WHAT DID STAN LEE DO DURING WORLD WAR II

A Fact-Filled, Frequently Asked Question by Stan Fans Everywhere!

Pearl Harbor brought the war to America. Winning hinged on creating an interlocked infrastructure to support the troops. Businesses of all sizes rallied to the cause. Democracy hung in the balance!

Although still a teenager, Stan Lee enlisted on November 9, 1942, just as the US faced its first skirmish on the coast of North Africa. He took the Army General Classification Test and scored high, qualifying for the Signal Corps.

The war was good for comic books. In 1943 more than 140 were on newsstands, reportedly “read by over fifty million people each month.” In 1944, Fawcett’s Captain Marvel Adventures sold 14 million copies (up 21 percent). Superhero titles drove sales, but publishers also expanded into humor, funny animals, and teen romance. Captain America remained Timely’s most popular series.

“How would you like my job?” Lee asked his friend Vince Fago.

Veteran animator Fago had worked on Superman and Popeye for Fleischer Studios. Battling with Disney, Max Fleischer’s shop differed by focusing on human characters, such as Betty Boop and Koko the Clown, rather than talking mice, ducks, and other anthropomorphic figures. Martin Goodman paid Fago $250 a week.

The fighting overseas was heavy stuff; readers yearned for lighter comedic fare. Fago specialized in funny animals, so Timely used Disney as a model, essentially transforming into Disney-lite. They published amusing animal tales, such as Comedy Comics and Joker Comics. Lee had concocted some of these characters, like Ziggy Pig and Silly Seal (co-created with artist Al Jaffee, the future Mad magazine illustrator). Fago estimated that each comic had a print run of about 500,000. “Sometimes we’d put out five books a week or more,” Fago remembered. “You’d see the numbers come back and could tell that Goodman was a millionaire.”

Goodman also wanted to gain female readers. Miss America, a teenage heiress who gained superhuman strength and the ability to fly after being struck by lightning, first appeared in Marvel Mystery Comics #49 (November 1943), with Human Torch and Toro on the cover thwarting a Japanese battleship. In January 1944, Miss America became a title character. However, when sales dropped, the next issue was delayed until November, publishing as Miss America Magazine #2. A real-life model portrayed the character in her superhero outfit. For the relaunch, Fago and his team gradually eliminated superhero material in favor of topics deemed more appropriate for teen girls.

***

Lee went through basic training at Fort Monmouth, an enormous base in New Jersey that housed the Signal Corps. It also served as a research center – radar was developed there and the handheld walkie-talkie. In subsequent years, they would learn to bounce radio waves off the moon.

Stan Lee with his beat-up jalopy

Stan learned how to string and repair communications lines – a path to combat duty (like his former boss Jack Kirby). Army strategists knew wars were often won by infrastructure – the Signal Corps kept communications flowing, but they could barely keep up with demand. Other training centers opened at Camp Crowder, Missouri, and Camp Kohler, near Sacramento. By mid-1943, the Corps’ consisted of 27,000 officers and 287,000 enlisted men, backed by another 50,000 civilians.

Pearl Harbor heightened concern that German subs or planes might mount a surprise attack during the cold New Jersey winter. Lee patrolled the base perimeter, claiming the frigid wind whipping off the Atlantic nearly froze him to death.

The beachfront burden ended when Lee’s superior officers discovered his work in publishing. They placed him in a special outfit producing instructional films and other wartime materials. Lee wrote fast and in a breezy style that recruits and trainees could comprehend.

The Army liked these traits too. At the Training Film Division, based in Astoria, Queens, he joined eight other artists, filmmakers, and writers to create public relations pieces, propaganda materials, and information-sharing documents. Education was critical for the war effort. Imagine, millions of young Americans were enlisting and they collectively had about an eighth grade education. They needed to learn how to fire machine guns, run offices, and build bridges, barracks, and other essentials necessary to win the war. They needed training materials that they could understand and put to immediate use.

The Army purchased a large building flanked by rows of tall, narrow windows at 35th Avenue and 35th Street. Colonel Melvin E. Gillette commanded the efforts. Inside the Army built the largest soundstage on the East Coast, enabling filmmakers to create a variety of military settings and scenes. The old movie studio (built in 1919) soon rivaled the major Hollywood production companies.

Prop department at the Long Island facility

“I wrote training films, I wrote film scripts, I did posters, I wrote instructional manuals,” Lee said. “I was one of the great teachers of our time!” The Signal Corps group included many famous or soon-to-be-famous individuals, including three-time Academy-award winning director Frank Capra, New Yorker cartoonist Charles Addams, and children’s book writer and illustrator Theodor Geisel, who the world already knew as “Dr. Seuss.” The stories that must have floated around during staff meetings!

