This week sees the release of Captain America: The End one-shot. The issue, by writer/artist Erik Larsen, colorist Dono Sanchez-Almara, and letterer Joe Caramagna, is the latest one-shot to imagine a possible end for one of Marvel’s marquee heroes. Unfortunately, the credits page at the end of the issue featured one more surprise, as co-creator Joe Simon was erroneously replaced by Stan Lee as having co-created Captain America with Jack Kirby.
“Captain America created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby,” the page reads. Lee was not a co-creator for Captain America, though, as Joe Simon designed the character and worked with Kirby on his 1940 first appearance in Captain America Comics #1.
On Twitter, Jordan White, one of the three credited editors for Captain America: The End, acknowledged the error and apologized.
Yes, clearly a mistake. Our apologies.
— Jordan D. White (@cracksh0t) February 5, 2020
Newsarama reports that digital editions and any future printings of the issue will feature corrected ‘Created By’ credits.
Accidents happen, but it’s not like there’s no precedent for publishers improperly crediting a characters’ creators. For decades DC Comics credited Bob Kane as the sole creator of Batman, ignoring the work that Bill Finger did on the character; they finally updated Batman’s creator credit only within the last few years. Lee himself was also somewhat famous for minimizing the contributions of collaborators like Kirby and Steve Ditko when it came to discussing the origins of some of Marvel’s most popular characters, though later in life he seemed to reverse that behavior.
Still, this is an embarrassing mistake for Marvel, and one that should have been caught by at least one of the three editors who worked on the issue, or by someone elsewhere in the company’s production department. Given the sheer volume of titles Marvel puts out each month, though, perhaps it’s lucky mistakes like this don’t sneak by more often.
Captain America: The End #1 is in stores now.
This is not the first time Marvel has claimed that Stan co-created Captain America.
Who knows, there may be some resentment over the fact that Simon sued Marvel twice over ownership of Cap. But Marvel’s current young employees may not be aware of that history.
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