Did Stan Lee or Steve Ditko create Marvel Superhero Spiderman
Posted by: Ryan on: September 18, 2007
So on Sunday night I watched an ace programme on BBC4 about the dispute over whether or not Steve Ditko is deserving of being called Spiderman’s co-creator.
For those of you who don’t know (shame on you) Stan Lee is the incredibly famous writer and widely acclaimed “creator” of the Spiderman comics and head honcho over at Marvel comics, home of such greats as X-Men, The Incredible Hulk and The Fantastic Four. Steve Ditko is the artist who originally artworked all of the Spiderman comics before walking out after a man row with Stan Lee.
Stan Lee’s Side of the Argument…
It has been said that Stan Lee will “take any credit that hasn’t yet been claimed”, and with this mentality to this day he made no effort to hide the fact he believes he is the sole creator of Spiderman. Stan lee believes that because he came up with the concept of Spiderman he is therefore the creator.
Steve Ditko’s Side of the Argument…
Steve Ditko believes he should be considered the co-creator of Spiderman because the instantly recognisable appearance of Spiderman we all know and love to this day was completely dreamed up by Steve Ditko.
Before Steve’s departure from Marvel Stan did write Steve a letter saying he considered him to be co-creator of Spiderman and said he could show that to whoever he wanted. The letter really was written in a kind of “yeah right” manner and Steve was not happy. Soon after Steve Ditko left Marvel and had a relatively un-successful career writing politically conservative comics which were not popular with rebellious comic reading teens. He also voiced his opinion on the matter with a comic he produced which showed on the left Stan Lee’s contribution to Spiderman which was a paragraph of text and then on the right, his contribution which was a beautifully illustrated image of Spiderman swinging on a web trough the city.
This dispute continues to this day. Although on the Spiderman movies’ opening credits Steve Ditko does get a mention. Most people including the man hmself believe Stan Lee is the creator of Spiderman.
What do you guys think? Does Steve Ditko deserve the title “co-creator of Spiderman” or does that honor belong to the legend that is Stan Lee, as it was after all his idea?
Leave your comments in the box…
14 Responses to "Did Stan Lee or Steve Ditko create Marvel Superhero Spiderman"
September 19, 2007 at 6:47 am
I think it’s odd this from a business point of view. My banner was created by somebody other than myself. I don’t say that this person was a co-creater of my blog, it’s my blog, and will always be, the banner just adds to it.
It’s all very well Spiderman’s iconic image, but “the iconic image” could be anything, we just don’t know because we’re used to the blue and red webbed look.
So, in my eyes, Stan Lee created Spiderman, Steve Ditko designed him.
September 19, 2007 at 4:54 pm
Good point, Rhys. But your blog would still be your blog, and identified as such, no matter how many times you changed the banner. I’m not so sure that the same would apply to Spidey.
January 20, 2008 at 7:49 pm
If you can get a copy of a reprint of the first 38 issues of Spider-Man and Amazing Fantasy #15, and read them consecutively, you notice that for about the last 15 or more issues, Ditko is credited with ‘plotting’ the issues, which meant that he would draw them, Stan would script them and Ditko would ink and color them. So over that run of issues, Ditko had much more than a ‘design’ contribution. Moreover, Ditko’s styling of Spider-Man, the mood and originality of his drawing, and the unparalleled originality of the artwork add up to much more than a graphic design. I would credit Steve Ditko with at least ‘co-’ creation, if not more.
January 31, 2008 at 2:48 pm
I also believe that Ditko should take more credit that just co-creator, if it was not for Ditko would the spidey that we know even exist?
Its like the fact that someone could come up with the idea (Lee) of say from the top of my head a spacecraft, then its just an idea, but if someone make(Ditko) the spacecraft then they created it.
February 5, 2008 at 11:12 am
It’s obvious to anyone with any knowledge of comics history that Steve is co-creator. In fact, Jack Kirby and Joe Simon (creators of Captain America) also had a hand in Spidey’s creation because he was based on their hero, The Fly, which was first presented to Stan before being published by Archie. But their contribution could be called “influence.” Ditko, however, designed the character an brought him to life! He’s hardly a web-banner.
Remember, comics are a VISUAL medium. The artist is equal in every way to the writer, often more so when working the old “Marvel style” (where the writer and artist would brainstorm a rough plot, the artist would pencil the book and then hand it to the writer to dialog. Jack KIrby, co-creator of the Fantastic Four, Hulk, original X-Men and dozens of other characters, is a perfect example.)
If we were talking about Sherlock Holmes, Tarzan, Conan, or another LITERARY character, then the argument would be different. But Spider-Man was published in visual form simultaneously with words. Furthermore, he is recognizable by his appearance more so than his name (tens of millions of children and illiterates know him and can’t read).
An artist/writer team is the same as a songwriting team. The one who wrote the music is as much a co-writer as the lyricist. Do you know of any instance where the lyricist is given sole credit for the song aqnd the music writer excluded?
For those interested, Ditko has written a wonderful historical essay on the subject in Robin Snyder’s The Comics zine (formerly History of the Comics).
