Stan Lee
Page 29
With all the challenges Marvel faced as an organization, the answer often came back to Spider-Man. The character’s enduring popularity saved the day. Lee’s willingness to promote the superhero ensured that Marvel also stayed securely on the nation’s popular culture radar. In turn, the effort solidified Lee’s own place in the cultural pantheon.
While people often credit Lee for his role in gradually turning comic books into a more respected medium and establishing Marvel’s place among the world’s great brands, he is rarely given enough credit simply as a writer. Just like novelists and filmmakers had always done, it is as if Lee put his hands up into the air and pulled down fistfuls of the national zeitgeist. As a writer, Lee did what all iconic creative people do—he improved on or perfected his craft, thus creating an entirely new style that would have broad impact across the rest of the industry, and then around the globe.
At the time Spider-Man appeared, Lee had already been working in the industry for more than twenty years. By this point, his writing process grew out of his fascination with dialogue. He explained, “Whenever I write a story of any sort, I usually recite all the dialogue aloud as I’m writing it. . . . I act it out, with all the emotion and corny emphasis that I can muster.” What this kind of writing and narration forces is what all great writers understand: “It’s got to sound natural.”4 These innovations—focusing on realistic dialogue, speaking directly to the reader, and allowing the reader into the character’s thinking via thought bubbles—created the Marvel style that would soon dominate the comic book industry and then gradually extend to film, television, literature, and other forms of storytelling.
Generations of artists, writers, actors, and other creative types have been inspired, moved, or encouraged by the universe Lee voiced and birthed. While he did not invent the imperfect hero (one could argue that such heroes had been around since Homer’s time and even before), Lee delivered the message to a generation of readers hungry for something new. Although the nerd-to-hero story line seems like it must have sprung from the earth fully formed, Lee gave readers a new way of looking at what it meant to be a hero and spun the notion of who might be heroic in a way that spoke to the rapidly expanding number of comic book buyers. They gobbled up his superheroes with their dimes, nickels, and quarters. Spider-Man’s popularity revealed the attraction to the idea of a tainted hero, but at the same time, the character also hit the newsstands at the perfect time, when the growth of the baby boomer generation and the optimism of John F. Kennedy’s Camelot resulted in a second golden age for comic books.
Regardless of the opinions of nay-sayers, there is something heroic in Lee himself. Like others at the apex of American popular culture, Lee transformed his industry, which subsequently had much broader implications. Lee became Marvel madman, mouthpiece, and all-around maestro—the face of comic books for six decades. The man who wanted to pen the Great American Novel did so much more. Without question, Lee became one of the most important creative icons in contemporary American history.
NOTES
PROLOGUE
1. Stan Lee’s Mutants, Monsters, and Marvels, directed by Scott Zakarin (Burbank, CA: Sony Pictures, 2002), DVD.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.
4. David Anthony Kraft, “The Foom Interview: Stan Lee,” in Stan Lee Conversations, ed. Jeff McLaughlin (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2007), 63.
5. Ibid.
6. Stan Lee, Origins of Marvel Comics, revised edition (New York: Marvel, 1997), 12.
7. Quoted in Stan Lee and George Mair, Excelsior! The Amazing Life of Stan Lee (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2002), 113.
8. Lee, Origins, 12.
9. Lee and Mair, Excelsior!, 114.
CHAPTER 1
1. The sum equates to about $3,500.
2. Gur Alroey, Bread to Eat and Clothes to Wear: Letters from Jewish Migrants in the Early Twentieth Century (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2011), 10.
3. Dana Mihailescu, “Images of Romania and America in Early Twentieth-Century Romanian-Jewish Immigrant Life Stories in the United States,” East European Jewish Affairs 42, no. 1 (2012): 28.
4. Ibid., 29.
5. Ibid., 32.
6. Alroey, Bread to Eat and Clothes to Wear, 12.
7. For a man who has lived most of his life on the public stage—and written two different memoirs—Lee says little about his parents, relatives, ethnicity, or religion. In his first memoir, he claims that his parents were “both Romanian immigrants.” However, in the graphic novel memoir (2015), Lee says that his father was a Romanian immigrant, but that his mother “was born in New York.” Actually, Lee got it right in the first memoir—his mother was born in Romania as well, though her past in her native land is a mystery to us today. For Lee’s discussion of his youth, please see: Stan Lee and George Mair, Excelsior! The Amazing Life of Stan Lee (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2002), 5; Stan Lee, Peter David, and Colleen Doran, Amazing Fantastic Incredible: A Marvelous Memoir (New York: Touchstone, 2015), n.p.
