Author of the Month: Stan Lee

[Arctic]

ok so hopefully this one will be more up everyone's alley.

Stan Lee, master of the comic universe. heap your praise here. what's so great about this guy anyway? what's your favorite thing he's done? thoughts on how the newly release film X2 differs from the source material?

[Doom]

The guy's a god. He's invented millions of characters, and about 3/4 are still around today. He revolutionized the comics medium, which is now finally taking to the theatre. His creations are beautiful, especially with Romita Sr, Kane, Kirby and the like.

[Arctic]

how about Stan Lee as the creator of modern day mythology?

are Stan Lee's comic creations comparable to Roman, Greek, Norse, Celtic, or Asian gods and goddesses? How much influence do you think the ancient myths had on characters like spiderman, the hulk, or the x-men? were the characters a separate creation altogether?

[Doom]

I never really looked at that. I suppose they have likenesses, but I prefer to think they are all separate creations in themselves. Except for Thor of course.

[Ranthium]

are Stan Lee's comic creations comparable to Roman, Greek, Norse, Celtic, or Asian gods and goddesses?

I don't think his characters are in the same sort of league. The "Gods" were generally created to give an understanding of why things were they way they were and why stuff happens to mankind.

Stan Lee's characters are more like, what if a radioactive spider bit a guy and gave him spider like powers.... would that be cool? Both are entertaining, but in a different type of way. One is clearly fiction, where as the other may have been a belief structure.

On the other hand both have surely influenced the cultures that they arose in. So who can say for certain.

[Josh]

I think the basic idea behind comic characters is still the same as those gods though. Beings more powerful than "normal" humans with more control over our destinies than we have. Intersting idea, probably lots of merit to it. I'm sure there are case studies written by smart people. Boring to read, but interesting to consider.

On Stan Lee personally... the guy is a total dork. I really love him. I love those damn dorky intros he used to do to Marvel Cartoons... right True Believers!

He's a dork, and gives me warm fuzzy feelings every time I see him :) Big part of any geek-kids childhood.

[Arctic]

sort of off topic...but an x-men tarot deck would be really cool. i have a deck based on the greek gods, so if that works, there must be a way to incorporate the x-men just as well.

anyhow. carry-on.

[MartyRotten]

Originally posted by Doom
The guy's a god. He's invented millions of characters, and about 3/4 are still around today. He revolutionized the comics medium, which is now finally taking to the theatre. His creations are beautiful, especially with Romita Sr, Kane, Kirby and the like.

Of course, depending on who you believe, much of the actual creative work came from Kirby and Ditko and several other artists and writers. Kirby actually had much more input to the characters he worked on then Stan did. In fact all Stan did mostly was punch up the dialgoue (admittiedly a weak point with Kirby, although he'd often change the whole story, much to Kirby's chagrin) Stan himself once admitted that with Jack Kirby he didnt' need to give him a whole lot of input. "ALl I"ll have to tell him is 'Put Doctor Doom in it' and sometiems He'll even tell ME what the next issue's about."

So how much input DID Lee actually have? The controversey continues.