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Underground > Comic Books >

Stan Lee

Solitaire Rose as Tom Servo

17:14 / 18.05.02

I have been thinking about comics lately, and one of the things I have noticed with older comics fans is how they want to just mercilessly slam Stan Lee.

The Kirby List I am on pretty mush treats Stan is the Creator of All That Is Evil because he had a company job while Kirby was a freelancer.

I'd like to say right up front that I LOVE Stan Lee. His work in the 60's and early 70's was what made me a comic book fan, and in a lot of ways, comics wouldn't be what they are today if not for him. He brought back the idea of fans after the collapse of EC with his way of making the reader feel like that were part of a club. As good as people like Kirby, Ditko, Romita and Buscema were, they were not as good before or after they worked with Stan Lee. Stan brought in 2-dimentional characterization in a medium that simply had 1-dimentional characterization. Stan was able to write perfect teenage angst (much like Charles Schultz) in a way that would ring true to younger readers, and still be entertaining for older readers. Stan was able to do fan-friendly comics and still have his books sell to the general public. And, in the end, Stan was able to put very liberal humanistic ideas in action packed funny books, planting the seeds in my own head that I need to do things for other people, rather than being a greedy bastard.

But more than ANY of that, Stan made it FUN to read comic books. Every interview I have seen or read, every time he writes about himself, every story of him meeting a fan makes it seem like he is excited to meet them and he BELIEVES the hype he spreads.

So fucking WHAT if the "Stan Lee Creates" stuff at DC isn't a great as FF 48 - 50, no one expects Fran Tarkington to win a Super Bowl now, or Johnny Carson to be able to do a great talk show.

Stan, I love the stories you wrote for me while you worked in that office for a crappy little salary. I love the way you made me feel like I was part of something bigger when I read a reprint of a Spider-Man story while laying out on the lawn with my dog on a farm 50 miles from the nearest movie theater. But mostly, I love that YOU always looked like you loved what you were doing and made me think that writing would be the best job a person could ever have.

19:02 / 18.05.02

It's not so much that "Jack was a freelancer and Stan had a company job": it's that Stan got sole writer credit, when (and Stan admits as much) Jack pretty much came up with the characters and the plots, and Stan just wrote the dialogue.

Solitaire Rose as Tom Servo

19:26 / 18.05.02

On later issues, that's true, but Johnny Romita will talk your ear off about how when an artist came in for a plot, Stan would sit down with them, start telling them what he wanted and by the end be acting it out by jumping around the room.

I think my favorite story was right before Kirby moved to California, Stan was giving him and Romita a ride home, and John sat in the back as they "plotted" the next issue of the Fantastic Four, Stan would say, "We should have these things happen...." and Jack would respond with, "That's a good story, but I think it should be..." and it was obvious that neither one were really listening to each other. And Romita always closes the story by saying that the story that got into print was different than BOTH of the ones Stan and Jack talked about.

I think Colan said it best when he said, "Stan would tell you what to draw, and send you away. If you didn't like what he gave you, you'd draw what you wanted and then tell Stan it's what he told you to do. His memory was so bad, he'd agree with you...and if he didn't like the story he'd just say, 'That wasn't one of my better days, was it?'"

Brigade du jour

21:45 / 17.01.03

I just wish Stan Lee was my grandad. My real Grandad's been dead for twenty years. He was very cool, actually. Cooler still than Stan, but Stan would be a fantastic substitute.

yawn - thing's buddy

11:55 / 18.01.03

I think it's fair to say that his impact on the development of American Comic Books (and their impact on the wider pop cultureneeds to be fairly reassessed.

There was a great Comic Journal special on Stan Lee a few years ago. It's well worth digging out. It changed my view of Stan after I learned to hate him thanks to the COmic Journal a few years previously.

I was 19 when I read the Jack Kirby interview wirth Grith when all the shit came out. It was difficult not to route for Kirby, who was a tough old dude from the mean streets of New York.

And because he IS the Thing.

Anyway, I no longer hate Stan Lee.

In fact my love for him grows every day.

yawn - thing's buddy

17:41 / 18.01.03

grammar boy, grammar!

Mister Six, whom all the girls

03:27 / 19.01.03

Sometimes it's more important how you remember things and people than how they really did happen or in this case how it is regarded to have happened by popular belief.

But I won't stand for the notion that Jack Kirby, John Buscema and Steve Ditko (especially) did sub-par work without Stan ... but that's how I choose to view things. I guess I'm silly for seeing Kamandi, Mister A, New Gods and the Question as groundbreaking.

I do thoroughly enjoy Lee's work (and share his birthday), but I find it mildly disappointing that he is more readily associated with his creations, and takes the full credit in most cases, when it was the talent of artists hardened on past work that developed Marvel. I mean, Kirby, Dick Ayers, and Steve Ditko alone floated Marvel through the non super-hero years with Monster Comics! It's the fact that he overlooks that combined with the animosity that people that know him feel that make it hard not to look upon him as an opportunist and shark... but if he weren't, we wouldn't have all those great comics.

So I personally agree to disagree and look forward to reading my Marvel 60's comics, dreaming to be part of something greater. It really doesn't matter. The comics themselves speak volumes and are eternal.