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Hi, I'm Stan Lee.

Editor of the Marvel Comics Group of superhero comic magazines.

Comic books have been a big business for the past 25 years,

and they are bigger than ever today.

With this in mind, you'll be interested to know that the Marvel Comics Group

is the acknowledged leader

in monthly sales of all comic magazines published today.

Our superheroes are the kind of people that you or I would be

if we had a super power,

which sets them apart from all other superheroes published today

and seems to be the reason that they're actually far more popular than any others.

Every one of us are a product of all the things we've experienced,

seen, read, and heard in our lives.

So, when I write, I'm remembering things that happened.

Those things become part of the story.

One day, I was trying to think of a new superhero

and I saw a fly crawling on a wall.

And I thought, "Gee, wouldn't it be something if a hero could stick to walls

"and move on them like an insect."

I decided I wanted somebody who every one of the readers could identify with.

If I had superhuman powers, wouldn't I still have to worry

about making a living or having my dates like me?

What I tried to do was write the kind of stories I would want to read,

and sometimes I had to buck a trend to do that.

I think perseverance plays such a great part of it.

If you think you've got it, you just mustn't give up.

You gotta just keep working at it, hoping sooner or later

somebody will recognize what you've done.

December 28th was a very important date for me in the year 1922.

That's when I was born.

On the West Side of Manhattan, on 98th Street and West End Avenue.

My name was Stanley Martin Lieber.

My parents came to New York from Eastern Europe,

and they used to like to take photographs of me.

They didn't have a camera, but there were people in the neighborhood.

I think you'd pay them a dime at that time.

They would have a little pony with them, and they put the little kid on the pony.

(CHUCKLES) So, I had more photos of myself taken on ponies.

I did have a brother who was born nine years after me.

His name is Larry and he's a great guy,

but unfortunately, I was nine years older,

so it was tough to pal around with him.

I loved reading.

I think I was born reading,

I mean, I can't remember a time when I wasn't reading.

I loved Sherlock Holmes, Tarzan, The Hardy Boys,

King Arthur and his Knights, The Odyssey, everything I could get my hands on.

My mother said I would read the labels on ketchup bottles

if there was nothing else around.

We didn't have any money. It was during the Depression.

The one thing I wanted was a bicycle.

And finally, my folks scraped up enough money

and they bought me this two-wheeler.

And, man, I felt as though I could go anywhere on that bike.

I had been freed.

I used to go to the movies and I'd see Errol Flynn on the screen.

He played Robin Hood, Captain Blood.

He was always a hero.

I wanted to be Errol Flynn.

And I would leave the theater

and ride my bike over the George Washington Bridge,

which goes from Manhattan to New Jersey.

And it was such a triumphant feeling to ride across the bridge.

And I knew I was gonna become somebody important.

NARRATOR: Again, we bring you another chapter

of Edgar Rice Burroughs' amazing history

of Tarzan of the Apes.

The astounding record of a superman who became the...

STAN: My father was a great guy, but he had trouble getting a job.

He had been a dress cutter,

and there were just no jobs apparently for dress cutters.

And so, he was unemployed most of the time.

My earliest memories are just him sitting home,

reading the want ads in the newspaper.

I always felt tremendous pity for him.

It must be a terrible feeling to just not be bringing in the money

that's needed for your family.

To me, it seemed as if having a good job, a steady job,

was the greatest success a person could attain,

only because my father never had one.

That's one of the reasons I started working at an early age.

I got a job as an office boy,

at the second largest trouser manufacturer.

They had millions of salesmen, and whenever they wanted a glass of water,

or they wanted someone to sharpen a pencil,

they would yell, "Boy!"

and whichever one of us was closer had to come running,

and I resented the fact

that they never took the trouble to learn my name.

Like, a week before Christmas, they told me I have to leave

and, oh, I was burned up.

But if they hadn't fired me, I might have stayed there

and I might have made my life working in trousers. I was lucky.

There was a general rush. Bank deposits...

SPORTS ANNOUNCER: And Owens wins again...

MAN ON TV: Oh, the humanity...

STAN: Writing was always fun. In fact, I remember I was a very corny guy.

I had a little briefcase and I loved carrying it with me

when I walked in the streets so people would think I was a writer.

You know, a little thin briefcase.

When I graduated high school, I had an uncle

and he worked for a publisher,

and he told me that they were looking for an assistant.

And I figured, "Gee, I'm going to apply." So I went up there,

and I found out they also published comic books.

They had an outfit called Timely Comics,

and they hired me to run errands,

to proof-read, fill the inkwell, whatever had to be done.

I didn't really have any intention to be working in comics,

but it was a job.

There were two guys, Joe Simon and Jack Kirby,

who were running the thing.

Joe Simon was the boss and he walked around puffing a big cigar

and he talked in a very deep voice, and he was great. I liked him.

He had a lot of personality.

And Jack would sit hunched over the drawing board

and do most of the actual artwork.

I asked Stan how old he was. He says, "17."

So we gave him a job there. He was the gofer, you know.

And he'd go out and get coffee.

STAN: I would ask Jack, "You comfortable? Do you want some more ink?

"Is your brush okay? Is the pencil all right?"

And he would yell at me for a while.

And that was the way we spent our days.

SIMON: He drove Jack Kirby crazy.

He had a little instrument. A piccolo?

And he played this thing all day. And Kirby would tell him to shut up.

And Stan would keep playing.

STAN: We had The Human Torch and The Sub-Mariner and The Patriot

and The Angel and The Destroyer.

But the main character we had was Captain America.

From the very beginning, we were very much affected

by what was going on in the world around us.

Joe Simon and Jack Kirby were doing stories of Captain America

battling Hitler and the Nazis

even before America had gotten into the war.

Captain America came from the need for a patriotic character

because the times at that time were in a patriotic stir.

The war was coming on and the war clouds were gathering

and so Captain America had to come into existence.

STAN: I came in in 1939,

and it was such a small place

that Jack Kirby and Joe couldn't keep up with all the stories.

And they said, "Hey, could you help us write a story or two?"

When you're 16, what do you know. I said, "Sure, I could do it."

When I started doing comics,

I figured I would just do them for a little while and get some experience

and I thought one day I'll be a big time writer

and maybe I'll write the Great American Novel.

I always, in the back of my mind, liked comics,

but I never considered that real writing.

