Stan Lee: His Legacy and Some Controversies
By Jagannath Roy
Stan Lee, a name, is far from an introduction. He, the leader of the comic book genre, was lastly the chief editor of Marvel Comics. He ruled in the market of the comic book series for many decades in America. Stan Lee proclaimed himself larger than life as his co-created imaginative superheroes. He would always end up with the Latin exclamation ‘’Excelsior!’’, a motto of Newyork, that means ‘’Ever upward!’’. With his creative co-creation, Stan Lee certainly did prove his excelsior in the history of comic book series.
Stanley Martin Lieber, popularly known as Stan Lee, was born on 28th December 1922 in Manhattan, Newyork and breathed last on 12th November 2018. He was the creator of many superhuman characters, chiefly collaborated with the widely recognized artists Jack Kirby, Steve Ditko, John Romita Sr. , Don Heck, and Bill Everett. Throughout his life, Lee procured several awards like The Will Eisner Award Hall of Fame (1994), Jack Kirby Hall of Fame (1995), National Medal of Arts (2008), and Disney Legends. He joined Martin Goodman’s Timely Comics company as an assistant editor at age 16 in 1939. Timely Comics later emerged into Marvel Comics in 1961.
Stan Lee studied at De Witt Clinton High School. He began writing right from then, and he dreamt of becoming an author of a great book like ‘’The Great American Novel.” Early in his career, he wrote for an ad agency and, he was a regular writer of memoirs in the daily newspapers. He also worked as an office boy in a trouser company. He won first prize in the essay competition organized by the “New York Herald Tribune” consecutively three times at age 15. He joined ‘’Federal Theatre Project’’ only at 16 in 1939.
His first created superhero was Destroyer, which belonged to Mystic Comics. After that, he stepped into the world of U.S.A Comics in 1941 by creating Jack Frost. Goodman proposed him to create some unique superhero and superteam when DC Comics was at the peak of success with their superteam Justice Leauge of America in the late 1950s. At that time, Stan introduced the real heroes to the readers. Very like of us, they are angry and sufferers. Often they do the evils and worry before impressing their girlfriends. As the common people, they are afraid of either they can pay their electric bill and sometimes, they also fall into illness. Before, the heroes were perfect so, they were not real to us. But Stan generated the intangible heroes for his comics and, he introduced them to the world.
Fantastic Four was the first superteam with the collective effort of Stan Lee and Jack Kirby. They created some more popular characters like Hulk, Iron Man, Thor, Daredevil, and X-Men etc. After that, new characters like Doctor Strange and Spiderman appeared successfully in a different dimension. Later, a new superteam, The Avengers composed to unite all these characters in a single frame. Stan initiated the work of The Amazing Spiderman with the collaboration of John Romita Sr in 1966. It became a top seller outrun the record of Fantastic Four only within a year. It also incorporated the themes of college life, the Vietnam War, politics and student movements. Including these, he introduced an Afro-American character Robbie Robertson in this comic first time ever. Inhumans and Black Panther were Stan and Kirby’s collective works that became gems and jewels of Marvel Comics right from then. Everybody knows that Black Panther was the first black superhero.
Stan stopped writing in monthly comics in 1972. He took the role of a publisher from then. He attached himself with Marvel Cinema and T.V productions in 1981. He began to appear in cameo right from there. He and Peter Paul launched an online superhero project by the name of Stan Lee Media in 1998. But he could not proceed further for some legal issues. He claimed for his share against Fox Movie and Sony for the movies X-Men and Spiderman in 2000. Later, Marvel assured him that they could provide him only 10% of the profit.
Stan began to work for DC in 2001 and he showed Superman, Wonder Woman and Green Lantern in a new dimension for Just Imagine. He also wrote some Manga Comics for Pow Entertainment in 2008. He launched a youtube channel in 2012 by the name Stan Lee’s World of Heroes that gained much popularity. He wrote a book Zodiac associated with Stuart Moor in 2015. After that, the movie Stan Lee’s Annihilator was published. Stan published the digital graphic novel Stan Lee’s God Woke in 2016s Comic Cons International.
But Stan Lee has left some controversy along with his great legacy. The controversies prevailed prominently throughout his life. It became more striking after his death in 2018. His co-creators particularly Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko came to the frontline with some allegations against him. They accused that Stan rarely acknowledged their role in creating the Marvel superheroes. To their version, Stan always worked for his self-promotion. He was ambitious and his propensity persisted no bounds. We knew Kirby’s allegation against him from an interview at Rocket Blast Comicollector in 1971. His version was, ‘’ …all my idea …it was my idea to develop it the way…’’. He also claimed that Fantastic Four was inspired by his previous comics Challengers of The Unknown. In 2008 Steve Ditko and Snyder wrote The Avenging Mind, an essay of 32 pages. There he told, ‘’ The implication is that only Lee has ideas…the rest of us artists, well, let’s face it, we’re just ‘lucky’. ‘’ Ditko also told in the Comics Journal in 1990 ‘’…it was not possible for a man like Stan Lee to come up with new things.’’ He also added, ‘’I’ve never seen Stan Lee write anything. I used to write stories just like I always did.’’ In 2016 Inverse, comic book writer Dave Baker stepped ahead and delivered against Stan, ‘’Fuck Stan Lee….he has just sense of avarice and does not like giving other people credit for anything they’ve done.’’
We cannot renunciate his creative legacy despite all the allegations against Stan Lee by his creative co-creators and other comic book writers. He introduced a new dimension to comics and the idea of comic superheroes. Stan Lee’s superheroes are intangible to us. They are our neighbors regularly seen in our vicinity. Despite their superhuman entity, they are our near ones. They live in his comics with all limitations of their regular mundane life. We generally see superheroes with an indomitable spirit in other fictions. But, Stan Lee’s superheroes are not unyielding superhumans though they’re larger than life. They keep on their heroism with all limitations to defeat the evil powers. Thus Stan’s superheroes achieved their novelty. He also changed the ever-existing definition of the comic characters in literature with his creative co-creations. It is needless to say that his co-created superheroes are unique and impeccable.