Lee took up a desk in the scriptwriter bullpen, to the right of eminent author William Saroyan – at least when the pacifist author visited the office. Saroyan, who had won a Pulitzer Prize (but rejected it) for his play The Time of Your Life (1939), usually worked from a Manhattan hotel. Lee and the others, including screenwriter Ivan Goff and producer Hunt Stromberg Jr., earned the official Army military occupation specialty designation: “playwright.”

As home front efforts intensified, Lee traveled to other bases, essentially crisscrossing the Southeast and Midwest. Each base had a critical need for easy-to-understand manuals, films, and public relations documents. Stan wrote about using combat cameras, caring for weapons, and other topics he knew little about. In these situations, he utilized a familiar motto – simplify the information. “I often wrote entire training manuals in the form of comic books. It was an excellent way of educating and communicating.”

One post took Lee to Fort Benjamin Harrison in Indiana, just northeast of Indianapolis – a jarring locale for a New York City native who had not ventured outside the city. He worked with the Army Finance Department, which struggled to keep up with payrolls. Watching the wannabee-accountants march, Lee noticed they lacked vigor. He penned a song for them, inserting new lyrics over the famous “Air Force Song.” The peppy tune included memorable lines, like “We write, compute, sit tight, don’t shoot,” but it improved morale.

Stan used humor to help the men absorb the complex procedures. “I rewrote dull army payroll manuals to make them simpler,” Lee remembered. “I established a character called Fiscal Freddy who was trying to get paid. I made a game out of it. I had a few little gags. We were able to shorten the training period of payroll officers by more than 50 percent.” He joked: “I think I won the war single-handedly.”

“I rewrote dull army payroll manuals to make them simpler. I established a character called Fiscal Freddy who was trying to get paid. I made a game out of it. I had a few little gags. We were able to shorten the training period of payroll officers by more than 50 percent...I think I won the war single-handedly.”

— Stan Lee

Lee moved to another project, calling it “my all-time strangest assignment,” creating anti-venereal disease posters aimed at troops in Europe. Sexually transmitted diseases had plagued armies throughout history. American leaders considered the effort deadly serious. Despite implementing extensive education campaigns, the military still lost men to syphilis and gonorrhea. The British – less willing to confront the taboo epidemic – had 40,000 men a month being treated for VD during the Italian campaign.

Military leaders went to extreme measures to thwart STDs, including the creation of propaganda posters showing Hitler, Mussolini, and Tojo deliberately plotting to disable Allied troops via disease. Many of these images, such as the ones famously created by artist Arthur Szyk, depicted the Axis leaders as subhuman animals, with rat-like features or as ugly buffoons.

Unsure how to combat the scourge, Lee promoted the prophylactic stations set up by the armed forces. Men visited the huts when they thought they were infected, which involved a series of rough and painful treatments. “Those little pro stations dotted the landscape,” Stan said, “with small green lights above the entrance to make them easily recognizable.” He wrestled with different taglines, ultimately hitting upon the simplest: “VD? Not me!”

Lee illustrated the poster with a cartoon image of a happy serviceman walking into the station, the green light clearly visible. Army leaders liked its simplicity and flooded bases with the posters. Ironically, the print may have ranked among Lee’s most-seen, yet also the most roundly ignored.

According to lore, the other “playwrights” couldn’t keep up with Stan, forcing the commanding officer to order him to slow down. While it is difficult to quantify the importance of the films, posters, photos, and training aids the Signal Corps produced, analysts determined they cut training time by 30 percent. Signal Corps efforts also provided from 30 percent to 50 percent of newsreel footage for movie theaters, which kept the public informed. Lee, Capra, Geisel, and the other Army “playwrights” did vital work.

Lee used downtime to keep his fingers dipped in Timely ink and his pockets filled with Goodman’s money as a freelance writer. With the extra money, Stan purchased his first automobile for $20 – a 1936 Plymouth with a fold-up windshield. Stationed near Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, the unique windshield allowed the warm Southern air to blow in his face as he cruised the back roads of tobacco country.

No matter where the Army sent him, Lee received letters outlining stories from Fago every Friday. Stan then typed up the scripts, sending them back on Monday. In addition to working on comics, Lee also helped out with the pulps. He wrote cartoon captions for Read! magazine, including this short ditty in January 1943: “A buzz-saw can cut you in two / A machinegun can drill you right thru / But these things are tame, compared— / To what a woman can do!” The accompanying drawing shows a plump woman feeding her bald husband – chained to a doghouse. The ribald humor fit within Goodman’s magazines, filled with sexist overtones and racy photographs.