I said, "I'm not going to use my name for these silly comics."

And I thought, "I need a pen name."

So, I just took my first name, Stanley, and I cut it in two

and I signed "Stan Lee."

And the first story that I wrote was called

"Captain America and the Traitor's Revenge."

And what happened was, everybody started to know me as Stan Lee

and nobody knew me anymore as Stanley Lieber.

It was like my alter ego.

(RADIO CRACKLING AND SWITCHING STATIONS)

SPORTS ANNOUNCER: And the champion Yankees roar!

STAN: After a while, Joe and Jack left Timely Comics

and the publisher looked around at his vast empire,

and he saw this one skinny kid with a broom in one hand

and a typewriter in the other

and he said, "Hey, where's the rest of my staff?"

And I said, "I'm it."

He said, "Somebody's gotta edit these books."

He said, "Stan, can you hold down the job till I get somebody else?"

And I said, "Okay, I'll take it."

So, he went off into the outside world to seek another editor,

and I was now Stan Lee, boy editor pro tem.

And that was it, I became the editor, and I think he forgot to hire somebody

because I remained the editor.

So at 17, I was really running the place.

And since I was my own writer and my own editor,

I didn't have much to change.

So I was able to get these stories moving very fast.

FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT: Since the unprovoked

and dastardly attack

by Japan on Sunday,

December 7th, 1941,

a state of war

has existed

between the United States

and the Japanese Empire.

STAN: Like an idiot, I volunteered.

I felt it was my duty. It was a big war. And I wanted to be like Errol Flynn.

I wanted to be a hero.

But before they could send me overseas,

they found out I had worked for this comic book company.

The next thing I know, I got transferred

to Astoria, Queens, in New York,

where they had a film unit

where they did training films and instructional books for the troops.

Funny thing. I didn't know this until after the war ended.

I looked at my army discharge and it said Army occupation, it said playwright.

They were having a big problem training finance officers quickly enough.

The men overseas weren't getting paid on time

'cause there weren't enough payroll officers to pay them.

So I was asked, could I rewrite the finance textbooks

to make the training period shorter?

I rewrote the finance textbooks using comic strips.

We were able to shorten the training period for finance officers

from six months to six weeks.

It was then I realized

that comic books can have a tremendous impact.

You can convey a story or information

faster, more clearly, and more enjoyably, than any other way,

short of motion pictures.

STAN: After the Army, I went back to the comic book company.

Started doing what I had been doing all the time.

I had a cousin and he was in the hat business.

And one day, he said, there was a model, a hat model,

at this place, named Betty.

He thought I'd really like her and she might like me.

So, I went up to this hat model place,

and somebody opened the door.

I remember it very clearly.

He came to the door and he was...

He had his raincoat

thrown over his shoulder.

Joan opened the door.

Now, she was not the girl that I was supposed to meet.

But she was the head model there. And she was...

She opened the door and said...

Hello!

And he said,

"Hello, I think I'm going to fall in love with you."

STAN: I couldn't believe it.

She had this beautiful English accent. And I'm a real Anglophile.

An English accent knocks me out.

And she was gorgeous.

JOAN: I thought,

"This one I can't let get away."

It was really love at first sight.

(PEOPLE CHATTERING INDISTINCTLY)

STAN: At the time, we were known as Atlas Comics

and we were just publishing what everybody else did.

If western books were good, we published a thousand westerns.

If romance books were in,

we published a million romance books, and so forth.

We just followed the trends.

We did war stories, romance stories, humor stories,

little funny animal animated comic stories.

We were grinding out magazines like confetti,

and we did that for years.

At one point, we were churning out almost a hundred magazines a month.

As a kid, all I wanted was a steady job,

and now I had one.

Writing came very easily to me.

And in those early days, it was a fun way to make money.

I was getting paid as an editor, art director, and head writer,

but any stories that I wrote I got paid for on a freelance basis.

So as the editor, I bought all my stories.

My wife and I, we were a little bit extravagant.

We lived right up to whatever I made,

and I was and am very much in love with her.

So whatever Joanie wanted, I'd say,

"That's fine, honey, I'll write another story tonight to pay for it."

Not only her, anytime I wanted something.

I want a new car.

Okay. I'll write a couple of stories, that'll take care of the down payment,

and I'll keep writing stories every time the payments come due.

I was always writing the stories to keep up with what we were doing.

It was like having a tiger by the tail. But we loved living that way.

(OLDIES MUSIC PLAYING ON RADIO)

In those days, comics weren't thought of very highly.

I remember we'd go to parties and somebody would walk over to me

and say, "What do you do?"

And I tried not to say, and I would say, "Oh, I'm a writer,"

and I'd walk away, but the person would follow me,

"Well, what do you write?"

And I'd say, "Oh, stories for young people."

Walk away further. Follow me, "What kind of stories?"

"Magazine stories." "Well, what magazine?"

At some point, I had to say comic books,

and the person who had been interrogating me would, "Oh, I see,"

and turn around and leave me, you know.

MAN: Reading. What a wonderful thing this would be

if they were reading something worthwhile.

But they're not reading anything constructive,

they're reading stories devoted to adultery, to sexual perversion,

to horror, to the most despicable of crimes.

STAN: In those days, we had to submit the comics

to a self-censorship organization

that had been set up by the publishers.

It was called the Comics Code Authority.

All the books we published had to be presented to them

and they would make certain there was nothing in them

that would ruin the youth of America.

People thought of comics as being just for little kids.

And they were written and drawn with that in mind.

In those days, you're reading a comic book,

and it could really be any superhero,

and he's walking down the street

and he's got his little colorful long underwear suit on,

and he sees a big, bug-eyed monster coming toward him,

and his dialogue would have been something the equivalent of,

"Oh, a creature from another planet.

"I had better capture him before he destroys the world."

My publisher, Martin Goodman, he used to say to me,

"Remember, Stan, don't use words of more than two syllables.

"Don't have too much dialogue. Get a lot of action.

"Don't worry about characterization."

After a while, I really wanted to quit.

For the best motion picture, The Apartment, Billy Wilder.

(WOMEN VOCALIZING)

Ask not what your country can do for you...

STAN: I always felt I was really wasting time.

I felt okay, so I'm making a living with selling comics,

but there are people building bridges and people doing medical research

and people doing things that matter.

