Nathan Greno: OT: I can't help but think of the awesome version of the cover I own! :)

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John P: So you are the one who owns the cover to my complete issue!  :-)

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...I'll have to check that cover again, but I seem to remember Chapter One was called something else in the "title" space of the art. Hmmmmmm....

No, Ben Benulis created Spider Man. Stan added the -

Wait Ben....Uncle Ben?!? Could it be?????? :-o

I read further on Mark Evanier's website and found this:

Mark Evanier wrote: Did Jack design Spider-Man's costume? No.  Steve Ditko designed the distinctive costume we all know and love.  Jack did claim to have presented the idea to Stan Lee of doing a hero named Spiderman (no hyphen) who walked on walls and had other spider-themed powers — a claim which Stan vociferously denies. But for all the things Jack did well, he was not great at being interviewed.  He occasionally got carried away or confused.  There was one interview where, without realizing what he was saying, he said he'd created Superman.  Needless to say, he never really believed that but somehow, that's what came out of his mouth. This kind of thing most often occurred when the topic veered near an instance where Jack felt he'd been undercredited and undercompensated, and Spider-Man was such a case.  In at least one such conversation, he misspoke and claimed he'd designed the costume for the final version of Spider-Man.  I'm guessing the gaffe had something to do with the fact that he did pencil the cover of Amazing Fantasy #15 with the first appearance of that costume.  There were a number of cases where Jack designed a character on a cover, and then Don Heck or Dick Ayers or someone else drew the interior story, following his design.  In this case, however, the cover was drawn after Stan had rejected one drawn wholly by Ditko Jack knew that.  And he also knew what it was like to have someone else claim credit for your ideas.  So he very much regretted the error.

The 'Ringo' for Marvel early on was probably Don Heck.  Kirby, Ditko and Heck were Marvel's main three artists, all of them hand-picked by Stan Lee [in 1957 Heck replaced Joe Maneely who had died in a freak train mishap].

Heck excelled at horror, romance and science fiction, but in the 60s he was shoehorned into drawing super-heroes - drawing Iron Man, Giant--Man, Thor and the Avengers, while Kirby drew the Fantastic Four, Thor, Captain America and the Hulk and Ditko drew Spider-Man and Doctor Strange.  other artists who had worked for Marvel in the 1950s began returning to Marvel in the mid-60s - John Buscema, John Romita and Gene Colan - but early on, Heck was definitely the #3 guy.

I'm finishing up reading the "Jack FAQ" on Mark Evanier's site. I started from the page Lars linked to and read to the end, then returned to the beginning of the FAQ to read what I had passed over before.

Lainie Kazan was Kirby's model for Big Barda. Very interesting!

Steve Ditko created Spider-Man, and never made a nickel more than his page rate for doing so.

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SER: Does anyone know if Ditko was acknowledged for this in any of the Spider-Man movies? I imagine there might be legal issues with saying that Spider-Man was "created by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko," but I thought the first film could have justified stating "based on stories by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko."

If nothing else, a "Ditko Plaza" or some other shout out would have been nice.

Stephan Robinson wrote: If nothing else, a "Ditko Plaza" or some other shout out would have been nice.

Peter's landlord is named Ditkovich.

Thank goodness for the "Spidey" we got!!!!

After co-creating the Fantastic Four, X-Men, Thor, etc.... why are we assuming that Kirby's Spiderman would've sucked?

He wouldn't have been anything like Ditko's, but it would've been another Kirby headliner...  which in the early 60's was a pretty good bet.

It's just a big "What If", but without Ditko's Spider-Man, would Stan have gone on to create some other weird character with Ditko?