8. Sifting through tens of thousands of United States Census records, a rudimentary picture emerges about Lee’s parents and his extended family. Although these records shed light on a part of Lee’s life he rarely discusses, recordkeeping in that era relied on census- takers rendering accurate documentation. Accuracy ebbed, however, under the difficulties the census workers faced: language barriers, privacy concerns, and other challenges. The enumerators were forbidden to ask for proof to corroborate the information they received, so they would try to get pertinent details correct, assuming that the interviewee even had a handle on the truth. The effort took on added difficulty in New York City, where numerous families might be living in the same apartment building with extended family and boarders, a common practice at the time. As a result, some records flip-flop first and last names, which then skews electronic database searches. Other times, entire families slip out of the official documentation. Given that the documents were handwritten, simple legibility is a challenge. The enumerators had little incentive for getting the information perfect; they were poorly compensated for their work, with speed more important than accuracy. Many were political appointees who knew the right people in the local power structure to be awarded the job.
9. With Lee’s family, like so many others that arrived in the early years of the twentieth century, uncertainties even exist about the most basic facts. For example, in the Census records, his father’s name changed from Hyman in 1910 to Jacob in 1920, while his birthdate is listed alternately as 1886 or 1888. If the latter date is correct, then he is only seventeen years old when he makes the transatlantic journey. His relative, Abraham, who is living with him in a boarding home with an older Russian-Romanian couple and their children in 1910, disappears in later documentation, leading to speculation that Jacob’s younger brother may have been among the thousands of Romanian immigrants who later returned to the homeland. Alternatively, Abraham could have moved away from New York City and into the throngs of immigrants spreading westward. Later, Lee mentioned his brother’s sisters (Becky and Bertha) but they do not show up in any further documentation, nor does he mention them in his memoirs. Joanna Lieber to Stan Lee, e-mail message, April 26, 1998, Correspondence, 1998, Box 196, Stan Lee Papers, American Heritage Center, University of Wyoming.
10. Unfortunately there are no surviving records to fill us in on Celia and Jack’s courtship or wedding. We do not know if it was elaborate, simple, or somewhere in between.
11. Only four children remained at home, but of the four, only Celia is listed as not being employed. In one Census report, Celia’s birthdate is listed as 1894, two years later than previously identified, but there is no reason given for why the twenty-six-year-old did not work. Greater mystery regarding Stanley Lieber’s family history occurs in the 1930 Census.
12. Basically, the Liebers disappeared from the 1930 Census. There are many reasons that the family might have vanished, ranging from shoddy work on the part of census enumerators w
ho often misspelled or skipped over information that wasn’t easily determined, to the transiency of families in that era as the Depression raged. Under difficult circumstances, enumerators would turn to neighbors, young children, or non-English-speaking family members to provide information. In this environment, many people disappeared from the official documentation. As a result, the family could have been in transition from one part of the city to another and simply missed the census taker’s visit. Alternatively, they might have dodged the local enumerator in an attempt to go unnoticed, basically ashamed of their plight.
13. Mark Lacter, “Stan Lee Marvel Comics Always Searching for a New Story,” Inc., November 2009, 96.
14. Stan Lee, “Excelsior!” Outline, July 30, 1978, Box 96, Stan Lee Papers, American Heritage Center, University of Wyoming.
15. Lee and Mair, Excelsior!, 7.
16. Lee, David, and Doran, Amazing Fantastic.
17. Lee and Mair, Excelsior!, 8.
18. Lee, “Excelsior!” Outline.
19. Jordan Raphael and Tom Spurgeon, Stan Lee and the Rise and Fall of the American Comic Book (Chicago: Chicago Review Press, 2003), 4.
20. Lee and Mair, Excelsior!, 11.
21. Quoted in Raphael and Spurgeon, Stan Lee and the Rise and Fall, 4.
22. Lee and Mair, Excelsior!, 12.
23. Ibid., 9.
24. Lee, “Excelsior!” Outline.
25. Lee and Mair, Excelsior!, 10.
26. Stan Lee, “Comic Relief: Comic Books Aren’t Just for Entertainment,” Edutopia, August 11, 2005, www.edutopia.org/comic-relief.
27. Lee and Mair, Excelsior!, 13.
28. Lee, “Excelsior!” Outline.
29. Quoted in Mike Bourne, “Stan Lee, the Marvel Bard,” in Alter Ego, ed. Roy Thomas, vol. 3, no. 74 (2007): 26.
30. Quoted in With Great Power: The Stan Lee Story, directed by Terry Douglas, Nikki Frakes, and William Lawrence Hess (Los Angeles: MPI Home Video, 2012), DVD.
