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!
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