And I'm writing these stupid little fantasy stories.

I always felt, you know,

how could a grown man be doing comic books?

And he just felt that he can't just go on doing this...

What he thought was childish stuff.

And then I said to him,

"Well, why don't you create characters that you like?"

"The worst that'll happen is you'll get fired

"and you want to quit anyway.

"Get it out of your system."

At that time, Martin Goodman had found out that our competitor, DC Comics,

they had done a book called The Justice League of America.

A group of superheroes, and it was selling very well.

And he said to me, "Stan, why don't you do a book

"about a group of superheroes?"

So I figured this is my chance to do it my way.

So I went home and wrote.

It occurred to me that it might be fun to put out the kind of stories

that I would enjoy reading myself,

rather than just writing for the eight or nine-year-old.

By that time, Jack Kirby had come back.

So I said, "Jack, wouldn't it be fun if we have good guys

"who occasionally fall on their faces, who occasionally make mistakes,

"trip at the last minute and let the bad guy get away?

"Wouldn't it be nice to have bad guys that you could almost relate to

"and feel, 'Ah, well, you know, maybe I'd have done the same thing

"'if I was in his position?'"

MAN: Five, four, three, two, one, zero.

STAN: That was really the start of everything.

I came up with four superheroes I called The Fantastic Four.

See what happened, they all went in a rocket ship

and they were affected by cosmic rays.

And the cosmic rays gave them superhuman abilities.

And yet I tried to be realistic about it.

The hero wasn't just a perfect guy,

he was a fellow like me. He talks too much.

He was always boring the others,

because one of the other guys was always saying, "Will you shut up?"

And instead of an obligatory female, who doesn't know who the hero really is,

she was the hero's fiancée,

and she also had a super power that was as good as anyone else's.

The teenager in the group didn't want to be a superhero.

Like I would have been when I was a teenager.

He wanted to go out with girls and ride his sport car.

And the fourth guy was a monster. Something had happened to him,

and he became very ugly and incredibly strong.

And I used him for both pathos and humor.

He was always fighting with the others,

and he was always picking on the Human Torch that was a teenager,

who was always picking on him, and I got a lot of comedy out of them.

Instead of having them live in a fictional place

like Metropolis or Gotham City,

I plunked 'em right down in New York City.

Because I knew New York City, I could write about New York City,

and I figured why not let 'em live in a real place?

And one day it occurred to me,

it would be fun to show that they lost all their money.

I don't think that had ever happened in any other comic book,

where a superhero group got kicked out of their headquarters

'cause they couldn't pay the rent.

I tried to keep everything as realistic as possible

even though it was just a superhero comic.

For the first decade or two, at the comic book company

we never received fan mail, and I was sure these books are being published

and destroyed somewhere, and that's the end of it.

(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)

I'm exaggerating.

About once a year we'd get a letter, somebody would write,

"Hey, I bought one of your books and there's a staple missing.

"I want my money back."

But all of a sudden, with The Fantastic Four,

we really got mail, we really had readers who said something.

We were getting write-ups in newspapers and magazines,

and people were asking me to do interviews.

I began to realize we have a whole new audience.

At that time we were calling the company Atlas.

I said we gotta get a new name,

these aren't the same things we were doing before.

And Martin and I came up with the name Marvel.

That had been the name

of the first comic book he had ever done,

and I thought it was a great word.

There's so much you can do with the word Marvel,

I used expressions like "Remember, gang, make mine marvel,"

or "Welcome to The Marvel age of comics!"

Or "Marvel moves on."

I mean, it's the kind of name you can do a lot with.

That's when everything changed for us.

I've started realizing, to most people the most important thing

is being entertained, getting pleasure out of something.

And then, I realized it applies to me, too.

And I figured maybe what I'm doing isn't really unimportant.

Maybe entertainment is one of the most important things,

because there are so many bad things in the world,

that if you can entertain somebody for a while, it's a good thing.

So then, instead of quitting, like I wanted to,

I decided that I could make a big difference writing superhero books.

I thought I could have a lot of fun with this

and get some real writing in it.

And I used the philosophy of

what would I like to read if I were reading a book.

When I was a kid, one of the books that I read was Jekyll and Hyde.

So I wanted to take from Jekyll and Hyde

where he could change from a normal person into the monster.

And I always liked the Frankenstein movie, the old one with Karloff.

I always felt the monster is really the good guy.

He didn't wanna hurt anybody.

So I thought it would be fun to get a monster

who was really a good guy, but nobody knew that.

And I remember the conversation I had with Jack Kirby,

and I said, "Jack, we're gonna do a monster

"but I want you to draw me a sympathetic monster.

"Kind of, a good-looking monster that a reader can take to."

And as I said it, I realized how stupid it sounded, but Jack never failed.

Hulk's in all of us.

I don't think monsters zero in on anyone in particular.

I think that's why they are generally pitied more than feared.

I felt that monsters, in some way, had problems.

Monsters, in human or inhuman form, are inevitably involved

in some sort of conflict in which anybody can get hurt.

If you read any dramatic news story,

you'll find that the most dramatic part about 'em was that

inside a human being

there are some sort of problems that we're constantly trying to solve.

STAN: One of life's great lessons that I have learned is,

don't try to please a certain segment of the public, don't try to please them,

'cause you don't really know them, nobody knows them,

but you know yourself.

Try to please yourself.

At least that's what happened to us at Marvel.

We started writing stories that amused us.

We started to say, "Hey, wouldn't it be fun

"if we, you know, had a green-skinned monster and we call him the Hulk"?

Wow, you know, and we forgot about the audience.

We forgot about the public.

We suddenly started having fun. The artists and me.

I came to New York in '63.

And I went on job interviews, and one of them was meeting Stan,

and he needed a gal Friday, which meant secretary,

only you couldn't type or take shorthand.

Stan was always an upbeat person, even maybe when sales weren't going well.

You know, if someone was in trouble, he always gave them a break.

On the deadline, or they needed money.

I never saw him angry.

Not a whiner, not a complainer.

If something's wrong, "Let's fix it."

The job entailed opening the fan mail,

and then making little cards and sending cards to the kids.

Then, of course,

superheroes started getting bigger so there was more mail.

You know, people were actually spending time writing these letters.

It sort of developed gradually, that there was such a movement.

You know, the kids were so interested.

