named Jack Kirby… these things get very tangled, at that time, Jack was on Marvel’s side… but, you know, he was just doing it to keep his job, not because of what he believed or didn’t believe… crazy confused world, isn’t it?”

Thomas says the last sentence with a smug sort of self-satisfaction, as if he’s served a legit and devastating beatdown to any person sympathetic to Kirby. As it was, this situation was more complex than this- Kirby was working for Marvel and, at this time, was still under the impression that Goodman was working to take care of him. Kirby had four children to support and, yes, he did it to keep his job. At this point in time, Kirby still believes- naively or otherwise- that Goodman recognizes his obvious value and will honor his promise. Of course, when Kirby realizes it’s all bullshit, he notably quits and goes to DC- which would disprove any notion of Kirby just being flippant and a politician behind the scenes.

• “Jack liked to pretend, he liked to put himself out as being confrontational… maybe he got into a lot of fights on the street of Brooklyn when he was a kid and that led to Boy Commandos, I don’t know… but Jack wasn’t confrontational at all…”

Liked to pretend. Again, the disrespect is immense. Let’s consider that Kirby was in literal gangs- on the lower East Side, not Brooklyn- and, if we subscribe to the criterion of embarrassment, I’d wager that Kirby’s street fighting stories are true, considering that one of his more repeated ones has him being knocked out in a fight and his unconscious body being carried to his front door so that his Mother finds him! Also, Kirby was at Normandy and LITERALLY KILLED NAZIS, MOTHERFUCKER. Do guys who pretend get the Bronze Battle Star from their World War II service? How about Kirby’s Combat Infantry Badge? The dismissive tone in Thomas’s voice during all of this is just shitty. Just shitty! And none of these comic fucks call him out on it. Of course they don’t.

• “And he said, and he suggested evidentially, a “Stan Lee-Jack Kirby Production” which simply kept it more CONFUSED… because when you put that in, you have no idea who did WHAT, and you leave it open for Jack to claim he did everything… or Stan to claim he did everything…”

Kirby evidentially suggested the credit that Lee would later acquiesce to, so Thomas isn’t even sure that he’s the reason for that specific credit, yet still blames him for making it more “confused” as to who contributed what.

• “I’m sure on some stories, Stan was a heavier hand on plotting.. and not just because that Fantastic Four plot was genuine and not at all a fraud, like some people want you to believe… but also, because Jack was just looking to keep his job.. so, if Stan gave him a vague idea, Jack would just do it… but Stan gave Jack a lot of credit… and we all know this…”

All I can tell you is that if I hadn’t made up something like a fake plot I claimed was written before Fantastic Four #1, I wouldn’t dare keep validating it out of nowhere during interviews with interjections like “was genuine and not at all a fraud, like some people want you to believe” because really, why would I need to since it’s totally real??

• “I don’t think Stan really considered Ditko the co-creator of Spider-Man.”

• “The willfully ignorant out there in fan-land and their little, uh, pcs, they’re not gonna know either…”

First off, I think the world is- or should be- in agreement with Thomas about Lee’s views on who created Spider-Man. So, no argument there. Secondly, I am assuming that “PCs” means “politically correct” people which I find an odd thing to add out of nowhere when discussing comic book creators- just another interjection which displays Thomas’s true conservativism when there’s literally no need for it. I guess only Democrats would dare slander Stan Lee by his logic.

Graham Nolan then interjects and thinks the 1987 radio interview happened shortly after Kirby left Marvel for DC… in 1970. He also says that “like Roy said“, Kirby was aggressive on the interview before Lee calls in, but once Lee calls in, he “backs down“, implying that Kirby is just lying whenever Lee isn’t present.

Nolan also says Kirby’s margin notes are simply “panel descriptions” and says that Kirby would write “the Thing punches a guy into a wall when, in fact, the artwork in the panel is just the Thing punching a guy into a wall“- very dismissively, very condescendingly- again, and amazingly, to Thomas’s credit, he responds by clarifying that, in fact, you do sometimes see dialogue that Kirby suggested and story advancement, which Nolan immediately nods and says “yeah!” to, as if to walk back how he was enabling and setting up the ongoing falsehoods- or, just to disgustingly agree and go along with anything the Forever Boy says.

• “I’m not saying he (Stan) was totally innocent of causing any of the problems… accidentally.”

