Other writing projects also took up time as Lee worked on books outside the Marvel Universe. In 1979, Stan Lee Presents the Best of the Worst came out. An odd conglomeration of illustrations, pithy facts, and Lee’s irreverent humor, Best of the Worst drew from Lee’s previous work on Goodman’s humor and men’s magazine lines. For example, Lee identified Australian William Gold as “The Worst Writer,” who wrote fifteen books over eighteen years, but only sold one article to a Canberra newspaper, earning a whopping fifty cents. Lee’s primary contribution was a sentence after the narrative, joking: “Probably after lengthy negotiations.”30
After relinquishing the editor-in-chief position at Marvel, Lee was still spreading himself thin. Yet, from another perspective, he enjoyed the freedom from being chained to the editor’s desk. Plus, like other celebrities, Lee had to maximize his efforts at monetizing his fame. He explained: “People feel comic books make millions and millions of dollars, but there are many years when the companies have literally lost money . . . it’s not a case of everybody’s pocketing millions and just trampling on the poor artists and writers.”31 Given the freedom to take on additional work outside the strictures of Marvel, Lee jumped at the chance.
The animation work that had kicked off in the late 1960s and come together in the early 1970s continued later in the decade. In 1978, an animated series called The New Fantastic Four appeared. Both Lee and Thomas wrote many of the scripts. However, the show was the final nail in the coffin of the Lee-Kirby relationship and the King’s days at Marvel. Although Lee had been able to lure Kirby back to Marvel in 1975, the artist had an uneasy relationship with Goodman and still held a grudge against his cocreator for numerous slights (many real and many imagined). According to Kirby biographer Mark Evanier, “He was sick of the business” and wanted out, if only he could think of a different way to earn a living.32
Perhaps the magic had ended for Lee and Kirby, or maybe the King couldn’t stomach any additional snubs, but his final stint at Marvel seemed more or less doomed from the start. He decided against renewing his contract, which would have limited his rights of ownership to past work under copyright and failed to address other issues he had with Goodman. Instead, in 1978, he accepted an offer to serve as an artist for the new animated Fantastic Four series. First with Hanna-Barbera, then with the DePatie-Freleng studio, which ultimately made the FF show, Kirby found colleagues who deeply respected his work, bosses that cared for him, and enough money to get him away from the comic book publishers.
Jack and Stan had a notoriously rocky relationship, but their combined legacy of successes enabled them to cover the animosity with a patchwork of excuses. Once the final schism occurred, they would never really mend it. They ignored the issues that caused the fallout and got along well enough on the FF animated series to actually team up on one more go at Silver Surfer, a graphic novel version released in 1978.
Kirby spent a great deal of his later years blaming Lee for the problems he had with Marvel executives and others, just as he had insinuated back in 1941 that Lee had squealed on him and Simon when they were moonlighting for DC. It is not difficult to imagine Kirby nursing that wound for more than thirty years. Though loving and kind to those around him and his family, the King had a long memory for professional slights and constant feelings that his work was underappreciated.
Certainly Kirby could be cantankerous, and no one doubted his amazing work ethic, but there is also another side to the artist that is rarely highlighted: his quarrels with artistic partners and subsequent feuds or minifeuds that would ensue. Kirby and Lee both developed acolytes and critics over their long careers. Some insiders with little or no skin in Kirby’s long-term reputation, however, have weighed in on the topic. George Kashdan, a longtime DC writer and editor, explains, “Kirby always had fallouts with friends.” He remembers, “Once, we were having lunch together, and he talked about his falling out with Joe Simon.”33 He and Simon would later politely disagree about much of Captain America’s origin and who deserved credit for the character. Later, Kirby would unleash on Lee, essentially attempting to diminish or remove him completely from the creative process and take all the credit for the Marvel lineup.