We were getting so many letters.

Stan said, "Maybe we should have a little fan club."

We started The Merry Marvel Marching Society.

You got a little card, you got a button,

probably some stickers and a little record.

They got a record of The Merry Marvel Marching Society.

Okay, out there in Marvel-land, face front, this is Stan Lee speaking.

You've probably never heard a record like this before,

because no one would be nutty enough to make one

with a bunch of offbeat artists,

so anything is liable to happen.

KIRBY: Hey, who made you a Disc Jockey, Lee?

STAN: Well, well, Jolly Jack Kirby. Say a few words to the fans, Jackson.

KIRBY: Okay, a few words.

STAN: Look, pal, I'll take care of the humor around here.

KIRBY: You? You've been using the same gags over and over for years.

STEINBERG: Oh, Stan? Do you have a few minutes?

STAN: For our fabulous gal Friday?

Sure, say hello to the fans, Flo Steinberg.

STEINBERG: Hello, fans, it's very nice to meet you.

(FOOTSTEPS APPROACHING)

STAN: Hey. What's all that commotion out there?

KIRBY: Why, it's shy Steve Ditko.

He heard you're making a record and he's got mic fright.

- STAN: Out the window again? - (GLASS BREAKING)

You know, I'm beginning to think he is Spider-Man.

MAN: (SINGING) You belong, you belong You belong, you belong

To the Merry Marvel Marching Society

March along, march along To the song of the Merry...

Shall I tell you a little bit, a very little bit, 'cause it can get dull,

even duller than what you've been hearing,

about the way we write and draw these scripts?

In the beginning, I was writing just about all the stories,

and as we kept adding book after book, I couldn't keep up with all the artists,

so I'd be writing a script, let's say, for Jack Kirby.

Suddenly, Steve Ditko would walk in and he'd say,

"Hey, Stan, I finished my last job, I need another one."

So, out of sheer desperation I said to him,

"Let me just give you a plot, you go on home and draw it,

"any way you want. Bring it in to me,

"and I'll put in the dialogue and the captions."

It started as an emergency measure,

but I began to realize, this is a great way to do it.

Very often in the office when I'm describing a scene or something,

I'd go storming around the office,

and I would think anybody looking in on a story conference

at our place would think they're watching some silent movie being filmed.

STEINBERG: When an artist would come in

and they would be working on the plot together,

they would act it out and Stan would jump on the desk

and run around on the desk, and you know, act the part of the superhero.

They would brainstorm and there'd be all this noise.

Sometimes if I were on the phone,

I'd have to yell in there, "Keep it down, keep it down."

STAN: Jack and I have gotten to work so well together,

that our plotting session will be something like,

"Hey, in the next Fantastic Four, Jack, let's let the villain be Doctor Doom."

"Where did he come from? Where did we leave off with him?"

And I'll say, "Oh, yeah, he was fading off into another universe.

"Find some way to bring him back, Jack,

"and then we'll have him attack the Fantastic Four, and then,

"let's let the story end with him running off

"and eloping with Sue Storm or something."

Jack will say "Fine" and he goes off,

and by the time he brings the artwork back,

it might be that particular plot

or he might have changed fifty million things.

So he doesn't know exactly what I'm gonna write,

what words I'm gonna put in their mouths.

I don't know what he's gonna draw. The whole thing is virtual chaos.

But somehow when it gets together, it seems to hold together pretty well,

and we kinda like working this way.

It isn't the artist, it isn't the writer.

It's the artist and the writer.

It's pictures and stories,

and when they blend together perfectly, then you've got a great comic.

Working that way as a team, it became known as the Marvel Method.

Joan and I, we got a little apartment in New York on 94th Street.

We stayed there for a year or two.

And then, Joan got pregnant.

We decided we ought to move to a house to have the baby

and we moved to Long Island.

We got a little house, and we could just barely afford it.

We had a daughter, Joan C. Lee.

We're so vain! We decided to name our daughter Joan,

and if we had had a son, we'd have called him Stan.

In fact, we did have another baby, a girl, we couldn't call her Stan,

so called her Jan, but unfortunately, she died a few hours after she was born,

and Joan couldn't have any other kids,

so we spoiled Joan rotten.

I think she's a mixture of both of us.

She's very talented.

Think it's difficult being a child of two such strong parents,

I think that's always difficult, and we are.

STAN: After a while we called her J.C.

'cause our daughter's name was Joan C. Lee.

The C standing for Celia, which was my mother's name.

And Joanie was Joan B. Lee.

My wife and I are really so close.

She's the greatest. I mean, she's an incredible woman.

My wife, I think, is incredibly beautiful, smart, charming, fun to be with.

When we used to dance, I let her lead. She was so good.

I tried to keep up with her.

So I tried to put those qualities in all the women I wrote about.

Mary Jane, for example, was very peppy and effervescent and kinda hip and cool.

That was my wife.

She's the perfect wife for me

because I spend so much time writing when I'm home,

and Joanie, she can always keep herself busy, which is wonderful.

So I don't feel guilty when I'm in my room writing.

JOAN: He's a vanishing breed. There are no men like Stan today.

He's an endangered species. One has to protect him.

Because he's blessed with tremendous energy.

He's an ever straight man.

Doesn't take booze, doesn't smoke cigarettes.

And gets up every day and says,

"Thank God this arm works, and this leg works,

"and life is great."

He's been a very good husband.

INTERVIEWER: So, what's your secret for a successful marriage?

JOAN: He's my best friend and I'm his best friend...

- liking each other. - Okay.

You know, it isn't that kind of oh, love, love, love.

Kids kinda fall in love and think you're gonna be in bed all day.

That's not what marriage is. Marriage is like a farm.

You have to get up every day and work at it every single day.

He's still the most amazing person I've ever met in my life.

(ROCK AND ROLL MUSIC PLAYING ON RADIO)

(RADIO STATIONS SWITCHING)

MAN ON RADIO: The early teens are years of upheaval and turmoil.

REPORTER: Do you think that teenagers

are any different today from how they used to be?

Yes, I do.

Do you think teenagers today are better or worse than they used to be?

I think they're worse.

Today, we've come to a time in history when there definitely is a generation gap.

TEEN BOY: There is a teenage world, you know. If the adults don't like it

that's only because they don't want a part of it.

