Strange facts about Stan Lee

With the recent passing of the most famous comic book writer of all time I thought I’d write a piece about him. But what should I write about a man who has become the comic book industries grandpa. Well how about a list and explanation of some of the bizarrest facts about the man.

He created the Power Rangers (sort of).

I told you these would be weird. In the late 1970’s Stan Lee sold the rights to Spider-man to Toei a Japanese TV studio. The end result of this being a “Super Sentei” series. A Japanese staple of entertainment about a Teenager or a group of Teenagers (some series change the age of the protagonists) who gain transformation powers and battle monsters. 

Stan’s plan after selling the rights to the old web-head to a japanese company was to then splice the action scenes, which where more expensive and dangerous to film and also Japan has a lot more experienced martial arts actors and stunt men, then splice them with new footage of a western actor who would be the series Peter Parker.

Unfortunately this grand scheme of Stan’s was unusable as other than the iconic suit, this series in no way resembles the Spider-man western audiences are used to. It now lives on in infamous as remember the time Spider-man fought aliens from mars with a giant robot.

But as I said this idea would later be used by Saban entertainment to make the Power Rangers (and other short-lived franchises from the 90’s like Big Bad Beetleborgs and VR Troopers). So as I said the idea for Power Ranger’s production cycle was created by Stan Lee.

He Cameo’s in movies because he doesn’t work for Marvel anymore

Ever wonder why he actually crops up in Superhero movies? Well the answer is quite simple, he wrote into his severance contract “if any characters I created are to make a movie I must appear in said movie”. Stan insisted on it, The fact he has appeared in movies of characters he had nothing to with the creation of like Deadpool or the Princess Diaries 2. 

As well as these movie cameo’s Stan is known for doing voice overs in Marvel cartoons, and again there is a simple explanation for this. No one else was available to be the narrator for 1980’s Spider-man series. That said who else could deliver his lines with the same bombastic quality that made Marvel comics so Exciting and exhilarating? Or like they’re written by a sentient Thesaurus?  

But if you where wondering why Stan Lee doesn’t appear in Logan it’s because Stan Lee never wrote a single comic featuring Wolverine.

He grew his Moustache for a reason.

Stan Lee’s Glasses and Moustache combo is unmistakable and iconic. So Iconic in fact my Mum once in HMV once thought a piece of Breaking Bad merchandise was Stan Lee (and to be fair it was amongst a lot of Superhero stuff). But nope despite what you might think Stan Lee was not born with his facial hair and his first words may or may not have been “Excelsior”. Stan Lee in his most famous and prolific time as a writer for Marvel in the 60’s had a full beard this was until a disgruntled Jack Kirby left Marvel for their rival DC and created the Fourth World Saga. Within the Fourth World Saga is a character called “Funky Flashman” a con-Artist deliberately modelled on Stan Lee (subtlety not being something often attributed to Jack Kirby). With this being such an obvious piece of slander Stan had to change his look because it’s harder to con people if they know what you’re like.

Unfortunately him shaving his facial hair down to just a moustache made him look more like Peter Parker’s tyrant boss J. Jonah Jameson.

And one last piece of Stan Lee Fourth World trivia for you, after the first broadcast of Apokolips Now Part 2 (an episode of Superman the animated series), an extra who looked like Stan Lee was removed from the background of Dan Turpin’s funeral scene.

He tried to make the Marvel Cinematic Universe since the 70’s

After semi-retiring from writing comics Stan set his sights on Hollywood and had limited success. He had greater success with television selling the rights to the Incredible Hulk which ran for many seasons and was very successful making a household name for bodybuilder Lou Ferringo (also starring Bill Bixby as The Hulk’s alter ego David Banner). But just having one show was not enough for Stan, green-lit for a whole series was Captain America starring Reb Brown where Steve Rogers is an ex marine who cruises around america in a van solving crimes. A more faithful Spider-man starring one of the kids from the Sound of Music (Nicholas Hammond) which bored viewers into comas and often tops lists of worst TV shows. A pilot for Doctor Strange where psychiatrist Steven Sanders battles peoples magical psychological problems summoned by Morgana Le Fey played by Jessica Walters (best known for either Lucille Bluthe from Arrested Development or Mallory Archer from Archer). And not making to the screen was a version of Daredevil devised by Angie Bowie (ex-wife of David Bowie) that never finished a script for a pilot, but did have costumes made and a photo shoot done for it with herself as then Daredevil sidekick Black Widow. And of course the TV movie the Incredible Hulk returns was a back-door pilot for a Thor series.

