Merge:Stan Lee

Stan "The Man" Lee (born Stanley Martin Lieber on December 28, 1922, New York City) is an United States|American writer, editor, Chairman Emeritus of Marvel Comics and memoir|memoirist, who - with several artist co-creators, especially Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko - introduced complex, naturalistic characters and a thoroughly shared universe into superhero comic books. His success helped change Marvel Comics from a small publishing house to a large multimedia corporation.

Early career
Stan Lee was born to Celia and Jack Lieber, Jewish immigrants from Romania. His father, trained as a dress cutter, worked only sporadically after the Great Depression. The family moved further uptown to Manhattan's Washington Heights neighborhood. When he was nine, his only sibling, brother Larry Lieber, was born. Lee attended DeWitt Clinton High Schoo] in the Bronx. A voracious reader who enjoyed writing as a teen, he worked such part-time jobs as writing obituaries for a news service and press releases for the National Tuberculosis Center; delivering sandwiches for the Jack May pharmacy to offices in Rockefeller Center; working as an office boy for a trouser manufacturer; ushering at the Rivoli Theater on Broadway; and selling subscriptions to the New York Herald-Tribune newspaper. He graduated high school early, at age 16 1/2, in 1939, and joined the WPA Federal Theatre Project.

With the help of his uncle, Robbie Solomon, the brother-in-law of pulp magazine and comic-book publisher Martin Goodman (publisher)|Martin Goodman, Lee became an assistant at the new Timely Comics division of Goodman's company. Timely, by the 1960s, would evolve into Marvel Comics. Lee, whose cousin Jean was Goodman's wife, was formally hired by Timely editor Joe Simon. Lee's account of how he began working for Marvel's predecessor, Timely, has varied. He has said in lectures and elsewhere that he simply answered a newspaper ad seeking a publishing assistant, not knowing it involved comics, let alone his uncle, Goodman: "I applied for a job in a publishing company ... I didn't even know they published comics. I was fresh out of high school, and I wanted to get into the publishing business, if I could. There was an ad in the paper that said, "Assistant Wanted in a Publishing House." When I found out that they wanted me to assist in comics, I figured, 'Well, I'll stay here for a little while and get some experience, and then I'll get out into the real world.' ... I just wanted to know, 'What do you do in a publishing company?' How do you write? ... How do you publish? I was an assistant. There were two people there named Joe Simon and Jack Kirby - Joe was sort-of the editor/artist/writer, and Jack was the artist/writer. Joe was the senior member. They were turning out most of the artwork. Then there was the publisher, Martin Goodman... And that was about the only staff that I was involved with. After a while, Joe Simon and Jack Kirby left. I was about 17 years old [sic], and Martin Goodman said to me, 'Do you think you can hold down the job of editor until I can find a real person?' When you're 17, what do you know? I said, 'Sure! I can do it!' I think he forgot about me, because I stayed there ever since." However, in his 2002 autobiography, Excelsior! The Amazing Life of Stan Lee (cited under References, below), he says: "My uncle, Robbie Solomon, told me they might be able to use someone at a publishing company where he worked. The idea of being involved in publishing definitely appealed to me. ... So I contacted the man Robbie said did the hiring, Joe Simon, and applied for a job. He took me on and I began working as a gofer for eight dollars a week...." Joe Simon, in his 1990 autobiography The Comic Book Makers (cited under References, below), gives the account slightly differently: "One day [Goodman's relative known as] Uncle Robbie came to work with a lanky 17-year-old in tow. 'This is Stanley Lieber, Martin's wife's cousin,' Uncle Robbie said. 'Martin wants you to keep him busy.'"

In an appendix, however, Simon appears to reconcile the two accounts. He relates a 1989 conversation with Lee: Lee: I've been saying this [classified-ad] story for years, but apparently it isn't so. And I can't remember because I['ve] said it so long now that I believe it." ... Simon: "Your Uncle Robbie brought you into the office one day and he said, 'This is Martin Goodman's wife's nephew.' [sic] ... You were seventeen years old." Lee: "Sixteen and a half!"  Simon: "Well, Stan, you told me seventeen. You were probably trying to be older.... I did hire you."

Lee's first published work, the text filler "Captain America Foils The Traitor's Revenge" in Captain America Comics #3 (May 1941), used the pseudonym "Stan Lee", which years later he would adopt as his legal name. According to Lee in the book "Origins of Marvel Comics", where he commented on his brother having a different last name than himself, he had wanted to save his given name for literary work rather than for comic books, but that after years in comics he was more recognized by "Stan Lee" than his given name. He graduated from writing filler to actual comics with a backup feature two issues later. When Simon and his creative partner Jack Kirby left later that year, following a dispute with Goodman, the publisher told Lee, just under 19 years old, to be the interim editor. The youngster showed a knack for the business that led him to remain as the comic-book division's editor-in-chief until 1972, when he would succeed Goodman as publisher.