The time Kirby spent in Hollywood seemed to rejuvenate him. He worked with young artists who were admirers of his art or had grown up emulating him. And he received a salary and benefits that were commensurate with his status as one of the industry’s titans. Kirby later hooked up with Ruby-Spears Productions, which enabled him to do work on the animated Thundarr the Barbarian (1980–1981). They loved his work and gave him the title “Producer,” which he cherished.34
Where Marvel could have used more Lee-Kirby magic in the era was in live-action programming. Reporters salivated in 1975 when Lee announced that a Spider-Man movie was imminent, though one wire service didn’t take comic books or Lee all that seriously, calling him “the man behind Spidey and a horde of other weirdos found in Marvel Comics.” Later, the writer dubs comics “flaky,” and filled with “kinky dialogue.” Lee, always working to expand the idea that comic books crossed age boundaries, told the reporter: “The books combine humor for college kids with action and adventure for the little ones.” Despite the publicity and media response, however, the proposed Spider-Man flick never materialized.35
In 1977, when Spider-Man debuted as a live-action television series, Lee was horrified. “It was so juvenile. Spider-Man had no personality and no humor,” the character’s cocreator explained. “It was one-dimensional.” The challenge for anyone hoping to adapt Marvel characters using actors was that the technology did not really exist that enabled them to really seem larger than life. Lee found the adaptations bland and far less sophisticated than the comic books themselves.36
Live-action Spider-Man seemed to work, however, in “Spidey Super Stories” on the PBS children’s television program The Electric Company. Designed to help kids learn to read (dancer Danny Seagren donned the iconic costume), the short skits first aired in the 1974–1975 season and made the program a “must see” for kids who couldn’t get enough of the superhero. The writing mimicked Lee’s, but Spider-Man never actually spoke. His words appeared in comic-like word balloons, which served as the hook for getting children to practice reading.
Most of the web slinger’s stories on The Electric Company were silly romps. The show’s mainstay actors, such as Morgan Freeman and Luis Avalos, played a variety of odd villains and supporting characters, as well as narrating the action, since the hero remained silent. Running about a dozen skits each season for three years, a typical encounter had Spidey battling the Birthday Bandit, a villain who talks in a rhyming, sing-song voice (the narrator calls him “that foe of fun and festivity”) in a playfully colored suit adorned with a cummerbund and top hat who steals from children’s birthday parties. After a cake-smashing episode and some fisticuffs that gets cake smeared on Spider-Man’s costume, the hero fights off the villain, eventually snaring the bandit in a web, and thus saving the day. In keeping with the Lee playfulness, the final panel is a drawing of Spidey at a laundromat covered with a blanket while sitting in a chair, waiting for his costume to wash. The skit theme song ends with a brassy horn section. The singer wails: “Nobody knows who you are.”
As 1979 drew to a close, Marvel’s internal woes were played out in the pages of the New York Times. Drawing on anonymous interviews and extensive insider perspectives, writer N. R. Kleinfield presented the comic book division as a dys-functional outfit that pitted editors against writers and artists against management. The days of Lee’s Merry Marvel Bullpen and the singsong nicknames seemed like a distant past.
The reporter placed much of the blame at the doorstep of Jim Shooter, labeling him “power-thirsty.” Shooter, who began his comic book career at the precocious age of thirteen, writing for DC, was either loved or hated by the Marvel staff. Some accused the imposing six-foot, eight-inch writer/editor of having an ego even larger than he was. A group of Marvel staffers harbored jealousies becau
se he took the reins as a twenty-something when they believed an insider with more seniority should inherit the role.
Other unnamed company executives were considered, who were “more interested in coining money from licensing deals than they are in the superheroes.”37 Roy Thomas sided with the creative teams, calling Marvel both “callous” and “inhuman.”38 The article revealed the deep mistrust between the comic book editorial side of the operations and the rest of the company, many of whom simply wanted to exploit the characters for licensing and all the product marketing they could muster. While creative teams wanted to focus on craft, the corporate heads demanded profits. The age-old battle between inspiration and capitalism waged on at Marvel.