STAN: Anything that can be done

to help present the point of view of these young people

without hostility, with respect,

would be a very beneficial thing.

When I was 17-years-old,

I was an editor, art director, and head writer,

but at that time, the teenager wasn't respected.

So I figured, hell, I'm gonna change that.

Why not have a teenager who's a hero?

Why couldn't a teenager have a super power?

I loved that idea.

I felt that I would like to, for once,

do a strip about a teenager who isn't a sidekick, but he is the hero.

And I wanna make him like a real teenager.

He's not a guy who can do anything and never has a problem.

But I had to come up with a name.

As a kid, I had loved a pulp magazine named The Spider.

The most dramatic thing I could think of, the cover of this magazine,

it said, "The Spider: Master of Men."

Somehow, to me, at the age of nine,

"Master of Men, oh, I'd love to be a..."

You know, who wouldn't want to be a master of men?

And he had a ring,

and he'd punch a bad guy in the face and it had a little spider on the ring,

and it would leave a spider mark on the guy's jaw.

That name always stuck with me.

Then I thought why not Spider-Man?

(TYPEWRITER CLACKING)

I walked in to the publisher Martin Goodman

and I said "I have an idea for a book called Spider-Man

"about a teenager who has a lot of problems."

This time, Martin wouldn't go along with me, he said, "Stan,

"I'm surprised at you.

"And a hero can't be a teenager. A teenager can only be a sidekick.

"And you say you want him to have problems?

"Don't you know what a superhero is?"

He was the boss and I couldn't put Spider-Man out.

But I just felt I had to get it out of my system.

Months later, we had a book we were going to kill

called Amazing Fantasy.

When you drop a book,

nobody cares what you put in the last issue, 'cause you're killing it.

So just to get it out of my system,

I put Spider-Man and I feature him on the cover.

I'm lucky Martin didn't fire me on the spot.

But in that story,

I tried to heap as many problems as I could on poor Peter Parker.

Because I feel most people, even people who seem to be happy, have problems.

Spider-Man's got the strength of 25 men

and can walk on walls and swing from building to building on his own web,

but he still can't go out and chase a villain

because his old Aunt May says, "It's raining out

"and you might catch cold. Better stay home tonight."

I had not read any other superheroes

who felt they wished they could quit being a superhero.

I made him a guy who is very introspective.

He questions, "Why am I doing this?"

The book went on sale.

Later, when the sales figures came in,

Martin came running into my office, he said, "Stan!

"Do you remember that character of yours, Spider-Man, that we both liked so much?

"Why don't you do a series of him?"

After that, I felt I can do anything.

There were always good artists around.

Jack and Steve, both were terribly unique.

Conceptually, Jack's artwork is very much like a good, exciting movie.

Jack has a way of hitting the high point, visually, in every situation he's drawing.

He'll draw the extreme of that situation.

Whatever is the most exciting element, he will draw that.

And consequently his artwork is always fascinating to watch.

Steve Ditko, he drew characters, in many ways, the opposite of Jack.

Steve's artwork, I always felt, was very low-key

and he had a way of telling a story realistically.

After a while, you'd forget you're reading a comic book

and you'd think this was really happening.

Jack Kirby was probably the greatest comic book artist around,

and I wanted Jack, originally, to do the Spider-Man,

but I didn't want Spider-Man to look heroic.

I wanted him to be just a typical nebbishy kind of guy,

and I mentioned that to Jack,

but Jack was so used to drawing Captain America and characters like that.

When he gave me the first couple of pages, I said, "No, that...

"You got him looking too heroic."

So I gave the strip to Steve. It didn't matter to Jack.

Nobody knew it would be a big strip

and Jack was busy doing all the other books.

Steve was just perfect for it.

He got that feeling of an average guy

who turned into a hero and still had problems.

And lo, a legend was born.

BOY: Here's our special guest, Stan Lee.

How about Spider-Man? Know about Spider-Man?

KIDS: Yeah.

- How about the Hulk? You know the Hulk? - Yeah.

Which one is your favorite?

Oh, gee. You know, that's almost like asking a parent who's his favorite child?

I think I love them all.

But maybe I like Spider-Man a little bit better,

and maybe it's because he's just so popular.

BOY: In comics, is it usually

the big, strong, and ugly characters that are most successful?

No. You know what it is?

It's the ones that are the most interesting

and the ones that the readers of comics can most relate to.

It doesn't matter if the character is ugly, or is handsome,

or is weak, or is strong.

If there's something about the character that makes you like the character

and care about the character,

the word for that is, you have to empathize with the character.

Why do there have to be superheroes and what makes a good one?

What ingredients does it take to have like a Spider-Man or a Superman?

The one important thing is empathy.

It has to be a superhero the reader cares about.

One thing we've tried to do at Marvel,

we have tried to have superheroes that are more realistic,

more flesh and blood

and it prepares the young reader for the fact that

- when he gets out into the world... - MAN: To climb walls.

...he realizes that he doesn't expect his heroes to be perfect.

There was a time when Spider-Man received a check

as a reward for something he had done, made out to Spider-Man

and he went to a bank to cash it in his Spider-Man costume

and the teller said, "Well, I can't cash this check,

-"I need identification." - (WOMAN LAUGHS)

And he said, "Oh, I'm wearing a Spider-Man costume."

He said, "Anybody could wear a Spider-Man costume."

He was never able to cash the check.

I wanted those books, more than anything else, to be fun.

And I wanted everything in them to attract the readers' attention

and to cause the readers to talk.

And I wanted to do whatever I could

to set our books aside and apart from the rest.

I was just having fun.

Anything I thought of I said, "That's a good idea.

"I'm gonna write, 'The world's greatest comic.' What the hell."

INTERVIEWER: You describe what you call the wild wondrous world of Marvel Comics.

What kind of world is it?

Basically, we think of Marvel Comics as fairy tales for older people.

Actually, I think what we do mostly is improve on the old legends, you see.

We take the best of them and give it a little Marvel touch

and we've got something really indescribable.

Jack and I had already done The Hulk and The Fantastic Four.

And I felt, what can we do to top these other characters?

And it occurred to me, we hadn't done a god.

Most people had read all about the Greek gods and the Roman gods

but the Norse Gods weren't as well known. So I figured

why not do the Norse Gods?

And I thought Thor was the most dramatic of all

'cause he had that magic hammer, and he was the most powerful one.