31. Stan Lee, “History of Marvel (Chapters 1, 2, 3),” unpublished, 2. Marvel Comics—History (Draft of “History of Marvel Comics”), 1990, Box 5, Folder 7, Stan Lee Papers, American Heritage Center, University of Wyoming.
32. Quoted in Raphael and Spurgeon, Stan Lee and the Rise and Fall, 8.
33. Ibid.
34. Lee and Mair, Excelsior!, 15.
35. Raphael and Spurgeon, Stan Lee and the Rise and Fall, 7.
36. United States, Bureau of the Census, 1940 U.S. Census, New York, Bronx County, New York, enumeration district 3-1487, household 61, Jacob Lieber Family, Sheet 6-B. Barb Sigler, HeritageQuest Online, http://www.ancestryheritagequest.com: accessed March 30, 2016.
37. Lee and Mair, Excelsior!, 6.
38. David Hochman, “ Playboy Interview: Stan Lee,” Playboy, April 11, 2014, http://www.playboy.com/articles/stan-lee-marvel-playboy-interview.
39. Lee and Mair, Excelsior!, 7.
40. Mark Alexander, “Lee and Kirby: The Wonder Years,” in The Jack Kirby Collector 18, no. 58 (Winter 2011): 5.
CHAPTER 2
1. Blake Bell and Michael J. Vassallo, The Secret History of Marvel Comics: Jack Kirby and the Moonlighting Artists at Martin Goodman’s Empire (Seattle: Fantagraphics, 2013), 98.
2. Quoted in Kenneth Plume, “Interview with Stan Lee (Part 1 of 5),” IGN, June 26, 2000, accessed June 1, 2016, http://www.ign.com/articles/2000/06/26/interview-with-stan-lee-part-1-of-5.
3. Young Stanley Lieber’s hiring at Timely has changed repeatedly over the years. In an unpublished draft of the history of Marvel, Lee wrote “early 1940,” but in other publications and places he says or infers 1939. Stan Lee, “History of Marvel (Chapters 1, 2, 3),” unpublished, 1. Marvel Comics—History (Draft of “History of Marvel Comics”) 1990, Box 5, Folder 7, Stan Lee Papers, American Heritage Center, University of Wyoming.
4. Gerard Jones, Men of Tomorrow: Geeks, Gangsters, and the Birth of the Comic Book (New York: Basic, 2004), 97.
5. Ibid., 108.
6. Ibid., 158.
7. Ibid., 159.
8. Sean Howe, Marvel Comics: The Untold Story (New York: Harper, 2012), 14.
9. Ibid.
10. Quoted in Mark Evanier, Kirby: King of Comics (New York: Harry N. Abrams, 2008), 45.
11. Joe Simon, Joe Simon: My Life in Comics (London: Titan, 2011), 92.
12. Howe, Marvel Comics, 20.
13. “The Marvelous Life of Stan Lee,” CBS News, January 17, 2016, http://www.cbsnews.com/news/the-marvelous-life-of-stan-lee.
14. Stan Lee and George Mair, Excelsior! The Amazing Life of Stan Lee (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2002), 26.
15. “Stan Lee Speaks at the 1975 San Diego Comic-Con Convention,” YouTube, uploaded January 6, 2010, https://youtu.be/MhJuBqDTM9Q.
16. Captain America Comics #3, May 1, 1941, 37.
17. Simon, Joe Simon, 114.
18. Ibid., 113.
19. Ibid.
20. Ibid., 114.
21. Quoted in Stan Lee, Peter David, and Colleen Doran, Amazing Fantastic Incredible: A Marvelous Memoir (New York: Touchstone, 2015), n.p.
22. Lee and Mair, Excelsior!, 30.
23. Lee, “History of Marvel (Chapters 1, 2, 3),” 9.
24. Quoted in Shirrel Rhoades, A Complete History of American Comic Books (New York: Peter Lang, 2008), 36.
25. Jim Amash, “The Goldberg Variations,” Alter Ego 3, no. 18 (October 2002): 6.
26. Arie Kaplan, Masters of the Comic Book Universe Revealed! (Chicago: Chicago Review Press, 2006), 49.
27. Quoted in Rhoades, A Complete History, 36.
28. Lee and Mair, Excelsior!, 30.
CHAPTER 3
1. Rebecca Robbins Raines, Getting the Message Through: A Branch History of the U.S. Army Signal Corps (Washington, DC: Center of Military History, U.S. Army, 1996), 256.
