Stan Lee & I

Sometimes, it seemed as if Smilin' Stan Lee was as invincible as some of the many superheroes he wrote over the years. But, it seems, he was just as human. He died this morning at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles.

Stan got into the comic-book business when he was a teenager, before, really, it was much of a business. He quickly rose to the position of editor of Timely Comics, which eventually became Atlas Comics, which eventually became Marvel Comics, when Stan, as editor and chief writer, co-created and shepherded through their earliest years a collection of characters who soon dominated the industry and have become, all these years later, the most valuable intellectual property in the entertainment industry. The Amazing Spider-Man, the Fantastic Four, the Incredible Hulk, the X-Men (who didn't actually become "Uncanny" until years later), the Mighty Thor, the Avengers and more others than can be easily listed--all Stan's children.

Those of us who were grew up reading him were his children too. I never met the Man but he was one of very few people about whom I can say that who, through his work, had the most influence on the person I am. I could read before most kids my age could even recognize all their letters and I was into comics before I could read them myself. Stan's most innovative work in comics was over before I was even born but I was just at the right age when Marvel was reprinting a lot of them (and when I could read a lot of the older books that older friends and relatives had). His books were a stimulating stew of punches and pathos, Romance and poignance, melodramatic and seriocomic, a whirling dervish of irreverence, alliteration and adjectives in which his flawed heroes struggle to save the day while also keeping the bills paid. Stan and his creations, both in his hands and in the hands of others, weren't just entertainment. They shaped my personality, my outlook on life and on the world around me, my morality, my politics, my sense of humor. I'm a writer because of them. I'm probably a filmmaker because of them; those sequential images on a page made me perpetually dream of them in motion, the extraordinary imagination that went into them stimulating my own. Without Stan--for better or worse--I wouldn't be who I am.

Stan had a remarkable career. He wrote a staggering volume of work in every conceivable genre. He co-created a lot of the greatest heroes and villains in fiction. He was more responsible than any single person for making comics grow up and out of the simple power-fantasies-for-children of the past and into a serious literary form. He cracked the Comics Code Authority, forcing it to liberalize its previously crippling restrictions on content. His obituaries will hit the high points. He was a giant. An American classic.

To me--and to many other True Believers--he was something much more; a mentor and, though I never met him, a dear friend, one who has been with me all my life. I'll leave it at that but there's never 'nuff said.

Stan was 95.

--j.


Email: jriddlecult@gmail.com
Twitter: @jriddlecult

The Immortal Hulk #1

It's been long-established in the pages of the Hulk that the tormented Bruce Banner can't kill himself; the Hulk won't let him. Two years ago, during the Civil War II storyline, Banner was killed by a vibranium arrow to the head. This was done at his own request--a death the Hulk couldn't prevent. Since then, he's been resurrected at least three times by various villainous forces looking to use the power of the Hulk for their own nefarious ends. But what if there's even more to the Hulk? What if, even if Banner dies, the Hulk simply won't allow him to remain dead? That's the premise of "The Immortal Hulk," the new book by writer Al Ewing and artists Joe Bennett and Ruy Jose, the first issue of which just hit the stands.

Banner, alive and living incognito, is shot in the head during a convenience-store robbery, just as he'd begun to change. He's pronounced dead and taken to the local morgue but when darkness falls, the Hulk rises again.

In the earliest days of the Hulk, this--the fall of night--was what triggered Banner's transformations. The Immortal Hulk draws a lot more from the Hulk's earliest days. The theme of this first issue comes right from the cover of Incredible Hulk #1. The tone, like that of those earliest stories, is that of a horror comic. This Hulk isn't the dumb, childlike brute who developed later but the more intelligent, craftier--and creepier--creature of those first issues.

I'm a huge fan of the Hulk. He was always one of my favorite Marvel characters, and I haven't been terribly pleased by a lot of the abuse to which Marvel has subjected the character in recent years. I love the look and feel of those early Hulk books to which this calls back, the artwork is great and while I'm not quite sure about the soundness of the premise--a Hulk who even returns from the dead initially seems a bit much to me--I liked this 1st issue. I liked it a lot. It felt like a homecoming for the character after the totally unawesome shenanigans of recent years. I definitely want to see more.

--j.