All of Lee’s stored-up goodwill with the public and the other artists and writers kept him out of the direct firing line. In the article, Kleinfield called Lee a “creative genius” made famous by “inventing heroes” that had realistic life challenges. But, an anonymous writer pointed out some sour grapes at Marvel HQ directed at the old boss, chiding Lee because he “wants to be like Walt Disney” and views comic books as “sort of beneath him.”39
Even as revered as he remained, Lee could not deflect all the heat stirred up in the late 1970s, as the comic book industry felt the squeeze from television and a smaller target demographic. Baby boomers had carried the industry in the early and mid-1960s, but were aging out of their fascination with the medium. In addition, many longtime fans thought that the comics simply weren’t as good.
In response, the industry’s two heavy-hitters—DC Comics and Marvel—both cut back on monthly titles (Marvel from more than forty down to thirty-two). Each brought in more money via licensing deals than in the comics that its heroes appeared in. Lee told the Times that he felt the new in-house licensing division might have ruffled feathers, since some artists and writers had to turn their attention to that part of the business. “It used to be that the only artists in the place were drawing the strips,” he explained. “Now we have artists who have to draw box tops.”40 The nightmare scenario for comic book purists had come true—the Spider-Man lunchboxes and bath towels were now more important to the corporation that owned Marvel than the comic books that ran the superhero stories.
Both DC and Marvel faced declining circulation across the decade, so each determined that quantity would make up for the losses. Overall sales grew, but the standing of the entire industry seemed less stable. Prior to the cutbacks, the two market leaders published dozens of new titles in a vain attempt at profitability. In 1979, Marvel’s operating income was a measly $1.5 million after sales that exceeded $23 million.41 In this kind of tight financial pinch, Lee’s Hollywood deal making held endless potential if the company could deliver a hit or build up its licensing business. The traditional notion that comic books drove licensing deals was flipped on its head. Clearly, the big two of Marvel and DC were licensing agencies first, because that drove profits.
Depending on one’s perspective, the end of the 1970s could have been a total downer or the beginning of something big for Lee. The era contained elements of both sentiments for him. On one hand, as Marvel publisher, he earned over $150,000 a year and had steady added income from college lectures and working on television projects (he was paid separately for this work). Fans mobbed him at comic book conventions and college students cheered thunderously when he appeared on campus. They packed tightly around him, just to inch a little closer to the man who created their heroes and essentially provided a central narrative of their young lives.
Even with so many avenues going in his direction, however, Lee chafed at the thought that he couldn’t get out of comic books. He really wanted to make it in Hollywood. Although the superhero craze had lasted more than a decade and Lee delighted in the characters he cocreated, he fully expected the genre to fade into oblivion. Increasingly, he faced more than a little regret when he spoke about his career, explaining to a reporter: “I would have liked to make movies, to be a director or a screenwriter, to have a job like Norm Lear or Freddie Silverman. I’d like to be doing what I’m doing here, but in a bigger arena.”42 Although a celebrity in his own right and a downright hero to fans globally, Lee couldn’t shake the notion that he could be doing more.
As Lee searched for additional outlets for his superheroes, the effort increasingly brought him to Hollywood, the great American dream factory. As he envisioned the next phase of his career, he looked West to California’s golden shores.
CHAPTER 12
LURE OF HOLLYWOOD
Whether it was hearing the Lone Ranger cry “Hi-Yo, Silver! Away!” or the sound of air rushing by as Superman flew through the skies, the early history of television is intimately entwined with superheroes and comic books. While comics could take readers inside the minds of the characters in ways that film couldn’t, something about actually seeing the live-action superhero on the screen gave fans a different kind of thrill.
The popularity of televised superheroes often pushed the comic book trade into boom and bust cycles that usually had little to do with the quality of the comics or who produced them. The volatility would drive most people batty. Both the Superman and Batman television shows caused surges in comic book sales in the 1950s and late 1960s. Looking at the television landscape and recalling those two phenomenally popular programs, Marvel executives, including Cadence president Jim Galton, wondered why their company couldn’t replicate these successes in the 1970s, particularly given that it had replaced longtime rival DC as the industry leader in sales.
