We are granted immortality through the things we leave behind.
With the passing of Stan Lee, the internet is rightfully throwing out tributes, leaving very little that hasn’t already been said. Icons are funny that way, in that they shape the world just by the sheer act of doing what they love, and leave memories in their footsteps. Icon status is not something that can be self-applied. It can’t be bought, it can’t be bartered, it can’t exist in a vacuum. Stan Lee, the near super-heroic creation of a man named Stanley Lieber, became an icon through sheer force of will. Imagination and determination are terrifying instruments in the right hands, capable of shaping worldviews and altering the course of culture.
It’s important to note that, despite hyperbole, Stan Lee did not single-handedly create the Marvel Universe. But just like the Beatles cease to exist if you remove a single member from the equation, the Marvel Universe as we know it would not exist without him. Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko—the former long gone, the latter yet another Titan that fell this year—could both create universes, but the alchemy needed to forge this particular universe required a collective of minds. Light is innocuous in ambient form, but when focused can destroy mountains, and Stan Lee provided that focus. As writer, as editor, and as a personality that seemed larger than his wiry frame could contain, Stan’s fingerprints are everywhere.
Stan Lee was an enigma in that he was an early celebrity in a field that didn’t easily create “stars.” Comic fans can name their favorite writers, artists, inkers and letterers, they can vomit out trivia about every hero and villain on the page, but how often do you hear the voice of the creator? After years of reading boisterous missives from the regular Bullpen Bulletins, I would first hear Stan Lee’s voice exploding from the television screen as he set up the newest adventure of Spider-Man and his Amazing Spider-friends.
It was a voice that seemed ageless. It was an adult’s voice, but it seemed filled to capacity with the enthusiasm of a child. There was an honest excitement to that voice that the years did nothing to diminish. That voice would go on to narrate the openings to several other Marvel properties, becoming, just like always, a part of the story.
Any creative force becomes, even unintentionally, a part of the story. He can be found all across the early years of Marvel. Every character carries a little bit of Stan. The caption boxes, the editor’s notes, even the thoughts of the characters themselves carry a piece of him.
More than once, the creators that were a part of old Marvel Bullpen would be written into a comic book’s storyline, and Stan would become a comic character himself, interacting with characters he had a hand in creating. Years later, with the birth of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Stan Lee once again found a way to become a part of the story, transcending the medium in the same way he had all those years ago, sharing a stage with those same characters. Always with the same youthful voice, and always with a wink and a nod to the audience, the True Believers out there who were in on the joke.
We were all in on the joke, and it was a joke that Stan took very seriously. Stan Lee, the bombastic, loquacious dynamo with the wisdom of a philosopher and the enthusiasm of a child, focused all of his will and energy into making every ten cent comic that some kid rolled up and stuck in his back pocket something special. He surrounded himself with enormous talents and drove that talent to create something more than the sum of its parts.
We are granted immortality through the things we leave behind.
Stan Lee will live forever.