Stan also wrote mystery-with-a-twist-ending short stories, similar to the ones in Captain America. In “Only the Blind Can See” (Joker, 1943-1944), the gag is on the reader, who eventually realizes a supposedly blind panhandler (assumed a phony) was telling the truth. Written in second person so Lee can speak directly to the reader (addressed as “Buddy”), one learns that the down-on-his-luck beggar had been too prideful. The truth comes to light when a speeding car hits the blind man. These short stories served as training for the science fiction and monster comic books that Lee would write after the war.

Stan’s afterhours writing for Timely went largely unnoticed by his superiors, but once got him arrested (in typical Lee madcap fashion). One Friday a bored mail clerk overlooked Stan’s letter, reporting an empty mailbox. Lee swung by the closed mailroom on Saturday and spied a letter in his cubby – with the Timely return address.        

Fearful of missing a deadline, Lee asked the officer in charge for the letter. The harried officer told Lee to worry about the mail on Monday. Angry, Stan used a screwdriver to gently loosen the hinges and freeing the missive. When he realized what Lee did, the mailroom supervisor went berserk, reporting him to the base captain. They charged Lee with mail tampering and threatened to throw him in Leavenworth prison. Luckily, the colonel in charge of the Finance Department intervened. In this instance, Fiscal Freddy really did save the day!

***

Stan’s signature and a quick roll of his ink-stained thumb across the Army discharge papers made it official – in late September 1945 Sergeant Lee returned to civilian life. Practically before the ink dried, the 23-year old roared off base. His new black Buick convertible had hot red leather seats, flashy whitewall tires, and shiny hubcaps – a noticeable upgrade from the battered, $20 Plymouth.

Lee received a $200 bonus (called “muster out pay”), given to soldiers so they could jumpstart their post-military lives. Half went into a savings account and Lee pocketed the rest. The Army had allotted him $42.12 to get back to New York City from Camp Atterbury in central Indiana, about 50 miles south Fort Harrison.

Excited to get back to the Big Apple, Stan joked that he “burned my uniform, hopped into my car, and made it non-stop back to New York in possibly the same speed as the Concorde!” The editor desk awaited in the new headquarters on the fourteenth floor of the Empire State Building. Lee zoomed off on the 700-mile trip to the Big Apple.

Stan Lee: A Life by biographer and cultural historian Bob Batchelor

UNMASKING STAN LEE: FROM SUPERHEROES TO CULTURE IN 10 PIVOTAL MOMENTS -- GREAT LIVES LECTURE SERIES AT UNIVERSITY OF MARY WASHINGTON

“Stan Lee: Spider-Man and Marvel Comics” — February 22, 2024

The Yuh Prosthodontics Lecture

William B. Crawley Great Lives Lecture Series

Biographical Approaches to History and Culture begins its third decade with a program on January 16, 2024. The schedule includes a total of 18 programs, running through March 28.

Bob Batchelor lecture on Stan Lee at University of Mary Washington

Join cultural historian Bob Batchelor on an exhilarating journey into the extraordinary life of Stan Lee, an icon whose legacy is as epic as the superheroes he co-created. Renowned for film cameos as the Marvel movie franchise conquered the world, Lee would have been 101 today, providing the perfect moment to delve into his profound impact on contemporary America and global culture.

Batchelor presents Lee’s life in 10 pivotal moments, each encapsulating an era of modern history. From the Roaring Twenties to the Great Depression, the American Century to the twenty-first century, his journey mirrors the sweeping narrative of the nation itself. Lee’s vision and creative genius revolutionized pop culture, introducing us to superheroes that were as complex and fallible as their creator (and all of us).

Experience the highs and lows, drama and humor of Lee’s life via a narrative that not only explores a cultural visionary, but also uncovers the heart of a man who dreamed of writing the Great American Novel and, in the process, rewrote the script of global pop culture. This is the story of Stan Lee, a true American icon, whose legacy continues to entertain and inspire generations around the world. Excelsior!

BRIEF BIO

A 3-time winner of the Independent Press Book Award, cultural historian Bob Batchelor has been hailed as “one of the greatest non-fiction writers and storytellers” by New York Times bestselling biographer Brian Jay Jones. His books examine modern popular culture icons, events, and topics, from comic books and music to literary figures and history’s outlaws.

By day, Bob is a diversity, equity, and inclusion advocate and ally at The Diversity Movement, a Raleigh DEI consultancy. By night, he is the author of 14 books, editor of 19 books, and has been published in a dozen languages. He is best known as biographer of Marvel icon Stan Lee, having written 3 books on him and numerous essays and chapters, one on Spider-Man appearing in Time.

An interdisciplinary writer, Bob has published books on Jim Morrison and the Doors, Bob Dylan, The Great Gatsby, Mad Men, and John Updike, among others. He wrote an award-winning illustrated history of Rookwood Pottery, the revolutionary company that became one of the great art potteries in the world, and The Bourbon King: The Life and Crimes of George Remus, Prohibition’s Evil Genius, a rollicking tale of the infamous bootleg baron, as widely known in the Roaring Twenties as Warren G. Harding and Babe Ruth.