All that is nothing compared to Stan’s now notorious Dazzler pitch which was to be set in a post-apocalyptic world with the warring factions of Rock and Roll and Disco, and was to feature Kiss and Donna Summer. It was also to have cameos from Spider-man and the Avengers as well as having then relative unknown stand up comedian Robin Williams playing Alison Blaires (Dazzler’s secret identity) boyfriend.

His Superheroes are a reaction to constrictions on Horror Comics

The publisher now known as Marvel comics didn’t always make nothing but superhero books, both the explosion of superheroes in 1961 they published various genres from Westerns to Romance comics. But what they sold more of was Monster and Horror Comics unfortunately due to the Comics Code Authority there was a ban on all thing occult or too violent so how do you get around this?

Well have a band of explorers get hit by Cosmic rays of course. Then they can fight as many monsters as they like and have an archenemy who dresses up as the Grim Reaper. But it’s not just The Fantastic Four that have roots in Horror in fact most of the heroes debuted in Horror books like “Tales to Astonish” where a man invents a shrinking serum and then must battle what are now giant ants later becoming their king. A man who if he loses control becomes a giant green monster who destroys everything around him or a slender man who likes spiders and skulks around dark alleyways waiting for criminals to tangle up in his web. Not to mention a master of Occult arts who battles other sorcerers and demons and band of misfit freaks who must hide from the world but also want to save it. (if you didn’t work that out that was a description of Antman, The Incredible Hulk, Spider-man, Dr Strange and The X-men).

He Wrote for Publishers other than Marvel.

We associate Stan with Marvel but he did do projects with other companies as well as couple for Marvel nobody talks about like Ravage 2099 or Nightcat an experiment to have a hair metal singer who was also a Superhero. He also created the Adult animated series Striperrella starring Pamela Anderson (which the level of series humour is she’s Agent 69 if you sniggered at that you’ll love the show). 

But Comics wise he created the Mighty 7 for Archie Comics (pre-reboot) which similar to Nightcat tries to merge the barriers between universes by having Stan as an actual character and these are his superhero chums. For Darkhorse he wrote comics for the winners of the reality contest series on the Sci Fi Channel (and a rehashed version in the UK with kids that was broadcast on CBBC) “Who wants to be a Superhero?” which also featured Stan giving the contestants tasks and judging who needs to leave at the end of the episode.

More interestingly is he did do a mini-series for DC called “Just Imagine Stan Lee’s…” where he reimagined DC’s most popular characters; Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Robin, The Flash and Green Lantern. Superman reimagined as a hard-nose space cop now stuck on earth, Batman as a pro-wrestler (and a black man) which seems in line with the fact that in the Marvel universe Wrestling is real and often performed by Super-powered beings like The Thing and Spider-man. Green Lantern as a High School Biology teacher who now must protect nature from pollution and Robin as a young street tough who is fostered into a cult by the series villain the Reverend DARRK. 

He started writing comics professionally at 17

Stan’s whole career started at 17 and he was promoted to writer and editor from office boy after most of the staff where drafted into WW2. Stan wasn’t allowed into the Army due to him being underaged as well as in shades of Captain America too skinny and Jewish. But Stan was told his time as editor was temporary and that the owner of the comic publisher would “come back with a grown up” to take the responsibilities off the young kid but he never came back.

