How does one even try to begin introducing Stan Lee?
You really don't.
The man's name speaks for itself - the co-creator of Spider-Man, the Hulk, the X-Men, the Fantastic Four, Thor, Iron Man, Daredevil, Dr. Strange and countless others, the face of Marvel Comics for a number of years, an ambassador for the comic industry, and someone who, at one point or another, has impacted all of our lives through his accomplishments and contributions.
We all have a story for what Stan Lee has meant to us. For me, it was learning to read through Spider-Man. In fact, it was a Spider-Man coloring book - The Amazing Spider-Man "The Many Arms of Doctor Octopus" to be exact. I still have it to this day in a far less than pristine condition. However, as a kid, I loved Spider-Man, and this was the only thing I wanted to look at. On a nightly basis, my dad would open it up and tell me the story of Spidey's battle with Doc Ock, and the more he read it, the more I remembered it... the more I remembered it, the more I learned how to read it. It was our friendly neighborhood Spider-Man that had me phonetically sounding out letters and words, and I owe that to Stan Lee.
A new documentary on Stan's life - WITH GREAT POWER: THE STAN LEE STORY - is set to debut on Epix as part of their Marvel Heroes Weekend this Friday, April 27, at 8:00 p.m. EST, so, when I was offered the chance to talk to him for the premiere... well, how the hell do you say anything other than yes when it comes to talking to Stan Lee?
When the call came through from POW! Entertainment, I'd be lying if I said I wasn't both excited and nervous at the same time. After all, this is a true Geek Icon we're talking about here. But, from the moment Stan got on the phone, I can only describe it as a truly surreal experience. There's just this feeling you get while you're conversing with him that you're the only thing on his mind, that his attention and focus is solely on you. It's a bit cliché to say that he makes you feel as if you're the only person in the room with him, but that's exactly what it's like. I've heard of similar experiences from those who have had the pleasure of crossing paths with Stan Lee, and I can attest to it first-hand. Not only is there this natural charisma to him that immediately comes rushing to the surface, there's this instant connection with him that allows you to forget that you're talking to THE Stan Lee for a few minutes. He's just another fan that you're in the middle of talking with about cool things.
I tried my best to touch upon some topics that you couldn't easily find Stan's positions on via Google, so I hope you enjoy. In the end though, it was a chance to pick the brain responsible for some of comics' greatest characters, and it couldn't have gone better.
Stan Lee: So I don’t know, is it cool news or isn’t it cool news?
The Infamous Billy The Kidd: Hey, Stan. How are you today?
Stan Lee: All right, Billy. How are you?
The Kidd: I’m doing all right. I’m really excited to talk to you today.
Stan Lee: Well you should be!
The Kidd: I’m sure you get that a lot, too!
Stan Lee: All the time. (Laughs) If I don’t get it, I get angry.
The Kidd: And I’m sure you get all the time how much you mean to the comic industry and how much you have meant to people’s experiences with different characters and comics along the way. Even going into this it’s kind hard to prep for an interview, because I’m sure you’ve been asked questions a million different ways a million different times.
Stan Lee: Okay, we’ll just hang up. Nice talking to you.
The Kidd: (Laughs) Well let me try to get into a couple of different areas that hopefully you haven’t touched upon too frequently.
Stan Lee: Then I won’t be any good at it, because it wont be stuff I’ve done before and I wont have remembered it and I wont know it and you’ll see that I’m not a creative thinker, I can only repeat things I’ve already said.
The Kidd: During the Marvel age of comics you’ve given credit to a lot of people who collaborated with you on creating these different characters, especially in the 60s where you kind of had new heroes coming out like every single year that are still going strong today. At the time did you kind of realize how special it was what you were doing?
Stan Lee: Oh no. If I had realized that, I would have taken all of the credit for it myself.
[Both Laugh]
Stan Lee: Hey, you’ve got to say “He said that with a laugh” or I’m going to sound like a horrible person.
The Kidd: (Laughs) Absolutely. I’m sure you’ve been asked countless times which of the characters ranks as your favorite and I know there’s a lot of Spider-Man, that people have said that you are in as far as the character and what he means and the morality of it, but are there any characters in particular over the years that you wish would have done better than some of the more known ones? Ones that kind of… you didn’t understand why they weren’t as got as you thought they might have been?
Stan Lee: The funny thing is we could have made almost any characters “the most popular” if we worked hard on them, but we were only able to concentrate on a few. For example, I think Dr. Strange could have been much bigger if we just spent more time and promoted him more, but we were busy promoting the others. It’s the same with the Silver Surfer. I think he could have been much bigger if we concentrated more on him. We just didn’t have the time.
The Kidd: When you became more or less the face of Marvel you had to hand off these characters and these stories to other people who I’m sure you trusted to continue the work, but how difficult is it to kind of hand off your baby to other people for the furtherment of the company?