Bob’s work has appeared or been featured in the New York Times, Cincinnati Enquirer, Los Angeles Times, and PopMatters. He created the podcast “John Updike: American Writer, American Life” and “Tales of the Bourbon King: The Life and True Crimes of George Remus.” He has appeared as an on-air commentator for The National Geographic Channel, PBS NewsHour, PBS, the BBC, and NPR. Bob hosted “TriState True Crime” on WCPO’s Cincy Lifestyle television show.

Bob earned his doctorate in American Literature from the University of South Florida and an M.A. in History from Kent State University after graduating from the University of Pittsburgh. He has taught at universities in Florida, Ohio, and Pennsylvania, as well as Vienna, Austria. Bob and his wife, antiques and vintage expert Suzette Percival live in North Carolina and have two wonderful teenage daughters.

STANLEY LIEBER BECOMES STAN LEE AND "MR. TIMELY COMICS"

How Does Stan Lee Get into Comic Books? A Stroke of Luck or Something Else?

Stanley Lieber uses the pseudonym “Stan Lee” in his first published story!

Rising up to his feet and towering over a messy desktop with drawings strewn haphazardly about and correspondence littering every square inch, Timely Comics head writer and editorial director Joe Simon reached out his hand to welcome his new young assistant. Cigar smoke is thick in the room as Simon’s big hand comes at the teenager sitting in front of him.

Still a little dizzy from getting the job, Stanley Leiber vigorously pumped the older man’s hand – A steady paycheck…He would make eight dollars a week! He had recently graduated from high school, the DeWitt Clinton Class of 1939.

For a young man struggling to find full-time work, the pay meant that he might help the family regain its footing. They had been reeling since his father Jack couldn’t find work in the dressmaking industry throughout the tough years of the Great Depression. The job gave the teenager security and a shot to prove himself in writing and publishing. Words appealed to the boy—always had.

Stanley dreamed of one day writing the Great American Novel.

But in this new job, Stanley had to start at the bottom. He plied away as an office boy for Simon and the other full-time Timely Comics employee – artist and writer Jack Kirby. Little more than an assistant, some days he refilled Kirby and Simon’s inkwells. He had the mammoth task to get the two men sandwiches while the duo concocted new superhero stories.

Lieber worked with enthusiasm, even if he spent hours sweeping floors or erasing stray pencil marks on finished pages to prep them for publication. The youngster achieved his primary goal – simply finding a permanent position. He watched and learned from two of the industry’s budding stars.

More importantly, Stanley had a job! His father’s fate would not befall him. He set off on a career.

The Timely Job at Timely Comics…And a Mystery!

Many episodes in Stanley’s early life are shrouded in uncertainty. How the teenager bounded from Clinton High School to Simon and Kirby’s assistant at Timely involves both a bit of mystery and a touch of mythmaking.

There are several versions of his Timely Comics origin story. One account begins with his mother Celia. Clearly she put her hopes in her oldest son, particularly since her faith in her husband nearly led the family to ruin.

Here we have Celia telling Stanley about a job opening at a publishing company where her brother Robbie worked. Without delay, the young high school grad shows up at the McGraw-Hill building on West 42nd Street, but knows little about the company or comic books. With Robbie’s prodding, Simon explains the business and how comic books are made. He then offers the teen a job. Basically, he and Kirby are so frantic and overworked, particularly with their new hit Captain America, that they just need someone (anyone, really) to provide an extra set of hands.

Robbie Solomon is also at the center of a different account (here the main player), essentially a conduit between Simon and owner Martin Goodman. In addition to being Celia Lieber’s brother, Robbie married the publisher’s sister Sylvia. Goodman surrounded himself with family members, despite the imperious tone he took with everyone who worked for him. Receiving Robbie’s stamp of approval (and the familial tie) made the boy’s hire fait accompli. Simon, then, despite what he may or may not have thought of the boy, basically had to take Leiber on. “His entire publishing empire was a family business,” explained historians Blake Bell and Michael J. Vassallo. Solomon had a strange job – a kind of in-house spy who ratted out employees not working hard enough or playing fast and loose with company rules.

While the family connection tale is credible and plays into the general narrative of Goodman’s extensive nepotism, Lee offered a different perspective, making it more of a coincidence. “I was fresh out of high school,” he recalled, “I wanted to get into the publishing business, if I could.” Rather than being led by Robbie, Lee explained: “There was an ad in the paper that said, ‘Assistant Wanted in a Publishing House.’” This alternative version calls into question Lee’s early move into publishing – and throwing up for grabs the date as either 1940, which is usually listed as the year of his hiring, or 1939, as he later implied.