And what Stan did with this was truly something great he co-created some of the most well known characters in the world as well as creating an environment where the Artists would flourish under creative freedom. While DC under Bob Kane everyone was made to draw Batman like he did so that he could trace the panels for later use. Stan allowed Jack Kirby draw like Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko draw how he wanted. The Marvel method gave a lot of freedom to the artist but was heavily reliant on somebody like Jim Steranko to make a truly dynamic layout that could tell a story well. While modern comic writers are more strict with layouts Steranko at time threw the rulebook completely out the window and did more pop art inspired pieces, pages with no panels, scene melding into scene. Under Stan Lee, Jack Kirby could come into the office with sketches for his new character a naked silver-man from space, that Stan in his own words “thought was a weird idea” but it became a legendary character. Without Stan around Marvel would never have become what it was, and we thank you styrofoam packing peanuts I mean EXCELSIOR!

Those Un-Fantastic Movies

The Fantastic Four haven’t had the most well-regarded of film adaptations, have they? 3 different directors have had a go at making a film version of Marvel’s First Family (Roger Corman, Tim Story and Josh Trank respectively). So this obviously means the adventures of Mr Fantastic, the Invisible Woman, the Human Torch and the Ever-Lovin’ Blue-Eyed Thing are ‘uncinematic’ or ‘unadaptable’, right? Well, if you keep making the same obvious mistakes over and over again, then yes. I mean sure, the individual films have their own unique problems, like Roger Corman’s incredible shrinking budget and Josh Trank’s refusal to show up to work. But the same 4 (an oddly appropriate number) problems keep on happening.

The FF are Explorers, not Crimefighters

This one’s a real problem. What’s even more strange is that they acknowledge this in their origin “Exploring Space”. But then it’s dropped once they get superpowers. It’s almost as if they went just to pick them up, like a suit from the dry cleaners before a job interview. Most F4 comic book story lines revolve around them exploring somewhere new and making enemies with a tyrant or befriending a friendly king. The number of places in the Marvel Universe that was first explored or discovered by this family from New York include Attilan, Atlantis, the Blue Area of the Moon, Wakanda, Latveria, the Negative Zone, the Skrull Home World. And those are just the greatest hits. 

Removing them as space adventurers robs them of what makes them so special. If theres a mugger in New York, there are at least half a dozen heroes all tripping over each over to stop them (Spider-man, Luke Cage, Daredevil, Shang-Chi, Black Cat, Venom, Jessica Jones, The Prowler and Kirby knows how many more). But the Marvel Universe has only one team of super-powered explorers. 

I think this change is made because movies don’t like what is known as a Flat-Arc (wherein the hero isn’t changed by the story). But this is ridiculous because they can still evolve on an alien planet. 

The Character’s are Wrong

It’s fair to say that the Fantastic Four are a product of their time. While Sue is best defined as the “World’s Greatest Super-Mom” even before having kids (I’m sorry but it’s kinda true), the other three have different personalities to their movie counterparts (even with that said Sue isn’t very Sue). 

Reed Richards is the embodiment of 1950’s Rugged Manhood. He’s not just the smartest man in the world but square-jawed and emotionally distant as well. Reed in the movies is a wimpy nerd who has to bring extra lunch money so he can still get a cookie after the less nerdy nerds beat it out him. These two things are not the same at all and it’s really stereotypical. 

Johnny Storm is, frankly, an immature kid in high school who likes to show off. Sue has spent half her life looking after him after their parents were killed in a car crash when Johnny was 7, partially why Sue is the “World’s Greatest Super-Mom” before she even had her own kids. Johnny in the movies has his “Rebel Without a Cause” side cranked up to 11. But all this does this is create a really shallow version of Johnny Storm, especially as all of the Fantastic Four have above average intelligence (the other three are just dwarfed by Reed Richards). Johnny is more Marty McFly (complete with short temper) than a 2nd rate James Dean. 

The worst offender for the movies getting wrong is most probably Ben Grimm, the heart and soul of Marvel Comics. In the movie adaptations, he spends his time moping about lamenting that he used to be a handsome man but now he’s a giant toenail (fun fact: Ben Grimm’s rock skin is actually more similar to toenails than rock. Here’s hoping he doesn’t get athlete’s foot). While this is true of the comic counterpart to a degree, he actually gets over it pretty quickly. He’s a changed man as soon as he meet Alicia Masters. Ben Grimm is a fun-loving party animal. He loves to drink, gamble and fight. He always has a joke ready for when he punches a bad guy and he’s the Idol of Millions. He’s basically like the Marvel Universe’s Mr. T.

