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Buh Bye, Stan Lee

Posted: Mon Nov 12, 2018 4:57 pm
by Pandemonium
Marvel Comics co-creator Stan Lee passed away today at the ripe ol' age of 95.

One positive thing to note was Lee got to see (and participate in) his pulp comic book characters grow into what could be considered today's popular folk hero mythology, unlike many of his co-creators, notably Jack Kirby. On the less positive side, Lee had a number of people "managing" his affairs in his last few years that were unquestionably not acting in his best interests. There were reports that even last Summer, his handlers were still trucking him out to comic conventions to do all-day signings (he'd sign *anything*) when he was clearly not in good enough health to deal with that sort of thing. And millions disappeared from his accounts to the point there was speculation he was on the verge of going broke.

Being an old geezer myself, I grew up on Marvel Comics in the mid-late 60's so I caught much of the golden age of Lee's tenure as it unfolded. I can absolutely related to what celebs like Gene Simmons and Kevin Smith have said about how Lee's stories and overall attitude played a large part in positively shaping young kids core values.

The world is a little more diminished today.

Re: Buh Bye, Stan Lee

Posted: Mon Nov 12, 2018 11:14 pm
by crater
One more childhood hero of mine gone :wavesad:

Re: Buh Bye, Stan Lee

Posted: Tue Nov 13, 2018 8:23 am
by Hype
Sucks, but he had about as good a run as anyone could have.

Re: Buh Bye, Stan Lee

Posted: Thu Nov 15, 2018 1:39 pm
by chaos
Here is a link to an interview Stan Lee had with Terri Gross back in 1991. (There is also a transcript.) https://www.npr.org/templates/transcrip ... =667476595

Below are a few interesting/amusing excerpts:
STAN LEE: Before I came up with the name Spider-Man, I had decided I wanted a superhero who could crawl on walls, stick to the ceiling and so forth. And I said, gee, that's a real insect power. What'll I call him? And my first thought was insect man, and that just didn't do it for me at all. And then I thought, well, let's see. There's a mosquito man.
...
LEE: And so I had fun with the sound effects. As far as the alliterative names, most of our characters had alliterative names. There was Peter Parker and Bruce Banner and Reed Richards. And I had a very pragmatic reason for doing that. I have a terrible memory, always did. And it was difficult for me to remember the names of my characters. But by having the same first letter for a - if I could remember the Peter, it gave me a clue that the last name also began with P. And I would eventually remember it was Parker, you see. So it made it easier for me to remember the names by giving them the same first letter.

GROSS: So Stan Lee, maybe one last thing you can clear up for me before we have to say goodbye - your birth name is Stanley Lieberman.
...
LEE: I was born Stanley Martin Lieber, which is a very, I think, lovely, normal name. And as I said, I wanted to write the great American novel. And when I got working in a comic book company, I said, I'm not going to use my name for these silly comics. So I - you know, I was 17. And when you're 17, you don't know that much. I thought, I need a pen name. And I made up the name Stan Lee. And I started using it. And what happened was everybody, as the years went by, started to know me as Stan Lee, and nobody knew me anymore as Stanley Lieber.

So I would go to buy something and tell them to charge it, and they wanted to see my identification. I said, charge it as Stan Lee. But I had to show them my driver's license, which said Stanley Lieber. And it got so complicated that I finally legally changed my name to Stan Lee, which was a dumb thing to do because Stan Lee is such a stupid name. And people always say to me, Stan Lee, what? So I'm thinking of changing my name now to Stan Lee What.

Re: Buh Bye, Stan Lee

Posted: Thu Nov 15, 2018 4:25 pm
by SR
I missed the comic book thing in my childhood, entirely. That said, the last 2 decades of the non stop oversaturation of superhero/comic con stuff has been really confusing with just a few exceptions. But a lot of people I admire and follow on IG have expressed heartfelt remorse with the news. By that, I came upon this. Seems like a badass good guy.
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