Lee enlisted in the U.S. Army in early 1942 and served stateside in the Signal Corps, writing manuals, training films, and slogans, and occasionally cartooning. His military classification he says, was "playwright"; he adds that only nine men in the U.S. Army were given that title. Vincent Fago, editor of Timely's "animation comics" section, which put out humor and funny animal comics, filled-in until Lee returned from his World War II military service in 1945.

In the mid-1950s, by which time the company was now generally known as Atlas Comics, a decency campaign led by psychiatrist Dr. Frederic Wertham and Senator[Estes Kefauver blamed comic books for corrupting young readers with images of violence and sexuality. Comic-book companies responded by implementing strict internal regulations, and eventually adopted the stringent Comics Code.

During this period, Lee wrote comics in a various genres including romance, Westerns, humor, science fiction, medieval adventure, horror and suspense. By the end of the decade, he had become dissatisfied with his career and considered quitting the field.

Marvel revolution
In the late 1950s, DC Comics editor Julius Schwartz revived the superhero genre and experienced a significant success with its updated version of the Flash, and later with super-team the Justice League of America. In response, publisher Martin Goodman assigned Lee to create a new superhero team. Lee's wife urged him to experiment with stories he preferred, since he was planning on changing careers and had nothing to lose.

Lee acted on that advice, giving his superheroes a flawed humanity, a change from the ideal archetypes that were typically written for pre-teens. His heroes could have bad tempers, melancholy fits, vanity, greed, etc. They bickered amongst themselves, worried about paying their bills and impressing girlfriends, and even were sometimes physically ill. Before him, superheroes were idealistically perfect people with no problems: Superman was so powerful that nobody could harm him, and Batman was a billionaire in his secret identity.

Lee's superheroes captured the imagination of teens and young adults who were part of the population spike known as the post World War II baby boom. Sales soared. The first superhero group Lee and artist Jack Kirby created was the family the Fantastic Four. Its immediate popularity led Lee and Marvel's illustrators to produce a cavalcade of new titles. With Kirby, Lee created the Incredible Hulk, Iron Man, the Mighty Thor and the X-Men; with Bill Everett, Daredevil; and with Steve Ditko, Doctor Strange and Marvel's most successful character, Spider-Man.

Throughout the 1960s, Lee scripted, art-directed, and edited most of Marvel's series; moderated the letters pages; wrote a monthly column called "Stan's Soapbox"; and wrote endless promotional copy, often signing off with his trademark phrase, "Excelsior!" (which is also the New York state motto). To maintain his taxing workload yet still meet deadlines, he used a system that was used previously by various comic-book studios, but due to Lee's success with it, is now known as the "Marvel method" or "Marvel style" of comic-book creation. Typically, Lee would brainstorm a story with the artist and then prepare a brief synopsis rather than a full script. Based on the synopsis, the artist would fill the alloted number of pages by determining and drawing the panel-to-panel storytelling. After the artist turned in penciled pages, Lee would write the word balloons and captions, and then oversee the lettering and colouring. In effect, the artists were co-plotters, whose collaborative first drafts Lee built upon.

Because of this system, the exact division of creative credits on Lee's comics is still disputed, especially in the cases of comics drawn by Kirby and Ditko. Although Lee has always effusively praised these artists, some observers argue that their contribution was greater than for which they are given credit. The dispute with Ditko over Spider-Man has sometimes been acrimonious.

In 1971, Lee indirectly reformed the Comics Code. The US Department of Health, Education and Welfare asked Lee to write a story about the dangers of drugs and Lee wrote a story in which Spider-Man's best friend becomes addicted to pills. The three-part story was slated to be published in Amazing Spider-Man #96-98, but the Comics Code Authority refused it because it depicted drug use; the story context was considered irrelevant. With his publisher's approval, Lee published the comics without the CCA seal. The comics sold well and Marvel won praise for its socially conscious efforts. The CCA subsequently loosened the Code to permit negative depictions of drugs, among other new freedoms.

Lee also supported using comic books to provide some measure of social commentary about the real world, often dealing with racism and bigotry. "Stan's Soapbox," besides promoting an upcoming comic book project, also addressed issues of discrimination, intolerance or prejudice.

Later career
In later years, Lee became a figurehead and public face for Marvel Comics. He made appearances at comic book conventions around America, lecturing at colleges and participating in panel discussions. He moved to California in 1981 to develop Marvel's TV and movie properties. He has been an executive producer for, and has made cameo appearances in Marvel film adaptations and other movies.

