Board Thread:News and Announcements/@comment-4651179-20181113132311/@comment-217293-20181114001448

"Even then, of all the comics he wrote, I'd say that there are only 100 worth reading (and trust me, I've read them all). Even then less than 20 are what I would call legendary, brilliant, or even ahead of the times."

Personally, I prefer stories by Roy Thomas, Steve Englehart, Chris Claremont, and John Marc DeMatteis to those by Stan Lee. They fleshed out the characters more and added some depth to their personalities.

But I find several of Lee's old stories highly entertaining. They had their plot holes, but they also had a decent mix of comedy and drama, and introduced many intriguing characters. I am particularly fond of the early X-Men issues, which were introducing new characters in almost every issue. I also like the 1960s Daredevil villains.

"His ideas were borrowed or outright stolen from other sources (the Fantastic Four were a rip off of the Challenger of the Unknown"

Really? I don't see much of a resemblance. The original Challengers consisted of an "Olympic wrestling champion", a "master skin diver", a "circus daredevil",, and a "jet pilot". No brilliant scientist, no deformed strongman, no sexy woman, no teenage tag-along kid. June Robbins (the only woman in the series) was an "honorary member and peripheral character.

The character dynamic of the Fantastic Four better resembled the Sea Devils (introduced in 1960). "They were Dane Dorrance (handsome, brainy, designed to look like a leader), Biff Bailey (big'n'strong, street-smart, ruggedly good looking), Judy Walton (Dane's love interest) and Nicky Walton (Judy's younger brother). If the structure — leader, right-hand man, girlfriend, her kid brother — sounds like something you've seen before, that's because you've seen it before, in various media. Its most famous use in comics was The Fantastic Four back before they let Johnny grow up." See: http://www.toonopedia.com/seadevls.htm