Thomas adds that helpful disclaimer so that you know, if ol’ Stan caused ANYTHING, it was purely by ACCIDENT.

• “You think of all the credit, even if it isn’t enough, that Stan has given Jack Kirby over the years- and other artists too, but especially Jack… how much credit has Jack Kirby ever given STAN for anything?? I can’t think of anything!”

Hey, I can. And they’re all literally correct credits, too: Kirby pointed out that Lee was the Editor. Lee wrote the captions. Lee was his gateway to Martin Goodman. None of that is untrue.

• “If it isn’t a complaint, it’s something neutral like ‘Stan Lee was my Editor’…”

Thomas seems hurt on Lee’s behalf, almost. It’s literal, not neutral, to say that Stan Lee was his Editor.

• “Stan was really hurt… actually, he was livid as well as hurt…”

Thomas refers to Kirby’s parody of Lee as Funky Flashman, the most accurate description of Lee ever committed to paper. Notably, Jim Shooter says that Lee thought it was hilarious, but Thomas was there the year it premiered whereas Shooter wasn’t, so perhaps Lee was livid and hurt after all. And still didn’t learn what EMPATHY was after his bout with anguish.

• “It’s just a shame it didn’t work out in the long haul. But, they tried- you know, Stan and Jack are appearing together, looking like buddies… then, of course, as soon as it all fell apart, suddenly Jack is trashing Stan again…”

Graham Nolan makes a point to explain how disappointed he was in Kirby’s late 70s’ work and how he “didn’t care for it“, mostly because Kirby’s Captain America seemed detached from the rest of the Marvel Universe, going on to say that Kirby’s work is “clunky” and “dated” and that there is “no nuance like there is with Stan“. Wahhhh. Nolan’s work is journeyman and competent if bland beyond belief in comparison to Kirby’s Nineteen Eighties work- he shouldn’t share his criticisms as he’s not accomplished 1/4th of what Kirby has.

• “I offered a thing, I said- I worked out with Stan so that Jack could PLOT the Fantastic Four, and get CREDIT for plotting it- so, his name would come first, because that was like part of the writing- and I said, ‘Jack, you know, you could do this and your name would come first-‘ and Jack said, ‘Well, I’ll do that but I’ll only do that if you plot out the stories panel by panel by panel in advance…’

• And it took me about three seconds, I think, if I’m gonna do that, I’m better off with Rich Buckler, because Rich Buckler will give me some THOUGHT…”

Wow. Just wow. There are no words, as the expression often goes. For anyone not initiated, let me explain that Rich Buckler is beyond well known- I’d argue that he is infamous, in fact- for being known for his plentiful use of Kirby Swipes in his 70s’ work, particularly on the title Kirby created, the Fantastic Four. It’s so well known that you only need google “Rich Buckler Kirby Swipes” and wait for numerous articles, essays and examples to leap out and hit you in the face. Here’s one to visit, should you be so inclined on a long train ride!

http://panelocityhomageswipes.blogspot.com/search/label/Rich%20Buckler

So, its notable to me that Roy Thomas believes that one of the most notorious swipe artists– and his swipe file is predominantly Kirby (the two images above are an original FF Kirby panel from the Sixties, followed by a Buckler panel from the Seventies)- gives MORE THOUGHT to drawing the Fantastic Four than, you know, the guy who he is literally copying much of his artwork from.

• “I think it undercut Jack’s value to the company, and made him much less valuable than he could have been.”

Kirby turning down the offer to plot the FF for Roy Thomas to dialogue is making him much less valuable. More truth to The Marvel Method as kickback scheme.

• “I was kind of offended by the idea, it remains sad for the last, almost fifty years that it never came to pass, so it’s the only way I ever got to work with Jack with anything on the Fantastic Four was for the 1979 animated show…”

Wow. Roy Thomas was offended. That Kirby rejected him. Could this somehow be a partial motivator towards Thomas’s present views of Kirby? Just wondering. Also, a fan turned assistant turned Millie the Model writer turned Lee’s flunky doesn’t get to be offended by the guy that drew the cover of Captain America #1 and literally invented genres. Fuck Roy Thomas.