Lee befriended Hollywood entrepreneur Peter Paul when Lee was tapped by movie legend Jimmy Stewart in 1989 to chair the American Spirit Foundation established by Paul and Stewart. Former President Ronald Reagan launched Lee's Entertainers for Education initiative at a Beverly Hills gala in 1991. Peter Paul supervised the negotiation of a new agreement for his partner Stan Lee with Marvel Comics, enabling Lee to obtain a non-exclusive contract with Marvel Comics for the first time in his lifetime employment with Marvel. This enabled Paul and Lee to start a new Internet-based superhero creation, production and marketing studio, Stan Lee Media, in 1998. It grew to 165 people and went public, but near the end of 2000, investigators discovered illegal stock manipulation by Paul and corporate officer Stephan Gordon. Stan Lee Media filed for bankruptcy in February 2001, and Paul went to São Paulo, Brazil. He was extradited, and pled guilty to violating SEC Regulation 10(b)5 in connection with trading of his stock in Stan Lee Media. Stan Lee was never implicated in the scheme.

Some of Stan Lee's projects at Stan Lee Media included The 7th Portal where he played Izayus. The Drifter, and The Accuser were his other webisode works. The licensed characters of 7th Portal even became part of an interactive 3-D movie attraction in four Paramount Parks. In 2005, Lee recovered a settlement of more than $10 million from Marvel for the profits of Marvel's blockbuster movies.

In the 2000s, Lee did his first work for DC Comics, launching the Just Imagine... series, in which Lee reimagined the DC superheroes Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern and the Flash.

Lee created the risqué animated superhero series Stripperella for Spike TV. In 2004, he announced plans to collaborate with Hugh Hefner on a similar superhero cartoon featuring Playboy Playmates. He also announced a superhero program that would feature Ringo Starr, the former Beatle, as the lead character. Additionally, in August of that year, Lee announced the launch of Stan Lee's Sunday Comics, where monthly subscribers could read a new, updated comic and "Stan's Soapbox" every Sunday.

Lee said in a 2006 interview that he was creating a new superhero, Foreverman, for a movie.

In 2005, Lee, Gill Champion and Arthur Lieberman formed POW! (Purveyors of Wonder) Entertainment to develop film, television and video game properties. The first to be produced is the TV movie Lightspeed for the Sci Fi Channel. That network as well had Lee as producer and host of the reality show Who Wants to be a Superhero, scheduled to premiere July 27, 2006.

Audio

 * Audio of Merry Marvel Marching Society record, including voice of Stan Lee
 * Comic Geek Speak Podcast Interview (December 2005)

Awards
Stan Lee has received several awards for his work, including being formally inducted into the Jack Kirby Hall of Fame in 1995.

Fictional portrayals
Jack Kirby, during his years of working for DC Comics in the 1970s, created the character Funky Flashman as a blatant parody of Stan Lee. With his hyperbolic speech pattern, gaudy toupee, and hip '70s-Manhattan style beard (as Lee sported at the time) this ne'er-do-well charlatan first appeared in the pages of Mister Miracle.

Kirby later portrayed himself, Lee, production executive Sol Brodsky, and Lee's secretary Flo Steinberg as superheroes in What If #11, "What If the Marvel Bullpen Had Become the Fantastic Four?", in which Lee played the part of Mister Fantastic. Lee has also made numerous cameo appearances in many Marvel titles, appearing in audiences and crowds at many character's ceremonies and parties, and hosting an old-soldiers reunion in Sgt. Fury and his Howling Commandos #100 (July 1972).

In Alan Moore's satirical miniseries 1963, based on numerous Marvel characters of the 1960s, Moore's alter ego "Affable Al" parodies Lee and his allegedly unfair treatment of artists.

The "Young Dan Pussey" stories by Daniel Clowes, collected in Pussey!, feature an exploitative publisher who relies on Lee's gung-ho style and "Bullpen" mythology to motivate his stable of naïve and underpaid creators; the stories mainly satirize the state of mainstream comics in the 1990s, but also the subculture of young superhero fans that Lee helped to create.

In X-Play on the cable network G4, the character Roger, dubbed "the fifth-best-thing next to Stan Lee", is a foul-mouthed, perverted stand-up comic parody of Lee. Roger's segments normally consist of him describing details of numerous unspeakable adult encounters, usually involving the wife of another Marvel veteran, Jack Kirby, with each encounter somehow leading to the creation of a well-known Marvel character.

Lee appeared, unnamed, as the priest at Luke Cage and Jessica Jones' wedding in New Avengers Annual #1. He also appears to pay his respects to Karen Page at her funeral in the Daredevil "Guardian Devil" story arc.