You’re Wrong about Doctor Doom

Doctor Doom first appeared in Fantastic Four number 5 and he was a fully formed character. He had an army of robots, a suit that made him look like the grim reaper’s stunt double, a magic castle, his own made-up kingdom of Latveria and a time machine. He forced three of the members of the F4 to get him some magic pirate treasure. And thats a million times better than what we got in any of the movies. Sure, Doom has a personal vendetta against Reed Richards but it predates him becoming Mr Fantastic. It’s not that Doom is an entitled shmuck who wanted to marry Sue. No. Doom’s hatred of Richards is much more intense and much more personal, Richards destroyed his experiment, his one chance to talk to his deceased mother, and it scarred his beautiful perfect face. 

Doom is no tag-along, Doom’s power is all self made. He didn’t hitch a ride with the other four, he studied the Occult and raised his own army. And all to fulfil his destiny to complete his goals of getting revenge on Reed Richards for disfiguring him, redemption for his mothers soul (she sold it to Mephisto to protect their village from the Nazi’s) and total conquest of the world. Not to destroy it though, rather so he can rid the world of disease and poverty as everybody will be too busy worshipping his magnificence. 

Doctor Doom is almost always the aggressor in his stories with the Fantastic Four, as their insistence on still existing always circumvents his plans to bring much needed order to a world gone mad. But due to his popularity (he was even Stan Lee’s favourite villain), he’s appeared as an adversary for almost every Marvel hero. He’s gone to war with Wakanda and even tried to seduce Spider-man to the ways of villainy. Doom is a complex character as well as being an over-the-top characteur of a fascist. 

There are More Villains than Doctor Doom

Doctor Doom is possibly the greatest villain in all of Superhero comics. However, his back stories and motivations are more complicated than the average disposable movie villain. The method of adding him into the origin of the F4 just plain doesn’t work. It belittles him. Fortunately, the Fantastic Four have many villains. Assuming this is to fit into the MCU, Ronan the Accuser and the Skrull Empire have already been used, but they still have many more that haven’t yet been used. They include evil magician’s like Diablo and Nicolas Scratch, the communist villain the Red Ghost (who gained super powers for him and his apes by copying the F4) and Dragon-Man (often partnered with Diablo) who’s whole shtick is a bizarre lie as he is an Android and neither a Dragon or a Man. The Puppet Master, Alicia Masters step-Father, controls people with puppets he makes. The Moleman is the ruler of an underground world with loyal subjects called the Moloids. The Mad Thinker and his Awesome Android, The Frightful Four (a rival group of Scientists who make themselves an evil copy of the heroes). Annihulus and Blastaar (rival rulers of the Negative Zone who the F4 keep getting in the way of). Heck, even their original villain Namor the Submariner. With him, you can keep the whole “I love Sue, you don’t deserve her” shpeil as that’s actually his motivations.

So is it that the Fantastic Four are uncinematic? god no. The Movie versions have been plagued with problems, Roger Corman was hired to make the first one because of his extremely fast turnover in productions and Constantine films didn’t want to lose the rights to the series so they made a movie of them. Tim Story’s Fantastic Four was made for similar reasons, coupled with the popularity of the Spider-man and X-men movies they thought it could make a profit and it did and it spawned a sequel that some how managed to be worse. Tim Story also only had 1 previous directing credit for a box office flop starring Queen Latifah. Josh Trank’s Fant4stic was also made under the pressure of not wanting to lose the rights to the series. While his vision of a darker version of the F4 seemed strange it had some merits to it, like how Stan Lee’s original pitch for the series had protagonists all slowly dying from their super powers.

The most compelling argument for the Fantastic Four not fitting into a film structure is that the comics often revolve around on going plots from issue to issue. However that idea is flawed by the fact that all Marvel comics have that and well Spider-man has done pretty well on the big screen.