What Stan Lee meant to me

Here’s what Stan Lee, the zeitgeist changing comic book creator meant to me, fan culture, and the industry.

Stan Lee passed away at 95. He leaves a big gap in the modern entertainment industry. I’d like to take this opportunity to go through what Stan Lee meant to comic books, fan culture, and to myself as a person.

Stan Lee was an idea man who changed comic books forever

Like many men who’ve changed the world, Stan Lee didn’t actually set out to do that. The first story he ever wrote was with a text filler for Timely Comics (now Marvel) called Captain America foils the Traitor’s Revenge, not even a full issue. After that, he became a writer, writing genres as varied as horror and romance.

As he confessed in Stan Lee’s Mutants, Monsters & Marvels, he was on the verge of giving up his job. His wife Joan convinced him to write what would make him happy. So he made a superhero team called The Fantastic Four. It was an instant success, and that led Lee to generate the stable of characters and concepts that made Marvel what it is today.

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What made these characters different from what had come before?  Superman and Wonder Woman were larger than life paragons, similar to Greek gods. (Batman was more grounded, but still…) Even the nickname of this trio, DC’s Trinity, has religious connotations. Their personal issues were less important than the villain of the month.

Stan Lee’s great innovation was to make the personal struggles of the characters trials for the hero that were just as big as any mad scientist or world eater. Daredevil’s dating life was inseparably entwined with his super heroics. One of the defining events of Spiderman’s life was the Green Goblin kidnapping and killing his girlfriend. One of the X-Men’s recurring villains was the evil step brother of Xavier.

Future writers at Marvel added further depth and complexity to Lee’s approach. DC even changed the writing style on most of their titles to make their heroes more relatable. Yet all the paths that creators in the superhero industry have taken were based on the trail Stan Lee started blazing in the 1960’s.

Stan Lee changed how creators interact with fan culture

The stories Stan Lee told weren’t the only way he changed how comics work. The way he interacted with fans changed the tone and character of how geek creators talked with the people who love their work.

Lee had a special bulletin page in all Marvel comics called Stan’s Soapbox. In it, Lee covered a wider range of topics, including his life, his takes on breaking headlines, and work culture at Marvel. What made the page was how relaxed and conversational it felt. Stan Lee shared private jokes and anecdotes with readers, and in doing so, he created a dialog with his readers similar to twitter. Fans ate it up.

Why was this revolutionary? Because of frequency. Gene Roddenberry was willing to give in-depth interviews, but these happened every few months or years. Stan Lee did his soapbox once a month. That was more commonly than any other geek creator of that era. By reading the soapbox, Marvel’s true believers ( a term Stan himself coined) felt like they were personally connected to the people who made their stories.

In the process of doing this, Stan Lee created something years before we had a term for it. A personal brand.

He was there at the ground floor of con culture. He established an archetype of a geeky creator, one who was talented, chatty, approachable, and eager to please. Marvel kept him as the public face of the company, because he was a natural at it.

In a way, Stan Lee helped created the kind of crowd that would read pop culture websites and watch behind the scenes extras on DVD’s.  Also, his marvel movie cameos made sure nobody can discuss the legacy of Marvel without discussing him.

Stan Lee’s creations had a big impact on me

When I was a teenager, I started collecting comic books. I focused mainly on the X-Men, Batman, and Spiderman (in that order). I don’t think it’s an accident that two of those who originally Stan Lee creations.

When I was an undergrad, Spiderman was going through special time. In Ultimate Spiderman, Bendis was updating Spiderman’s origin and classic tropes to the 21st century and writing one of the best comic books of that decade. In Amazing Spiderman, Marvel was letting Babylon 5 creator J. Michael Straczynski do something comic books rarely do.  They were letting Peter Parker mature.

Aunt May found out that Peter was Spiderman, and grew to support him. Peter Parker made people’s lives better both not just as a superhero, but as a science teacher. Peter Parker was being allowed to change, to grow, and in Amazing, strengthen his marriage with Mary Jane.

In that Amazing Spiderman run, I saw a blueprint of where I wanted to be in my 30’s.  Peter Parker wasn’t perfect, and the Green Goblin would do everything in his power to make sure his life wasn’t perfect. On the whole though, he had a path, he had purpose, and a loving family.

So it’s somehow fitting that Spiderman: One More Day was the breaking point where I decided to stop following superhero comic books. It was the final intolerable act, in a run of bad decisions both DC and Marvel made in between 2005-7. None of those were Stan Lee’s fault though, were they?

Stan Lee’s creations offered me escapism when I was figuring out who I was. I still find escapism in the movies based on Stan Lee’s characters. (The good ones, at any rate.)  I don’t live and breathe them like I used to, but I still enjoy them.

Stan Lee’s Legacy

Stan Lee is the one comic book creator who got a cameo in The Big Bang Theory. He created dozens of stories and ideas that dominate our culture. He was the public face of marvel, and in the process, helped codify the relationship between creators and the fans who love their work. For me, Spiderman and the X-Men have stories that helped me make sense of the world as I was coming into adulthood. Excelsior Stan Lee, and may you rest in peace.

What about you Hidden Remote readers? What did Stan Lee mean to you? Feel free to sound off in the comments below.