Marvel properties

 * In the TV-movie The Trial of the Incredible Hulk (1989), Lee's first appearance in a Marvel movie or TV project is as jury foreman in the trial of David Banner.
 * Lee has cameo roles in the Fox Broadcasting Company telefilms Generation X (1996) and Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. (1998)
 * In X-Men (2000), Lee appears as a hotdog vendor on the beach when Senator Kelly materializes naked onshore after escaping from Magneto.
 * He narrated the Troma film Citizen Toxie: The Toxic Avenger Part IV (2001) under the pseudonym "Peter Parker".
 * In Spider-Man (2002), he appeared during Spider-Man's first battle with the Green Goblin, pulling a little girl away from falling debris.
 * In Daredevil (2003), the blind child Matt Murdock stops Lee from crossing the street and getting hit by a car.
 * In Hulk (2003), he appears walking alongside Lou Ferrigno in one of the first scenes of the film.
 * In Spider-Man 2 (2004), Lee again pulls an innocent person away from danger. He is also seen in the background while Peter is walking down the street during the "Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head" sequence.
 * In Fantastic Four (2005), Lee appears for the first time as a character from the comics, in a role credited as Willie Lumpkin, the mail carrier who greets the Fantastic Four as they enter the Baxter Building elevator. However, he is called "Stan" by Reed Richards.
 * In X-Men: The Last Stand (2006), Lee and Chris Claremont appear as two of Jean Grey's neighbors in the opening scenes set 20 years ago. Lee, credited as "Waterhose man", is watering the lawn when Jean telekinetically lifts the hose water into the air.

Other film, TV and video
Lee appears as himself in writer-director Larry Cohen's The Ambulance (1990), in which Eric Roberts plays an aspiring comics artist. Also as himself, Lee made a cameo in Kevin Smith's Mallrats (1995), offering a sage perspective on the personal problems of one of the protagonists, a longtime fan. He also recorded interviews with Smith for the non-fiction video Stan Lee's Mutants, Monsters, and Marvels (2002).

In The Simpsons episode "I Am Furious Yellow" (April 28, 2002), Lee voices the animated Stan Lee, who is a prolonged visitor to Comic Book Guy's store ("Stan Lee came back?" "Stan Lee never left.") and shows such signs of dementia as breaking a customer's toy Batmobile by trying to cram a The Thing action figure into it, and claiming that he "made it better", hiding DC comics behind Marvel comics, and believing that he is the Hulk. In a later episode, Lee's picture is seen next to several others on the wall behind the register, under the heading "Banned for life".

Lee also voiced himself as a character in an episode of the 1998 Spider-Man animated series ("Spider Wars, Chapter 2: Farewell Spider-Man", January 31, 1998) and voice the character "Frank Elson" in an episode of the MTV-produced 2003 series ("Mind Games" Parts 1 & 2, Aug. 15 & 22, 2003). Lee also appears as himself in the Mark Hamill-directed Comic Book: The Movie (2004), a direct-to-video mockumentary primarily filmed at the 2002 San Diego Comic-Con. He appeared in The Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement (2004) as the "Three Stooges Wedding Guest", a Spaniard who learns English from watching Three Stooges shorts.

Audio

 * Audio of Merry Marvel Marching Society record, including voice of Stan Lee
 * Comic Geek Speak Podcast Interview (December 2005)

Selected bibliography
Comics that Stan Lee has written or co-written include:


 * The Amazing Spider-Man (Vol. 1): #1-100, 105-110, 116-118
 * The Avengers (Vol. 1): #1-34
 * Captain America (Vol. 1) #100-109, 112, 114-141
 * Daredevil (Vol. 1): #1-9, 11-50, 53, 81
 * Fantastic Four (Vol. 1): #1-115, 120-125, 154, 180, 189, 236, 296
 * Journey into Mystery (Vol. 1): #1, 3, 55, 62, 64, 71-79, 83-125
 * Sgt. Fury and his Howling Commandos: #1-28
 * The Silver Surfer (Vol. 1): #1-18
 * Strange Tales (Vol. 1): #1, 9, 11, 67, 73-74, 78-86, 88-89, 91-95, 97-98, 100-147, 150-157, 174, 182-188
 * Tales to Astonish (Vol. 1): #1, 6, 12-13, 15-17, 24-33, 35-101
 * Tales of Suspense (Vol. 1): #7, 9, 16, 22, 27, 29-30, 39-99
 * The Mighty Thor (Vol. 1): #126-194, 200, 254, 385, 432, 450
 * The X-Men (Vol. 1): #1-21