Lieber may have not known much about comic books, but he recognized publishing as a viable option for someone with his skills. He knew that he could write, but had no way of really gauging his creative talents. Although Goodman was a cousin by marriage, he did not have much interaction with his younger relative, so it wasn’t as if Goodman purposely brought Lieber into the firm. No one will ever really know how much of a wink and nod Solomon gave Simon or if Goodman even knew about the hiring, though the kid remembered the publisher being surprised the first time he saw him in the building.

The teen, though bright, talented, and hard working, needed a break. His early tenure at Timely Comics served as a kind of extended apprenticeship or on-the-job training at comic book university. Lieber was earnest in learning from Simon and Kirby as they scrambled to create content. Since they were known for working fast, the teen witnessed firsthand how two of the industry’s greatest talents functioned. The lessons he learned set the foundation for his own career as a writer and editor, as well as a manager of other highly talented individuals.

Stan Lee: A Life, by award-winning historian Bob Batchelor

WHY A BIOGRAPHY OF STAN LEE?

My Personal Journey: Marvel Comics, Electric Company, and Reading

Stan Lee: A Life by Bob Batchelor, celebrating the 100-year history of the iconic creative force!

My criteria for who or what to write about as a biographer and cultural historian is a mix of a.) personal interest, and b.) impact the person or group has had on culture. Clearly, Stan Lee fits.

When thinking about possible topics, I wanted to find an iconic figure whose life and work had influenced countless millions of people. There are many people who fit this description, but back in 2014 and 2015 when I was thinking about who, the possibilities were not endless. Many figures had biographies written about them or had covered their own territory via autobiography or memoir. Others I didn’t find interesting enough — personally — to want to spend five or more years with: from research to writing to publication to marketing to more marketing, etc. Taking on a biography is a LONG process of essentially getting inside another human being’s skin (and letting them in yours in some strange way), so commitment is fundamental.

When Stephen Ryan, then editor at Rowman & Littlefield, suggested Stan, he seemed a natural subject to explore in a full-scale biography. And, of course, I am a lifelong Marvel and Lee fan, so I felt I had some insight into his life at the outset.

The popularity of the Marvel film universe had rekindled Lee’s global popularity. Ironically, though, when I interviewed self-professed Marvel and Lee fans, what I realized is that most didn’t know much about him (and much of what they thought they knew wasn’t the whole story).

What could I add to the body of knowledge about Lee? I figured my best bet would be to write a biography deeply steeped in archival research that provided an objective portrait that would give readers insight and analysis into Lee’s life and career. Multi-archival research had been the training I received as a historian, so I went to the Stan Lee Archives at the American Heritage Center at the University of Wyoming. I searched out information at the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library and Museum, a wonderful space at Ohio State University.

The research provided a deeply nuanced view of Lee’s work that I then conveyed to the reader. This commitment to the research and uncovering the “man behind the myth” became the driving force of the initial book, published in late 2017, titled Stan Lee: The Man Behind Marvel.

In looking at a person’s life, especially one as long as Lee’s, context and historical analysis provides the depth necessary to create a compelling picture. For example, Lee grew up during the Great Depression and his family struggled mightily. I saw strains of this experience at play throughout his life that I then emphasized and discussed. As a cultural historian, my career is built around analyzing context and nuance, so that drive to uncover a person’s life within their times is at the heart of the narrative.

Another important element in writing about Lee was to really give a thorough going-over of his life and experiences as an editor of comic books. Stripping away the film cameos, the fame, and the self-created “comic book man” persona, I felt it was Lee’s work as an editor, art director, production manager, writer, and boss that had not been fully explored.

Stan Lee greeting the adoring crowd at a comic book convention

What I Hoped to Accomplish

In the initial biography and the two that followed — Stan Lee: A Life and Stan Lee: The Man Behind Marvel, Young Adult Edition — what the reader gets is multi-archival research and deep engagement with contemporary American history. Basically, I wanted to write a biography that is based on archival research, but written for general fans and readers. The books explore Lee’s rise as a kind of fulfillment of the American dream, from near-poverty in Depression-era New York City to the comic book industry’s iconic visionary, a man who created (with talented artists) many of history’s most legendary characters.

The books look at how Lee capitalized on natural talent and hard work to become the editor of Marvel Comics as a teenager. After toiling in the industry for decades, Lee threw caution to the wind and went for broke, co-creating the Fantastic Four, Spider-Man, Hulk, Iron Man, the X-Men, the Avengers, and others in a creative flurry that revolutionized comic books for generations of readers. Marvel superheroes became a central part of pop culture, from people who began collecting comics to the company’s innovative merchandising, from superhero action figures to the ever-present Spider-Man lunchbox.