• “I was just furious… this is MY idea… the guy takes me out of the idea, and substitutes somebody else…”

MORE irony! The Forever Boy is furious… HIS idea got taken out, and someone else was substituted! Gosh! Thomas refers to Kirby replacing Thomas with Sol Brodsky in the What If? story involving the original Marvel Bullpen as the Fantastic Four. But you might consider Kirby’s feelings when Lee started a Silver Surfer series and gave it to John Buscema and then created an entirely different (and terrible) origin for Kirby’s character! But no, no- that would require components that the Rascally One and his ilk sadly lack.

• “Jack… he liked to twist Stan.. the bitterness was there…”

I’m actually quite confident that Kirby preferred to NOT have to think about Stan Lee, much less enjoy “twisting” him. And yeah, the bitterness- it’s not understandable? Stan Lee is a credit thief.

• “Now Jack, in the interview, says ‘we decided to give it to Steve Ditko’- now, if you believe that, I’ve got a bridge- several bridges I’d like to sell you- STAN decided, obviously…”

Didn’t Lee & Kirby have conferences on a regular basis? Why couldn’t Kirby have given his input or suggestions with what to do with this character?

• “This absolutely fabulous costume… which Jack could NEVER draw!”

Remember, these guys ADORE Kirby. But let’s keep pointing out how lackluster he is without Lee, and how badly he drew Spider-Man.

• “While I feel Stan is the primary guy who created the Marvel Universe in one sense, you have to consider Jack in a certain sense the co-creator of the Marvel Universe too…”

• “I think Stan kind of realized this, sometimes he came close to saying it, later on, after Jack left, he was never gonna bring that up again- that’s why, I think some of the stuff with Stan… you know, not exactly erasing Jack, but- sort of like when he started to do the Simon & Shuster introductions to those reprint books in the early Seventies (Origins of Marvel Comics), and then, uh, you know- Stan wrote these things, he was just kind of playing up himself, he’d say, ‘if I mention one artist, I’ve got to mention all of them’ and the main thing is, Stan wanted to mention Stan….”

Literally anything that Stan Lee did that could be perceived as wrong, unfair or unjust, these guys will find a way to rationalize it while insulting anyone who believes that Kirby got a bad deal. It’s amazing.

• “I always maintain that Stan was much more generous about Jack than Jack ever was about Stan.”

Why shouldn’t he be? It’s because of Kirby and Ditko that Lee had a vehicle to promote himself.

• “As for the Secret City stuff, that was an attempt by TOPPS when they entered comics to get some Jack Kirby in there without having to have Jack do anything… The Secret City Saga… by the way, I argued they should change the name… give it a name of a group, not the Secret City, nobody cares about a city… but you know, what do I know… I’d only been Editor in Chief of the largest comic company in the world, so what did I know?”

And when Thomas had been hired by Topps- largely due to his longtime friendship with Topps executive Len Brown- where was he at in the industry?

• “This is not gonna answer all the questions; the people that don’t want to be convinced are never going to be convinced, no matter- if I had photographs of this stuff, they wouldn’t believe it… but all you can do is tell what you remember, I don’t know everything… they know less, generally. And some of these questions, no matter what happens, they’re never going to be definitively answered.”

On the contrary! I would welcome photographs, I would relish having evidence that Stan Lee is the primary creator of everything; it would shut me up, for one thing.

• “It’s only important to a very small number of people as far as the names, but the characters and the world is important to a large number of people. So, I think it’s important we get it right for our own purposes…”

Wow, that’s almost diabolical in its phrasing. But yes, Thomas correctly states that the general, MCU-loving public just doesn’t care about who created what. So long as they have their comforting myths.

It’s terrible and it will continue. When I saw this travesty, I tried to encourage other people to share their views, their feelings, and comment upon the video in question- I was dismayed and disappointed that not many did. People who are prolific and morally outraged while preaching to the choir would not make that same outrage public on a mainstream forum, where it may just have provoked at least one person to research what they’d read in passing. A shame.

While Thomas unfortunately doesn’t have that many more years ahead with this racket, his heir does and so too do all of the other Marvelites. It’s because of their needs, their wants that the truth gets diluted. Stan Lee obviously did contribute sheen and polish to the machine and should be rightfully credited for those contributions. But its construction was never going to be possible if left up to him; he never had the tools, not until they were delivered to him.

With sincere gratitude to the lovely J.A.L. and my ongoing thanks to Patrick Ford and Michael J. Vassallo for using screenshots of theirs without permission.