Day Eighty-Eight: The Man, The Myth, The Legend
OKAY! QUICKLY! FIVE REASONS WHY STAN LEE IS THE GREATEST LIVING AMERICAN!
1) Stan Lee invented comics.
Okay, so Stan Lee didn't invent comics per se. That's what we in the comics-reading fraternity (and now sorority - thanks, manga!) have to believe, though. Because what we know today as "comics" in the western world are, not to put to fine a point on it, predominantly superhero comics. The industry is, particularly in America, geared up to give us the adventures of the Amazing Pants-Man fighting Super-Jerk nine times out of ten. The other one time out of ten, he's fighting ennui and his own lack of self-worth and Chris Ware is drawing it. Stan Lee, though, gave us the superhero paradigm as we know it. Not the previously-existing DC dynamic, where barely capable men would struggle through utterly bizarre problems until they breathed a collective sigh of relief and reached the end of the story, but the Marvel method, which merged soap opera with superheroes to give us stories which reached beyond the end of their 18 pages and made the reader want to pick up the next one, just to see whether Sue Richards was going to run away with Namor or Peter Parker was really going to give up being Spider-Man. Stan Lee created the Marvel Universe, in conjunction with some of the finest artistic minds of his time; a universe which, as Marvel's marketing department is so fond of reminding us, has over 4,700 characters in its library. Stan Lee co-created the vast majority of the characters who interacted with the characters who fought the characters who make up that 4,700. Next time you have to buy 100+ issues of a Civil War-style tie-in, remember, this is because Stan Lee made something beautiful and evil people broke it.
2) Stan Lee is excitement made flesh.
There is nobody, but nobody, who is a bigger cheerleader for comics than Stan Lee. I love Marvel. I quite like DC. I like indie comics like they're my third replacement pet whom I love very much. I don't evangelise about them to half the extent that Stan Lee does. Ever since Stan became the editor and head writer of the Marvel Comics superhero line back in 1961, he has constantly been the most unreservedly pro-comics person in the world. Joe Quesada bends himself into pretzel-like shapes trying to pat himself on the back for the most recent awful Marvel Comics stunts and hopeless non-events. Stan Lee just has to breathe one word in favour of these doddering superhero universes, which we love (we really do) beyond all rationality, regardless of how often they hurt and disappoint us, and we're ready to take another look at them. Stan Lee is able to make the most humdrum of plots, the most regular of occurrences seem like the most dramatic of turns of events. Stan Lee adores comics, and he makes everyone else adore comics too.
3) Stan Lee is a terrible writer.
If you look at any comic Stan Lee has written since about 1970, you'll find that the one inescapable truth about them is that they're really, really bad. His Silver Surfer graphic novels, his Ravage 2099 series, his Just Imagine one-shots that he did with DC (which even he said would be like Walt Disney going to work for Hanna Barbera) are all poorly dialogued and have plots which could charitably be described as paper thin. His stories, though, were only ever the framework on which he could hang his trademark character work, where he would take someone with the power of Spider-Man and put him through scenarios which would make Job give up and go home. It didn't matter if you couldn't quite bring yourself to believe that an ordinary person would speak the words Stan gave them to say. All that mattered was that you did believe that the one saying those words was an ordinary person. Stan Lee made superheroes relatable, and no amount of melodramatic, sturm und drang dialogue and convoluted plots can detract from that.
4) Stan Lee is the greatest creator of all time.
Stan Lee may not have been amazing at plotting, and his dialogue may sail perilously close to cheesy at times, but you cannot deny that Stan the Man has the biggest imagination this side of the Pecos (and if there's anyone on the other side of the Pecos who has a bigger imagination, then they need to come out and show themselves now before we hunt them down as a danger to society). Nobody else could have given life to the Hulk, Thor, the Fantastic Four, Spider-Man, the Avengers, Doctor Strange, Nick Fury, Daredevil, She-Hulk and others. Okay, there may have been others (most notably Jack Kirby, whose contribution to the creation of the classic pantheon of Marvel heroes only the most drunken idiot would seek to dispute) who had a hand in the gestation of Marvel's massive roster of heroes and villains, but the common denominator in every case is the ever-willing imagination of Stan Lee.
5) You will cry when Stan Lee dies.
I know I will. Stan is not a spring chicken, and although he's in good shape and is always gregarious and ready for a chat on any given DVD featurette, Stan Lee is 84 years old and can't keep going forever. Stan Lee was the man who made Marvel Comics from an also-ran publisher of romances, horrors and westerns into the juggernaut that could take on the might of the dominant power of the time, DC Comics. In doing so, he paved the way for other imaginative publishers to take the wheel and steer their own courses through whatever seas they wanted to sail. Stan Lee is still creating, most recently coming up with a new superhero, Foreverman, which he was (at last count, anyway) still developing for an original motion picture. Marvel even saw fit to comemmorate the man who gave life to Marvel and, in turn, the US comics industry, through an event which saw their top writers and artists produce stories in which Lee himself interacted with some of his greatest creations. Stan Lee's inventions, from Iron Man to the X-Men to Doctor Doom, will outlive him. They'll probably outlive all of us. Right now, we have Stan Lee. We won't have him for long. When Stan Lee goes, the most earnest voice crying for comics to be enjoyed will go with him. If you love comics at all, you'll cry at that.
Stan Lee is the greatest living American. Those are five reasons why. There are 4,695 more.