 My biographies of Lee examine many of his most beloved works, including the 1960s comics that transformed Marvel from a second-rate company to a legendary publisher. What I hoped to show is that Lee took risks to bring the characters to life. Of course, he didn’t do it alone, and the battle over who did what and when has led comic book historians and others to draw battle lines that are hard and fast. What I wanted to demonstrate, though, was that it took Lee’s tireless efforts to make comic books and superheroes part of mainstream culture.

The biographies not only reveal why Lee developed into such a central figure in American entertainment history, but explores the cultural significance of comic books and how the superhero genre reflects ideas central to the American experience.

Personal Journey

As mentioned earlier, personal interest is critical for a biographer. If you believe eminent author Jerome Charyn, who exclaims, “Every book is really about me,” then you’ll understand the connection between subject and writer. Essentially, an author is asking, “From my lived experience and mental map, what can I add to this story that is uniquely from my perspective?” This thought is often discussed in the work of Carl Rollyson, in my opinion the “dean” of biography for his work as a biographer and biography theorist.

My personal experience certainly led to my interest in writing about Lee and Marvel — now stretching to more than nine years of research, writing, talking about, and thinking about the iconic figure. But, my personal interest dwarfs my professional interest.

At around four years-old, I taught myself to read so that I could “understand” Spider-Man comic books. I remember really needing to make sense of the words, which struck me so much more than the images and art. And, this later played a role in my thinking as I met and talked to artists and people who love art over text in comic books. I think that some people are “words” people and some are “art.” I am clearly about the words, so this ability to read comic books meant so much more to me than the pictures. I never thought twice about who drew comic books, but I did attempt to make a connection between the words and how they played out on the page.

Another perspective came from watching the Electric Company on PBS (back when there were literally only a handful of channels to choose from). “Spidey’s Super Stories” were live-action skits featuring the web-slinger and I lived for those spots. The vignettes debuted in 1974, so the timeline (when I look back on it now), fits with my Gen X youth.

This is the skeleton of my five decades-plus relationship with Stan Lee, Marvel, and particularly Spider-Man. I am so proud of the three Lee biographies and believe strongly that Stan himself would be happy to know they exist. And, who know…maybe there is another Lee biography or book with Stan as a central figure still left in me…as Rollyson says, “The answer to one biography is another biography.”

Happy 100th Birthday Celebration for Marvel Legend Stan Lee

Stan Lee as Artist and Producer — The Man “Behind” Marvel’s Success

Stan Lee: A Life by cultural historian Bob Batchelor

Stan Lee had been working in the comic book industry for decades before the successes of the 1960s. Lee’s most important lessons from those first two-plus decades in comic book publishing were about how to manage a business, the seemingly simple on paper, but difficult in practice nature of running a company.

Comic book publishing was not for the meek – governed by relentless deadlines in an era before technology made many of the processes more efficient. While not trained in business, Lee became a manager, which gave him insider perspective into the machinations of the industry, particularly in contrast to the artist or writer view that is solely on their specific creation. From an enterprise perspective, Lee learned everything that would enable him to re-launch Marvel in the early 1960s, ultimately overseeing the company as it became a force in comic books and later, American popular culture as a whole.

Yet, if we were just discussing Lee as an editor and manager of Marvel, the story would be truncated. Of course, he was also a creator, as were so many of the early comic book artists and writers, more or less forced into developing managerial acumen, because, well someone had to run the business side. What emerged in Lee as a result of the melding of the business and creative parts of his work life was a keen sense of responsibility. He had to nurture the artistic aspects of comic book creation, from writing and editing to assigning cover art and lettering, while also overseeing the business side, from managing budgets to working with the production team to ensure deadlines were met in an industry with slim margin for error. Ultimately, all responsibility wrapped back to Lee.

Rather than these viewpoints warring inside Lee as he built his career, he used them as a way to create a central worldview: Comic books were important as tools to educate. They had value for readers – regardless of age – as a means of education, including outlining a value system based on the complexity of the human experience, not unlike literature and poetry. Lee realized that this perspective stood in contrast to the mainstream opinion that comic books were “pulp,” simple stories aimed at children and feeble-minded adults (a common belief through the 1960s).

Without going into deep analysis of the controversial creation of Spider-man – an amalgamation of the thinking and experiences lived by Lee, Steve Ditko, Jack Kirby – the character’s popularity provided Lee with an instrument to explore his ideas about how important comic books could be as tool for education. Spider-man gave him influence and proved that he could help shape culture in ways unimaginable during the first 20 years of his career.