And he was the God of Thunder.

I thought it would just be another book,

and I think that Jack has turned him into one of the greatest

fictional characters there are.

KIRBY: All through the years, certainly, I've had a kind of affection

for any mythological type of character,

and here Stan gave me the opportunity to draw one

and I wasn't gonna draw back from really letting myself go.

So I did. And the world became a stage for me.

I gave the Norse characters twists

that they never had in anybody's imagination,

and somehow it turned out to be a lot of fun

and I really enjoyed doing it.

It occurred to us that what we do is we create our own mythology,

and we create our own universes.

One thing I think that we've innovated that has been pretty successful

is overlapping characters and books.

It's like a repertory theatre, where you've got your actors

and you know what they can do, and you can use them as needed.

Once we have our cast of characters, whether heroes or villains,

it makes it easier for us to base stories,

but we do it because it seems to me that

you enjoy things you're familiar with,

and the readers eventually get to know these characters,

and they're interested in these characters and why just get rid of them?

If we have a villain who fought the Fantastic Four,

why shouldn't he eventually meet another one of our heroes?

Or why shouldn't our heroes meet, as they often do,

and guest star in each other's book?

Because, according to the gospel as preached by Marvel,

they all live in the same world.

MAN ON RADIO: ...the US has added up to $3 billion and 14,000 men...

(RADIO STATIONS SWITCHING)

America's involvement grows deeper and more dangerous.

STAN: We were very much affected at Marvel

by what was going on in the world around us,

and in Vietnam and what was going on at this time.

I think it's a not only indefensible war, I think it's a ridiculous war.

I agree with the word you used, I think it's an obscene war.

Everybody was against the war. The kids in those days hated it.

(INDISTINCT SHOUTING)

We have a character called Iron Man.

He's a guy in a big metal suit and he's very powerful

and he has little jets on the bottom of the soles,

which enable him to fly,

and he was supplying weapons to the United States Army

for the Vietnamese war and so forth.

So, how do you make somebody really care about a guy like this?

We made him lovable.

He has a weak heart and he's been injured in battle,

and he really is a good guy.

Our heroes have all sorts of failings and fallacies.

They might lose just as often as win if they're fighting with a villain.

And our villains are really adorable. They go right to your hearts.

We learned the villains are usually at least as popular as the heroes are.

They have a great appeal.

We try to give them understandable qualities

and reasons why they are the way they are.

We've even had villains who reformed and became heroes.

After a while, we don't know who the heroes and who the villains are.

There's such a fine line.

And that's the real world.

Things aren't just black and white.

What's happening in comics today? They've grabbed an older readership.

- Yeah! - At Marvel, we have as many college kids

reading our books as we have seven-year-olds.

I rarely hold up books, but this is an interesting book...

- It is. - Well, let him tell about it.

He's a collector who is impartial.

I think that anybody, and I say this,

anybody could get into that book and get something out of it

and learn something from it. It is a novel

or a Cecil B. DeMille movie or anything else,

only it's done with still pictures.

Why do you say he has to learn? Can't he be entertained by what he reads?

Does he have to read it like a school book?

Can't you be educated and entertained at the same time?

We found our readers want to be entertained.

They want to lose themselves. They don't wanna be educated.

They don't want anything relevant.

I would not recommend Superman or Batman to anyone over 12.

They're nice for kids.

Adults have come to believe there's nothing of value in comics for them,

and there is something of value.

You cannot condemn a medium on the basis of its format.

STAN: The more I realized how influential our books were,

the more I tried to get some moral lessons in the stories.

I don't want to sound like I'm the most moral guy in the world,

but I always felt there were some issues that ought to be addressed.

One of the things that is terrible is the fact that

so many people dislike

and hate other people

just because they're different.

I did one story called "The Hate Monger,"

and it was really a takeoff on the Ku Klux Klan.

It had to do with a villain who espoused hatred

of one group of people for another.

I sort of hoped it would give our readers

the idea that all people should be treated the same.

We tried to get that point across in all of the Marvel books.

I wanted to do another superhero group,

and I tried an anti-bigotry theme.

And I thought, how can I give them some power in a different way?

And then it occurred to me. We know that mutations exist in life.

There are five-legged frogs and things like that.

So I'll just give them whatever powers I want and say they mutated that way.

I called them the X-Men.

And our heroes of the X-Men are all different from average humans,

and because they're that different, the general public hates them,

hounds them, harasses them, fears them.

In all of our books, we try to find some little moral

besides running around and fighting.

We have one character called the Silver Surfer.

He's a character from another planet who comes to Earth.

Jack is the guy who first drew him.

The Silver Surfer was always philosophizing

and saying things about humans, such as,

"Don't they realize they live in a planet that's a veritable garden of Eden?

"Why do they fight and why are they greedy?

"And why do they have bigotry?

"Why don't they just love each other

"and enjoy this paradise that they've inherited?"

I believe that the world could be a much better world

if we treated each other

with a little more consideration and respect.

If you really want to change things and make 'em better,

you've gotta plunge in. You've gotta be a part of the process.

"With great power comes great responsibility."

I created Black Panther with Jack Kirby.

We just figured that it's about time we had a Black superhero.

After all, there are many, many Black American citizens.

I loved the idea of a Black superhero who lives in Africa

and is the equal of Reed Richards intellectually.

FAN: The reason I called is to compliment Marvel Comics

because they are the only comic books I've ever seen that have integrated.

They recognize the fact that there are more than one race.

STAN: How can you have stories that are supposed to take place in today's world

and not include all the types of people we have

- and the types of situations? - FAN: Yeah, that's just it.

You have a racially mixed background in it.

Well, it's unusual for comics because you haven't seen it

until you've read Marvel Comics.

STAN: We tried to provide stories for older readers

that will also be good for younger kids to read.

If you think about it objectively, it's a totally impossible task,

and I don't know how we've managed.

I got a letter from the Office of Health, Education, and Welfare in Washington,

and they said, "Mr. Lee, recognizing the influence of your comics,

"drugs are a big problem. If you could do an anti-drug story?"

I did a three-issue series.

It had to do with a friend of Spidey's had taken too much of something

and Spider-Man rescues him and says, "You're a jerk for doing that."

And it was part of a bigger story.

So, it didn't look like we were preaching. It was just an incident in a story.