The fight for sales supremacy between the comic book giants had taken decades to win. Galton and other leaders wanted to capitalize on the victory by establishing a stronger foothold on the West Coast. They also wanted to use the television momentum to show film studios that superheroes could carry feature films. These endeavors would be more lucrative for Cadence and counterbalance the cyclical nature of the print division.
The timing for Lee neared perfection. Searching for new ways to attract audiences, he did what so many Americans had done before him: looked across the country to the golden shores of California.
By the end of the 1970s, he had been in comic book publishing for forty years. Now in his late fifties, he hoped to reinvigorate his career, just as he had a decade before when he faced throngs of college readers on campuses across the nation. Galton, who had a great relationship with his publisher, schemed with Lee to propose that the company buy a Hollywood production studio. When the television networks started showing interest in Marvel’s superheroes in animation and live-action, Lee was sent west to plot their course.
Although Lee’s superheroes revolutionized popular culture and were read by fanatics worldwide, he left for Los Angeles in an odd position. He was already a big name, a celebrity in his own right, which made it difficult (if not impossible) for him to learn the business from the ground up. Lee had the mighty Marvel content behind him, which would open many doors, but it simultaneously raised expectations on the part of his bosses that the path to success would be straightforward. Lee also was used to calling the shots, as he had with Marvel since his teen years. Hollywood simply did not work that way. Lee had to convince skeptical television executives that Marvel’s heroes would translate to live-action programming and that adult viewers would tune in.
Yet the winds of change were already set in motion. In addition to Marvel’s ascension to the top of the comic book world and Lee’s pervasive influence on popular culture as a result, science fiction and fantasy films and television shows had become incredibly popular. On the small screen, The Six Million Dollar Man (1974–1978) proved that audiences would respond to a superhero-like lead character. Steve Austin (played by Lee Majors) developed into a pop culture phenomenon, spawning comic books (featuring artwork by Lee’s friends Howard Chaykin and Neal Adams), albums, and action figures. The spinoff The Bionic Woman (1976–1978) expanded the cyborg adventures, this time featuring the lead female Jaime Sommers (actress Lindsay Wagner). Her popularit
y also meant a merchandise line, ranging from an action figure to a board game to a lunchbox, which became a must-have item for elementary school kids.
The late 1960s had also helped pave the way for superhero and science fiction narratives among mainstream audiences. In 1968, for example, the films 2001: A Space Odyssey and Planet of the Apes thrilled audiences and generated strong box-office returns. These films reinforced the new style of storytelling that audiences demanded, as well as set the stage for science fiction and fantasy aimed at adults. Later, a film like Logan’s Run (1976) demonstrated how fantasy content could be enhanced by innovative technology and special effects. In 1977, George Lucas’s Star Wars showed film and television executives, as well as people around the world, the vitality of science fiction and fantasy. Didn’t Luke Skywalker, after all, seem like a futuristic version of Spider-Man, an outsider who must deal with possessing extraordinary powers? A year later, the mighty Superman would fly into theaters, also blowing audiences’ minds. Movies like these proved that innovative filmmaking technology could power fantastic plots and characters. Special effects were finally catching up with the imaginations of writers and artists, opening doors for science fiction and fantasy projects on screens both large and small. The time was ripe for comic book characters to make the transition.
Lee spent time crisscrossing the nation, attempting to keep his fingers on the pulse of the comic book division, but increasingly focusing on getting Marvel further established in television and film. He viewed Los Angeles as “Nirvana,” a celestial utopia that would enable him to launch a new career path in his late-fifties without having to discard all that he had done to that point.1 The trepidation of leaving New York City, basically his home for his entire life, got swept away in a sea of excitement about the work he would be doing and the sheer magnificence of the West Coast: the warm breezes blowing off the Pacific Ocean and the hidden enclaves surrounded by thick woods and hillsides.
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