Continually attempting to establish Marvel as different, Lee started calling the company the “House of Ideas,” which stuck with journalists and became part of the company’s cachet. If a downside existed in the surge of Marvel comics into the public consciousness it is that Lee and his bullpen teammates had to balance between entertainment, social issues, and profitability. Stan valued the joy derived from reading comics, but he wanted them to be useful: “Hopefully I can make them enjoyable and also beneficial…This is a difficult trick, but I try within the limits of my own talent.” Lee wanted to have it both ways – for people to read the books as entertainment, but also be taken seriously.

“Hopefully I can make them enjoyable and also beneficial…This is a difficult trick, but I try within the limits of my own talent.”

— Stan Lee

At the same time, Marvel had to sell comics, which meant that little kids and young teenagers drove a sizeable chunk of the market. In 1970, Lee estimated that 60 percent of Marvel’s readers were under 16-years old. The remaining adult readership was enormous given historical numbers, but kept Lee focused on the larger demographic. “We’re still a business,” he told an interviewer. “It doesn’t do us any good to put out stuff we like if the books don’t sell…I would gain nothing by not doing things to reach the kids, because I would lose my job and we’d go out of business.”

 On one hand, the industry moved so quickly that Lee and his creative teams constantly fought to get issues out on time. The number of titles Marvel put out meant that everyone had to be constantly producing. So, when Lee was in the office or working from home, he committed to getting content out. Roy Thomas recalls, “Stan and I were editing everything, and the writers were editing what they did, and we had a few assistant editors that didn't really have any authority...that was about it.” However, that chaotic atmosphere made it rife for animosities to form or fester. Lee needed content out the door and Goodman tried to maintain control over cover artwork and other little details that inevitably slowed down the process.

Thomas’ ascension and Lee’s pull toward management did shift the editorial direction, if for no other reason than that Stan wouldn’t be writing full-time any longer. “It was time to kind of branch out a little bit,” Thomas explained. “We wanted to keep some of that Marvel magic, and at the same time, there had to be room for other art styles and other writing styles.” The most overt change came when Lee turned in the copy for The Amazing Spider-Man #110. The late 1971 issue was the last Lee wrote for the character. Writer Gerry Conway succeeded Lee and the next books in the series would be co-created by Conway and star artist John Romita.

While many adults looked down on Lee for writing comic books, especially early in his career, he developed a masterful style that rivals or mirrors those of contemporary novelists. Lee explained:

Every character I write is really me, in some way or other. Even the villains. Now I’m not implying that I’m in any way a villainous person. Oh, perish forbid! But how can anyone write a believable villain without thinking, “How would I act if he (or she) were me? What would I do if I were trying to conquer the world, or jaywalk across the street?...What would I say if I were the one threatening Spider-Man? See what I mean? No other way to do it.”

 Lee’s distinctive voice captured the essence of his chosen medium.

Lee also understood that the meaning of success in contemporary pop culture necessitated that he embrace the burgeoning celebrity culture. If a generation of teen and college-aged readers hoped to shape him into their leader, Lee would gladly accept the mantle, becoming their gonzo king. Fashioning this image in a lecture circuit that took him around the nation, as well as within the pages of Marvel’s books, Lee created a persona larger than his publisher or employer. As a result, he transformed the comic book industry.

Unlike Bob Dylan or Jann Wenner, for example, Stan didn’t plan this revolution. He didn’t say to himself that he would cocreate a character that would become part of American folklore. It wasn’t planned, yet it seems completely intentional.

Baby boomers grew up with Stan’s voice in their heads. Interestingly, Lee spoke for Marvel’s superheroes to eager audiences talking about the characters, while at the same time creating the dialogue in the actual comics. So he was the person talking about the characters he himself was voicing. In addition, he wasn’t just in the media; Stan was talking directly to readers within the pages. He was Spider-Man’s voice, while also talking about the comics, the company, his colleagues, and the world to a captivated audience.

By the time Gen Xers started reading comics, Marvel’s style was wholly entrenched. As each generation ages out of traditional comic book reading age, Lee’s voice becomes commensurate with nostalgia—a part of our lives we look back to with fondness and equate with better times. Immersed in a heavily capitalistic, entertainment-driven culture, embedded stories are ones that get retold, and Marvel superheroes become a balm for a cultural explosion driven by cable television, global box office calculations, and the web. In what seems like the blink of an eye, the Marvel voice became the voice of modern storytelling.

Why did the Marvel Universe come to dominate global popular culture? Largely based on Stan supplying a voice to a mythology. Certainly, the creation of the Marvel Universe was a team effort, like all forms of entertainment, nothing is created in a vacuum. There are unheralded people in the process and those who deserve as much credit as Lee for their roles. Yet, it was the unmistakable “music” that Lee conceived that launched a cultural revolution.

