You're listening to Imaginary Worlds, a show about how we create them and why we suspend our disbelief.

I'm Eric Mollinsky.

Last year I was in Los Angeles moderating a series of panels with industry executives,

and I hadn't been out to LA in a while, certainly not talking to industry people.

And I was struck by how often they were throwing around the term,

IP, which is short for intellectual property.

I mean intellectual properties, like a wonky term you'd come across,

made me in a Hollywood reporter article.

But these execs were throwing around like it was sexy.

But we own the IP.

They've got great IP.

They're sitting on IP that they don't even know what to do with.

And I realized what was going on is that they were talking about the way that Marvel had changed the entertainment industry.

Because Marvel was sitting on a goldbind of IP,

but only Marvel understood that IP was gold.

But there's another conversation that's been happening for a while among Marvel fans about that golden IP.

Who created it?

Because if you read the Avengers or Black Panther comics back in the 60s,

they all said written by Stanley.

But those four words written by Stanley are probably the most controversial words in the history of comics.

Now back in the 60s, when all these superheroes were created,

Stanley was more like an editor who would talk to the artists about what kind of stories and characters they're going to create.

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