I have a tremendous amount of respect for Drake, but, not unlike Stan, his memories of those long-ago times seem less than reliable.

NRAMA: Speaking of Finger, you won the first Bill Finger Award this year, and when you received the award at this year’s San Diego Comicon, you sang a song acapella that really ripped into a number of injustices in the comic industry most specifically, Stan Lee taking credit for things he didn’t do. What made you want to do that song?

AD: I thought it was a good thing to do and I was writing kind of an anthem for the San Diego show. I thought it was probably better than just making a speech of acceptance. I also wanted to do the Stan Lee joke at some point. Over the years I’ve became more and more convinced that he knowingly stole The X-Men from The Doom Patrol. I didn’t believe so in the beginning because the lead time was so short [Doom Patrol’s first appearance was in June 1963, X-Men number one came out three months later].

Over the years I learned that an awful lot of writers and artists were working surreptitiously between the two offices [Marvel and DC]. Therefore from when I first brought the idea into the [DC editor] Murray Boltinoff’s office, it would’ve been easy for someone to walk over and hear that this guy Drake is working on a story about a bunch of reluctant superheroes who are led by a man in a wheelchair. So over the years I began to feel that Stan had more lead time than I realized. He may well have had four, five or even six months.

NRAMA: Have you ever dealt much with Stan?

AD: Yeah I worked at Marvel for a while and even wrote some issues of X-Men in 1967.

NRAMA: Even though you were working for him did you ever question him about the Doom Patrol/X-Men connection?

AD: No.
http://www.newsarama.com/general/ArnoldDrake/DrakneInterview .htm

As always, when the subject of who stole from whom comes up in regard to The X-Men and The Doom Patrol, I must point out the following:

First, as Darren notes, The Doom Patrol is very much a "Marvel"-like group. In the Silver-Age, DC didn't have any other title like it. Marvel did.

The Chief = Mr. Fantastic = The brainy leader

Robotman = The Thing = Tragic character trapped in an inhuman body. Both orange, even.

Negative Man = Human Torch = Youngest male with flying abilities.

Elasti-Girl = Invisible Girl = Female member.

Members of both groups were known to bicker with other members of their group. That's something no other DC character did up until that time.

I still think Arnold Drake was trying to emulate what Marvel was doing at the time.

Oh, and the prototype for The X-Men can be found in "Amazing Fantasy" #14: Mysterious mutant leader with mental powers, gathering up other mutants to one day reveal themselves to the world once mankind has become more enlightened. That leader could've easily been revealed to have been Professor Xavier, if Stan Lee had thought or chosen to do so. Regardless, the story clearly was a forerunner for the ideas used in "X-Men."

JB wrote..."The first Doom Patrol story appeared in MY GREATEST ADVENTURE more than half a year before X-MEN 1 came out. Stan did not "publish" before Drake, and it's highly unlikely he plaigarised. "

for arguments sake, we'll assume that Stan *DID* rip him off <which I don't believe, but...>. OK, fine. But wasn't FF a reply to JLA?  There are similairities in a lot of books. Comes with the nature of the business I'd wager...

So, is it time to remind everybody that I created Venom...?

You have no idea how depressed I get when things like this slam home how shallow some of the readership is!