Recently I was reading Twomorrows‘ excellent Stan Lee Universe. The book is essentially a collection of vintage interviews with The Man, mostly hailing from the 1960s and 70s. It’s a good read, full of interesting titbits and recollections. While perusing its pages I got to thinking about the characters Lee co-created during the heyday of the House of Ideas. Alliteration seems to be a big thing for him when it comes to names:
Fantastic Four
Reed Richards
Susan Storm
Doctor Doom
Bruce Banner / Bob Banner (!)
Peter Parker
Betty Brant
Robbie Robertson
J Jonah Jameson
Otto Octavius
Pepper Potts
Matt Murdoch
Mike Murdoch (don’t ask!)
Happy Hogan
Dum Dum Dugan
Paste Pot Pete
Madame Medusa
Silver Surfer
Balder the Brave
The Voluminous Volstagg
Scott Summers / Slim Summers
Warren Worthington III
Not that this is apropos of anything, but I just find it interesting. I’m sure there’s many more I’ve forgotten. And, yes, before anyone starts moaning, I know Kirby’s solo-created characters often had alliterative names (Mark Moonrider, Red Ryan, Buddy Blank, etc), so the naming scheme may have had his involvement.
Then again, perhaps Stan was just continuing a long comics tradition. After all, prior to Marvel there was Billy Batson, Freddy Freeman, Mary Marvel… and Clark Kent, of course. Speaking of Clark, his various girlfriends’ whole shtick was that they all had double-L as initials: Lois Lane, Lori Lemaris, Lana Lang, Lyla Lerrol.
Anyway. Stan Lee Universe. Good fun, and worth a look. For those still beating the horse, Lee does indeed credit Kirby and others with plotting/writing the comics during the 1960s.
I believe Stan has stated in interviews that he used alliteration because he was writing so many characters at the time and the alliteration helped him to remember all the various characters’ names. However, it didn’t prevent him from forgetting the name of the Hulk’s alter-ego when he was writing Fantastic Four #25 and referring to his as “Bob Banner”. This was later explained away by revealing the character’s full name to be Robert Bruce Banner.
I’ve also heard that the non-alliterative names, such as Tony Stark or Don Blake, were thought up by Stan’s brother Larry Lieber, who scripted Iron Man and Thor’s early adventures over Stan’s plots