2. Mike Benton, The Comic Book in America: An Illustrated History (Dallas: Taylor, 1989), 35.
3. Ibid., 35–41.
4. Sean Howe, Marvel Comics: The Untold Story (New York: Harper, 2012), 24.
5. Catherine Sanders, et al., eds., Marvel Year by Year: A Visual Chronicle (New York: DK, 2013), 20.
6. Quoted in Howe, Marvel Comics, 25.
7. During the time Lee was stationed at Fort Monmouth, Julius Rosenberg carried out a clandestine mission spying for Russia. He also recruited scientists and engineers from the base into the spy ring he led in New Jersey and funneled thousands of pages of top-secret documents to his Russian handlers. Rosenberg and his wife Ethel were arrested, convicted, and in 1953 executed.
8. Quoted in Steven Mackenzie, “Stan Lee Interview: ‘The World Always Needs Heroes,’” Big Issue, January 18, 2016, http://www.bigissue.com/features/interviews/6153/stan-lee-interview-the-world-always-needs-heroes.
9. Stan Lee, “Excelsior!” Outline, July 30, 1978, Box 96, Stan Lee Papers, American Heritage Center, University of Wyoming.
10. Quoted in Stan Lee and George Mair, Excelsior! The Amazing Life of Stan Lee (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2002), 37.
11. Ibid., 40.
12. Stan Lee, “Comic Relief: Comic Books Aren’t Just for Entertainment,” Edutopia, August 11, 2005, www.edutopia.org/comic-relief.
13. Lee and Mair, Excelsior!, 44.
14. Ibid., 45.
15. Blake Bell and Michael J. Vassallo, The Secret History of Marvel Comics: Jack Kirby and the Moonlighting Artists at Martin Goodman’s Empire (Seattle: Fantagraphics, 2013), 158.
16. Stan Lee, “Only the Blind Can See,” Joker 1, no. 4 (1943–1944): 39, reprinted in ibid., 159.
17. Lee and Mair, Excelsior!, 43–44.
18. Lee, “Excelsior!” Outline.
CHAPTER 4
1. Stan Lee and George Mair, Excelsior! The Amazing Life of Stan Lee (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2002), 56.
2. Timely script editor Al Sulman claims that he created the character after Lee asked him to come up with a Wonder Woman–like heroine.
3. Joe Simon, Joe Simon: My Life in Comics (London: Titan, 2011), 166–6
7.
4. A great deal of uncertainty exists regarding how comic books were numbered, titled, retitled, and renumbered. Part of the answer had to do with the publisher’s printing and distribution processes. There are also indications that postal regulations for mailing magazines had some influence. Finally, tradition or heritage also played a role. Many pulp publishers operated this way, which led to similar tactics in the comic book business. For more information, see John Jackson Miller, “Where Did Comics Numbering Come From?” Comichron, July 10, 2011, http://blog.comichron.com/2011/07/where-did-comics-numbering-come-from.html.
5. Lee and Mair, Excelsior!, 64.
6. Stan Lee, Secrets behind the Comics (New York: Famous Enterprises, 1947), 6.
7. Ibid., 22.
8. Blake Bell and Michael J. Vassallo, The Secret History of Marvel Comics: Jack Kirby and the Moonlighting Artists at Martin Goodman’s Empire (Seattle: Fantagraphics, 2013), 72.
9. David Anthony Kraft, “The Foom Interview: Stan Lee,” in Stan Lee Conversations, ed. Jeff McLaughlin (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2007), 68.
10. Stan Lee, “Excelsior!” Outline, July 30, 1978, Box 96, Stan Lee Papers, American Heritage Center, University of Wyoming.
11. Ibid.
12. Stan Lee, “Where I Span a Hero’s Yarn,” Sunday Times (London), May 12, 2002, F3.
13. Jordan Raphael and Tom Spurgeon, Stan Lee and the Rise and Fall of the American Comic Book (Chicago: Chicago Review Press, 2003), 38.
14. Lee, “Where I Spun a Hero’s Yarn.” 15. Lee, “Excelsior!” Outline.
CHAPTER 5
1. “Urges Comic Book Ban,” New York Times, September 4, 1948, 16.
2. Quoted in Thomas F. O’Connor, “The National Organization for Decent Literature: A Phase in American Catholic Censorship,” Library Quarterly: Information, Community, Policy 65, no. 4 (1995): 390.
3. Ibid., 399.
4. Ron Goulart, Great American Comic Books (Lincolnwood, IL: Publications International, 2001), 210–12.