Stan Lee died today. He was 95 years old. My feelings about him are somewhat divided, so today I'm going to celebrate his life; tomorrow, I'll criticize him.
Stan came to work for Marvel Comics in the 1940s as a mere teenager, an office boy hired by his cousin's husband, who just happened to be Martin Goodman, owner of Marvel Comics. With aspirations of being a great author, Stanley Lieber used a variety of pennames when writing comics so as to preserve his real name for his hoped-upon literary career; the penname he used most often was 'Stan Lee.'
From scripting, Stan eventually added editing to his duties. Marvel Comics were an also-ran in the comics industry, never publishing the sort of trend-setting fare such as Fawcett, DC or EC printed, instead chasing whatever new trend their competition had unearthed. Although major talent like Jack Kirby and Harvey Kurtzman passed through Marvel in the 1940s, their defining work was published elsewhere.
Marvel Comics imploded in 1957, going out of business for several months after losing their distributor. Stan was one of the few to keep his office job while Goodman let the others go; when they resumed publishing comics, Stan was left scripting most of what Marvel printed. Fortunately, Marvel was blessed with the work of Jack Kirby, who quickly became Stan's preferred artist. With Kirby, Steve Ditko and Don Heck as his most prolific artists, Stan wrote a variety of science fiction and western comics, favouring stories with giant monsters on Kirby's evocative covers.
When Lee and Kirby launched the super hero comic Fantastic Four in 1961, it was supposed to be yet another instance of Marvel chasing another popular trend - in this instance, the renewed interest in super heroes over at DC. But what Lee & Kirby turned in was different - a super hero soap opera which compelled readers to return month after month to follow the development of the heroes' lives. Unlike the stagnant world of Superman and Batman, the Marvel Comics heroes could change and grow; Spider-Man's initial love interests Liz Allan and Betty Brant were gradually phased out of his love life (yet not the comic) while he developed affections for Mary Jane Watson and Gwen Stacy; the Fantastic Four's Mister Fantastic and Invisible Girl got married and had a son; wartime hero Nick Fury lost an eye and became a secret agent of S.H.I.E.L.D.
The stories which Lee scripted were also willing to push boundaries. This had been true of Lee even in the 1950s when he railed against the attempts to regulate the comics industry, but even under the 1960s auspices of the Comics Code Authority, Lee's scripts would confront racism and, eventually, reflect young people's anger at the Vietnam War.
But most importantly, the Marvel Comics of the 1960s were ingratiating; they were welcoming; Lee's caption boxes would often break the fourth wall to joke with the reader. It was a lightning-in-a-bottle situation which was only helped by Marvel's status as the bottom rung of a marginalized artform - he made reading a super hero comic book feel subversive, hip, counter-cultural. His became the "voice" of Marvel Comics, one which other scripters like Roy Thomas would emulate. For once, Marvel Comics had taken the lead; the rest of the industry took years to comprehend what was going on and how to respond. Since then (by and large) Marvel Comics have been the industry's trend-setter for what is popular in super hero comics.
Lee stopped writing comics regularly after 1972 to become president of Marvel Comics after Goodman sold the company (a move Goodman regretted almost instantly). Most of Stan's efforts from then on were focused on widening Marvel Comics' audience, such as shopping them around to television and Hollywood, which did bear fruit in places such as the live action Incredible Hulk television show or the animated TV series Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends. Stan Lee himself would narrate the openings to the latter animated show, which was the first time I took notice of his name; I soon recognized his signature in the masthead of every Marvel comic book I owned. "Stan Lee" was the first comic book creator whose name I knew.
Although Stan returned to write an issue or two of comics here and there from the 70s-00s, he didn't do so on an ongoing basis. His writing presence at Marvel Comics was most keenly felt in his editorials, 'Stan's Soapbox', which would appear in places such as the Marvel Bullpen page and in Marvel Age magazine; at one time, I think I had read more entries of Stan's Soapbox than I had Stan Lee comic books.
Originally a man ashamed to sign his real name to the comic books he wrote, Stan Lee ultimately embraced his new identity, registering 'Stan Lee' as his official name and going before journalists to speak passionately about comic books, making himself the ambassador of comics - largely because when he started talking to the media, no one else was speaking up. Stan Lee became a known name to people who had never read comic books and eventually his cameos in Marvel-branded motion pictures would make his face and voice recognizable around the world.
Perhaps the greatest thing Stan Lee did to comic books was to standardize the credits box; not every comics writer or artist would sign their work (especially writers) and publishers would sometimes wipe their signatures off the page, creating the impression that comics were made by committee, not by people. Stan made the credits box standard and expected within the industry; he even made it fun, peppering the credits box with nicknames for the creators and in-jokes.
What I enjoyed the most about Stan Lee's stories were the jokes he would include to liven up scenes; when he wanted to be dramatic, he went all-in, but the rest of time, he had a lightness of touch, a warm joshing manner in his scripts which was very appealing.
Rest in peace, Mr. Lee.
Here are some blog entries about his work I penned in the past:
I Love Atlas Comics: "Burton's Blood"
Thor: 40 Years of Favourite Moments
Captain America: Recommended Reading List
And this one, which I posted right after Steve Ditko's death earlier this year:
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