The Comic Code Administration sent the book back and said,

"You can't publish this book. We won't put our seal of approval on."

I said, "Why?"

They said, "Well, according to the rules of the Code Authority,

"you can't mention drugs in a story."

And I said, "Look, we're not telling kids to take drugs.

"This is an anti-drug theme."

"Oh, no, it doesn't matter. You mentioned drugs."

I said, "But the Office of Health, Education and Welfare,

"a government agency, asked us to do it."

"Doesn't matter. You can't mention drugs."

Because we try to show things as they really are,

I had quite a number of arguments with the Comics Code.

I think that the things that people read should prepare them

and initiate them for stepping into the real world.

I feel that morally we are doing a greater service to our younger readers

by showing them that it's best to do your best and to try to be good.

I went to my publisher, Martin Goodman, and I said,

"Martin, this is the story. This is why I did it.

"I would like to publish it without the Code seal of approval."

Well, I was very proud of our publisher because he said,

"Absolutely, Stan. You go ahead and do that."

So, all of those three issues went on sale without the seal of approval.

And the world did not come to an end.

We got letters from church groups,

parent-teachers... Everybody loved it.

(CHATTERING INDISTINCTLY)

A youngster's mind is like a sponge.

And I really don't think there's anything

that's too tough

or too mature for a youngster to comprehend.

I think they can understand so much more than we give them credit for,

and they're capable of absorbing and learning so quickly.

Most of them don't have the opportunity. It isn't thrown at them enough.

You know, when we started Marvel Comics,

I said, "Let's use a college level vocabulary,"

and everybody said, "Stan, you're out of your mind."

I said, "Really?" I figured the kids would know...

what the words meant by their use in the sentence

or if they had to go to a dictionary and look up a word

it wasn't the worst thing in the world that would happen...

Maybe the older readers would appreciate it.

So, strangely enough, in our little idiot Marvel Comics,

I think there is as much or more learning for kids as you'll find anywhere else.

I've walked pretty far for a comic on occasions, a few miles out of the way,

just to get it a day early, which may seem a little silly,

but some of us fans are weird.

STAN: This is it. The second annual Mighty Marvel Convention.

This is Stan Lee talking, and you are there.

Now, I'll shut up and give you a chance to see what was happening.

We start off with me signing autographs after making a speech. Here we go.

Wherever I went, people would feel they knew me

'cause they had been reading the books.

Everyone said, "Hi, Stan." There was a warmth and a friendliness.

I got a few votes in the last presidential election at some colleges.

It was funny, you know. Some kids gave some write-in votes.

I think I got 23 votes.

It wasn't quite enough to carry the nation.

What's your favorite character?

Ben Grimm. The Thing.

- Right! - And why is that?

I don't know. It's just his personality and like, you know, what happened to him.

He was turned into a monster and it wasn't his fault.

The Falcon, Avengers.

- The Falcon? - Yeah.

- Iron Man. - How come?

Because I just like what he does. I think he's a great character.

I like the stories that they write about him and all the inventions.

Who's your favorite writer?

Uh, Stan Lee.

RADIO HOST: This is K100 conversations, and I have with me a wacky person

by the name of Stan Lee.

And anybody who is into comics knows that name,

because you are the guy that really created Marvel Comics, aren't you?

STAN: Yeah, well, after a while, when you become a living legend,

they get to know your name. I created Marvel Comics with the help

of the various artists involved also, of course.

It's funny how every artist has one little thing that's sort of a hang-up,

and he has trouble fixing it.

Jack has a way of drawing tremendously thin ankles

on men and women.

I've always got to watch what I say,

because our artists are not only the most talented

but certainly, the most temperamental group in the world,

and we'd be absolutely lost without any single one of them.

But I'm sure I'm gonna catch hell for saying anything to offend any of 'em.

INTERVIEWER: Could you tell us a little more about Steve

because I noticed that he is one of the few people

that you did not print a photograph of

in your first Marvel Annual

and he is not on the record that you sent around.

- STAN: You want to know why? - Yes.

STAN: Purely personal. Steve does not want publicity.

I don't know what his reason is.

He says, "Oh, golly! I want my work to speak for me."

I'm not quoting him exactly,

but the feeling I get is that he doesn't feel

that he himself should be publicized. He just wants the work

that he does to be well known, and we respect his opinion.

Steve had complained to me a number of times,

when there were articles written about Spider-Man,

which called me the creator of Spider-Man,

and I had always thought I was, because I'm the guy who said,

I have an idea for a strip called Spider-Man and so forth.

Steve had said having an idea is nothing

because until it becomes a physical thing, it's just an idea,

and he said it took him to draw the strip and to give it life, so to speak,

or to make it something tangible.

Otherwise, all I had was an idea.

So, I said to him,

"Well, I think the person with the idea is the person who creates it,"

And he said, "No, because I drew it."

In the very beginning, I would come up with a rather detailed plot.

Tell Steve what it was.

He would draw the strip any way he wanted. I didn't give him a complete script.

He'd add a lot of things that I hadn't even thought of.

And then, I would get the pages of artwork,

and I would put in the dialogue trying to give everything

and everyone the personality that I wanted them to have.

Steve is a very creative guy. And the two of us,

whenever we discuss plots, we always just argue

because I want to do it one way and he wants to do it another.

And even though I may disagree,

I feel just the fact that he did it differently will make it good

because it won't be the usual type of plot coming out of our stable.

He'll just do them as he wants them, which makes it twice as difficult for me.

I enjoy it, though. I get a story back from him,

and I don't have the vaguest idea what this is about

because I didn't even give him a thumbnail idea.

He just went home, and he did whatever he wanted.

So, I said, "Fine, I'll tell everybody you're the co-creator."

That didn't quite satisfy him.

I really think the guy who dreams the thing up created it.

You dream it up, and then you give it to anybody to draw it.

STAN: We've just lost the artist Steve Ditko

- MAN: Horrible. - (PEOPLE GROANING)

STAN: One day he just phoned and he said, "I'm leaving."

So that was it.

He was such a popular artist.

I think that we've managed to find people to replace him

where those boos will change to a chorus of cheers.

Steve and I worked beautifully together.

As far as I was concerned, he was the perfect collaborator.

His artwork was superb.

His story sense was brilliant.

I was heartbroken when Steve finally stopped working with us.