Crisscrossing the nation while speaking at college campuses, sitting for interviews, and conversing with readers in the “Stan’s Soapbox” pages in the back of comic books, Lee paved the way for intense fandom. His work gave readers a way to engage with Marvel and rejoice in the joyful act of being a fan. Geek/nerd culture began with “Smiley” and his Merry Marauding Bullpen nodding and winking at fans each issue. Lee’s commitment to building a fan base took fandom beyond sales figures and consumerism to authentically creating communities. The Marvel Cinematic Universe has spun this idea into global proportions. It is the fans of the MCU across film and television that has reinforced and spread Stan’s voice across the world.

Amazing Fantasy #15, the comic that launched Spider-Man into the popular culture stratosphere

The superheroes that Lee and his co-creators brought to life in Marvel comic books remain at the heart of contemporary storytelling. Lee created a narrative foundation that has fueled pop culture across all media for nearly six decades.

By establishing the voice of Marvel superheroes and shepherding the comic books to life as the creative head of Marvel, Lee cemented his place in American history. According to analyst Paul Dergarabedian, the results have been breathtaking: “The profound impact of Stan Lee’s creations and the influence that his singular vision has had on our culture and the world of cinema is almost immeasurable and virtually unparalleled by any other modern day artist.”

“The profound impact of Stan Lee’s creations and the influence that his singular vision has had on our culture and the world of cinema is almost immeasurable and virtually unparalleled by any other modern day artist.”

— Paul Dergarabedian

EXCLUSIVE -- Excerpt from Stan Lee: A Life

Exclusive! Read Excerpt From Stan Lee: A Life by Bob Batchelor

Fans who have been waiting to catch Stan Lee: A Life by award-winning cultural historian and biographer Bob Batchelor can now read an exclusive excerpt at Forces of Geek, one of the premiere pop culture websites publishing today. Over the years, millions of fans have been entertained by FOG, which delivers outstanding columnists and opinion, reviews, and insightful analysis of geek culture from today and our nostalgia-tinged youths.

Exclusive! Read an Excerpt From Stan Lee: A Life by Bob Batchelor

Stefan Blitz is FOG editor-in-chief. In the introduction to the excerpt, he also revealed that Batchelor “will be joining the site next year.” He will be writing a column on Gen X and other popular culture topics.

On Stan Lee: A Life, Blitz explains, “Take the opportunity to check out an exclusive excerpt from his fantastic book, which might be the last word on one of pop culture’s most inimitable icons.”

The excerpt, “How the Marvel Universe Conquered the Globe,” is the first chapter from Stan Lee: A Life.

Forces of Geek — your home to discover and embrace the unknown, the forgotten, and the beloved from popular culture — has published an exclusive excerpt from Stan Lee: A Life (Rowman & Littlefield, 2022).

“While there are generations of great science fiction films and action movies, the difference between the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) and the others is voice…The Marvel feeling is so ingrained in the heads of fandom that it feels subconscious. It’s driven by Lee’s voice. No matter who directs an MCU film or plays a superhero or supervillain, the internal consistency prevails: Thor’s humor and stilted formality, Iron Man’s snark, Spider-Man’s relentless patter and earnestness. This is Stan’s enduring legacy.”

— Bob Batchelor

While some readers might never have thought of the term “voice,” Batchelor breaks it down via the way the concept is outline by eminent writer Jerome Charyn, one of the most important voices in American literature today.

Charyn describes voice as “music.” Charyn’s concept, although focused on books, can be applied to Lee’s comic book writing:

“Writing…is about the music, it’s about the voice. This is what predominates. The music is all, the music is total, it’s absolute.”

— Jerome Charyn

Stan’s dialogue provided Marvel with a kind of music that readers could hear and matched their internal rhythms, resulting in an experience that transformed them. “It’s music alive with extreme sympathy,” Charyn explained, “there is no space between you and the text.” As a result, readers could feel the Marvel style, while simultaneously that Lee patter paralleled the cultural explosion booming across society. We hear this in the Beatles’ “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band,” Stanley Kubrick’s Dr. Strangelove and 2001: A Space Odyssey, and J. D. Salinger’s short stories.

Meet Stan Lee -- October 12, 1991

Stan Lee and Spider-Man together at 1991 book signing event

Meet Stan Lee!

From the early 1960s until his death in 2018, Stan Lee was different than other celebrities — approachable and committed to staying connected to the fans that helped build Marvel into a global brand.

Marvel: Five Fabulous Decades of the World's Greatest Comics by Les Daniels

Les Daniels’ book — Marvel: Five Five Fabulous Decades of the World's Greatest Comics not only gave fans an inside look at Marvel’s history, but for those fans lined up at the Paramus Barnes & Noble, they were in for a treat — meeting Stan and Spider-Man!

Two heroes for the price of one!

To learn more about the Marvel maestro’s amazing life, please read Stan Lee: A Life, available wherever you like to purchase books.