February 5, 2008 at 11:17 am
Apologies for the typos above. Just another FYI, Stan does acknowledge Steve’s contribution in several interviews–remember than what you read is not always what was said.Many journalists do not understand how comics work or the creative process involved (nor do their readers), and since Steve is a recluse, they often just mention Stan. (Anyone who’s ever been interviewed for a newspaper or magazine knows you’re not always accurately quoted.) 
September 2, 2008 at 7:23 pm
Ideas are a dime a dozen. Stan Lee should have co-creator credits, yes, but without Steve Ditko’s input
(which was a lot), Spiderman would look and have been a lot different. Ditko deserves co-creator status at the least. Stan Lee also deserves it. Period.
While that should be ‘Nuff Said’!, I know it isn’t. Many people are always willing to take credit for that which they had almost nothing to do with. I’ve personally known artists who make their living by stealing other artists’ material creations and modifying them to enough of an extent to escape prosecution To hear them talk, they created the work they traced. I could give names here, but I won’t.
One lady I knew put together two words inspired by a dream she had and the pictures I created from that dream. Mind you, she did not identify the creature she was talking about, except in the vaguest terms-until I drew it. From the two wordsd she juxtaposed, I had an idea for a story and I wrote it, with virtually no input from her, except two names. Otherwise, she refused to have ANYTHING to do with the actual creative work, such as characters, character design, and story plotting.
She later told me, that, in her eyes she owned my novel…and she created everything about it because she juxtaposed two words. Unbelieveable? Yes. But every claim here is the truth.
So if I take Stan Lee’s claims with an Everest sized grain of salt, please excuse me.
February 16, 2009 at 6:07 pm
A comic book works on two things: writing and drawing. If Lee did the writing, and Ditko the drawing then they co-created it, simple as that. And let’s face it – we’ve seen (or maybe you haven’t) the series exploring ‘what if Stan Lee had created…’ a variety of DC characters and they are, to be frank, uniformly crap.
I don’t understand why Lee needs to make a deal of this. He’s credited with some of the most popular franchises in modern history: Spider-man, X-men, Hulk, Fantastic Four… is it really such a big blow to his ego to have to admit he didn’t do it *all* alone?
Spider-man’s look, the mood and style of the comics, are what made it iconic. Here, Ditko pretty much gets *all* the credit. Not every new superhero was a smash hit (early Daredevil, anyone?) and part of what made Spidey such a big deal was the overall tone of the comic – half Lee, half Ditko.
Basically, if I were Lee (the Stan one, not the me one) I would be grateful to let Ditko be known as the co-creator – lest people look closely and realise that he actually did some 3/4 of the work and was possibly more responsible that Lee for the success of the character and the comic.
April 16, 2009 at 5:31 pm
No question that Lee and Ditko were co-creators. Mainstream media and to an extent casual comic books fans always give Stan Lee 100% credit, but that’s not his fault.
August 12, 2009 at 6:19 am
In an interview with Will Eisner, Jack Kirby claimed to have created Spiderman, (the Silver Spider) having designed the costume that ended up in Ditko and Lee’s “co-creation” years later.
“That was cooked up by me! Spider-Man was discussed between Joe (Simon) and myself. Spider-Man was not a product of Marvel.”
September 9, 2009 at 5:56 pm
Thanks for all the great comments on this post guys.
With all these new points coming out of the woodwork I have no idea who should get credit. It’s great to see so many opinions though… keep them coming!
September 28, 2009 at 6:02 am
Spiderman was the child of many hands actually and in absolutely no way, should Stan Lee be considered the sole creator of the webhead. There are those who point to the similarity, in name and in image, to the Joe Simon creation, the Silver Spider which was changed to Spiderman in the end. He had given copies of these skecthes of his “Spiderman” to Jack Kirby, who apparently took them to Stan Lee when Stan approached him with the idea of a hero called by the same name.
There’s no doubt that Stan Lee had a hand in creating Spiderman, but he is in no way the sole creator. The entire look of the series including the major villians are all the brainchild of Mr. Ditko and given the “Marvel Method” of producing comics, Mr. Ditko was as integral to creating the hero we know today as Mr. Lee.
I find anyone who touts Lee as the sole creator of “Spiderman” is usually not very well informed as to their comic book history. In my mind, “Spiderman” was created by Lee, Ditko, Simon and Kirby.
November 7, 2009 at 7:57 am
All evidence points to Steve Ditko as Co Creator. For years Marvel Comics has been covering up Ditko’s work on Spider Man. They have tried change the way he looks and giving other artist credit for creating Spidey popularity. JR and his Son, but they both suck on Spider Man. No one has been successful in drawing Spider Man except Todd Mc Farline who came close. Disney has many artist maybe one of them will study some of Ditko’s work on Spidey before he left Marvel and re create the original Spider Man look. Not the wrong way screwed up spider man that we see to day started by John Romita and continued by his son.
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September 18, 2007 at 5:01 pm
I haven’t read comics in a long, long time, mostly because there’s nowhere in town that I can buy them on impulse. But it seems to me that, if the original concept was Stan’s, and the design belonged to Ditko, they’re co-creators. It’s kind of hard to have a comic character without character design.