Stan Lee: Well it was difficult, because I knew once I gave it to another writer it would change, everything would change a little bit, because it’s natural. No writer writes exactly like another writer, just like hardly any artist draws exactly like another artist. But I expected there would be changes and that’s why I tried to get the best writers I could, because whatever changes they made would be intelligent changes and a writer can always do best if he writes in his own style the way he wants to write. If writers had to simply imitate what I did letter for letter and word for word and emotion for emotion, we wouldn’t get the best work out of them.
The Kidd: Let me ask you a little bit about he state of the comic book industry now, because everything’s changed with it going much more digital. A lot of the comic stores have been closing down. Sales aren’t what they used to be… Where are comics headed? Where do you think the next step is to kind of keep the industry alive and strong for collectors and fans?
Stan Lee: Well I think the industry will always exist. I think there will always be print versions of books, but you’re quite right. Instead of it being 100% the print version medium, now it’s digital. Now you get it on your iPhone, you get it on anything. You get it on your iPad. You’ll be getting it mentally one day, probably. (Laughs) It’s fun to just follow all of these things that are happening. We are going to get comics that move. It’s going to become, as time goes by, the digital comics will find ways to animate them a little bit, then they will find ways to animate them a lot without spending a fortune on it, then the readers will have a chance to move the characters around themselves. It will become interactive. The more the technology increases and gets so sophisticated, comics and everything else… It’s not just comics, everything will go along with it. We are really in the middle of such a change in our culture with the coming of the iPhone and the iPad and the computer and the ability of the reader to interact with the material that he’s reading, that it’s hard to predict what it will be like five or ten years from now.
The Kidd: Comics really caught this second wind once Hollywood figured out actually how to make films based on all of these properties. Once the X Men and Spiderman kind of hit, then for the few years after that movies were being made about only comics. It seemed like everything or every character that was ever in a comic kind of got its own film, which is a far departure from what it was years earlier. Were you kind of surprised that they were able to finally “crack the code” on to how to do comics well for the fans and just the masses and do it right?
Stan Lee: No, I’m not surprised at all. I’m surprised it took this long. One of the reasons it took so long is we had to wait until the technology got to the point where we could do the special effects so they wouldn’t look corny, but now there are many good writers and good directors in the business and there have been some super hero movies that were made that weren’t great, but they are learning how to make them just like we learned how to make good comic books and the more we learned, the better the movies are going to get. I think that these superhero movies are going to become the biggest tentpoles for years to come. I mean a movie like THE AVENGERS, just wait until that opens up and see what happens.
The Kidd: I can’t wait for it to open up. Where did the idea come from for you to make these cameos in the Marvel films? Now it’s like a Hitchcock thing, it’s to be expected and kind of anticipated, like “Where is Stan Lee going to make his appearance?” For the first one, which I think was for X MEN, where did that idea come from to get you…
Stan Lee: Actually that idea came from Bryan Singer. He asked me if I would be in the background selling hot dogs or whatever I was doing and you know me, I can’t say no to anything. I thought that would be fun and after that I think the next one might have been in SPIDER-MAN, I don’t remember, and Sam Raimi asked me to do that and then I started knocking on doors “Hey, you doing a movie. How about me doing a cameo in this one?” (Laughs) Now I love it, I mean I get angry if I don’t get a cameo. I was frustrated when I wasn’t in the last X MEN, but they shot it I think in Australia or somewhere and it was too far away for me to go. So now I keep hoping they shoot all of the movie nearby, so I can have a cameo. I think the funniest thing, the coolest thing in the world would be when they shoot the BATMAN movie, if they asked me to do a cameo, but I don’t expect that to happen.
The Kidd: (Laughs) You’ve been in the industry for a long time and your influence is pretty clear, have you had a chance to look back on your legacy and how you’d like to be remembered period over the course of the comic book history?
Stan Lee: I really don’t have time to think about that much. Actually someone made a documentary about me, which it’s a little bit embarrassing, because it makes me out to be much better than I am and the documentary will open up pretty soon, but I keep so busy. I like to think of what I’ll do tomorrow rather than what I did yesterday. By the way, my assistant Mike is telling me I’ve got another interview on the phone and I’ve got to close this one now.
The Kidd: Okay.
Stan Lee: Hey, we can do this again some time. Call me when you get some time.
The Kidd: Absolutely. I look forward to it.
Stan Lee: All right. Good talking to you.
The Kidd: All right, thank you very much.
Stan Lee: Right. Bye.
Stan Lee, ladies and gentlemen. What more can I possibly say?
WITH GREAT POWER: THE STAN LEE STORY premieres on Epix this Friday, April 27 at 8:00 p.m.
-Billy Donnelly
"The Infamous Billy The Kidd"
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