INTERVIEWER: You've put out more comics, I think than about anyone.

Yeah, we're the biggest.

Isn't there a problem of control?

STAN: It's one of our biggest problems. You're right.

I would love nothing better than to be doing one magazine,

which I could personally write and edit

and, unfortunately, we're a little bit like a mass production outfit.

I think we're all frustrated.

We'd all like to be able to spend a week on one story.

Unfortunately, because of the economics of this business, it's totally impossible.

We produce about two complete comic books a day.

It's like a production line.

If you ever saw the old Charlie Chaplin movie Modern Times,

there was a scene where Charlie Chaplin is on a production line

and his job is to do this with two wrenches

while things come down and he has to tighten the bolts

and he goes home at night and he's still doing this, you know.

Well, sometimes we feel like that. We don't even know what we're working on.

The pages are just coming by and...

"Proofread that. Change that title,

"get the lettering out and finish."

And off it goes. Two books a day.

In those days, everybody was just busy doing his work.

There was a lot of pressure to turn those things out in time.

Because of the fact that they don't get paid very much per page

and that they have to do a lot of pages a day in order to eke out a living,

the artists would say that they don't have a chance

to really show how good they are.

Sometime around then, Kirby left.

RADIO HOST: We're speaking with Jack Kirby live.

And now we can announce the very special surprise guest,

your colleague, Stan Lee.

STAN: I wanna wish Jack a happy birthday.

KIRBY: Well, Stanley, I want to thank you for calling and I hope

you're in good health and I hope you stay in good health.

STAN: I'm doing my best and the same to you.

You know, whatever we did together,

and no matter who did what, and I guess that's something

that'll be argued forever.

But I think that the product that was produced

was really even more than a sum of its parts.

I think there was some slight magic that came into effect,

when we worked together.

KIRBY: Well, I was never sorry for it, Stanley.

It was a great experience for me.

If the product was good, that was my satisfaction.

RADIO HOST: You know, when it comes right down to it,

it doesn't matter who exactly did what.

STAN: Well, I'll say this.

Every word of dialogue in those scripts was mine.

RADIO HOST: Well, I don't want... STAN: Every story.

RADIO HOST: I don't want to get into controversy about that. What I want to...

KIRBY: I can tell you that I wrote a few lines myself

- above every panel that I... - RADIO HOST: Yes, I've seen those.

STAN: They weren't printed in the book. RADIO HOST: Look.

STAN: Jack, answer me truthfully. KIRBY: I wasn't allowed to...

STAN: Did you ever read one of the stories after it was finished?

I don't think you did.

I don't think you ever read one of my stories.

I think you were always busy drawing the next one.

You never read when it was finished.

KIRBY: Whatever was written in 'em wasn't...

Well, look, it was the action I was interested in.

I know, and I think you felt, "Well, it doesn't matter.

"Anybody can put the dialogue in, it's what I'm drawing that matters."

And maybe you're right. I don't agree with it.

No. I'm only trying to say that one man and his writing and drawing,

and doing a strip, it should come from an individual.

I believe that you should have the opportunity,

uh, to do the entire thing yourself.

RADIO HOST: The success of Marvel had to do with...

To keeping a greater attention to the characters

than to the egos of the people creating them.

STAN: When you mention an ego problem, the funny thing is,

I'm afraid those problems are only cropping up now.

I think when Jack and I did the strips, there was no ego problem.

We were just doing the best we could.

KIRBY: Listen, you can understand now, uh,

how things really were.

(RADIO PLAYING INDISTINCTLY)

My guest is somebody who is not only an old friend and associate

but one of the genuine talented movers and shakers of our business.

Roy Thomas, editor-emeritus of Marvel Comics,

and as good a writer as we're ever going to find anywhere

in the comic business and maybe in any other business.

It just was as though you were the answer to a prayer. Remember, you...

You took over the Fantastic Four. You took over the Avengers, the X...

- I guess you did almost all the stories. - Most.

And as good as anybody could have wanted. Built up your own following.

I began to hate you

- as the fans began to love you. - (CHUCKLES)

When I became publisher, I stopped most of the writing.

When I was writing, I had total control of them.

And they matured, if you want to use that word,

the way I wanted them to.

But I realized, the minute you stop writing a series

and other writers take over, they've got to do it their way.

Comic books started out really dealing with male heroes

'cause at that time, years ago,

nobody even thought to have too many women heroes.

But now, as publisher,

I have found that 10% of our readers are females.

So we ourselves are trying to increase that readership.

And these past few months and years,

we've been adding more and more female characters.

We have one character who's a barbarian called Red Sonja,

in the pre-historical days.

She wields a sword and she's great.

We have a character called Medusa. We have the Black Widow.

We have a new one called Ms. Marvel. She's gonna be a big one.

It was the first time in all the years I had been working there

that I had given the artists the freedom to do the books

the way they wanted to do them.

I find it's a little bit difficult now. The one thing that I regret,

of course, we're not together 24 hours a day.

Roy does his writing at home,

and we've lost a little bit of that perfect control we had

over all the characters.

Once or twice, I may wanna use a certain villain, and I'll say to Roy,

say "I'm gonna bring back Dr. Octopus in the next issue," and Roy'll say,

"Oh, Stan, you can't. I just did it in the Avengers."

You see? And it makes it a little difficult.

There probably are times where things don't gel

or dovetail quite as perfectly.

But that's one of the little things we have to put up with

because of the fact that we've grown so.

I've reached the pinnacle of idleness,

I'm now the publisher.

They kicked me upstairs.

And it's my job to see to it that the other people do all the writing,

but I really miss the writing.

When they named me the publisher of this thing, I became a big businessman.

I always wanted to become somebody important,

but I'm not a businessman.

I've really no interest in working with figures and things like that.

The board of directors, they wanted me to come up with a five-year plan.

Where will we be in five years and how much budget do we need?

But to me, anything that has to do with business is dull.

(CROWD CHEERING)

So I kept the title publisher,

but instead of just being a businessman,

I traveled around the country talking up Marvel Comics.

Thank you, culture-lovers.

I was going to colleges and television shows

and radio shows pitching Marvel.

HOST: The superhero of the comic book business, Stan Lee.

(AUDIENCE APPLAUDING)

STAN: I've always felt comic books were a more powerful cultural device

than they ever had a chance to prove to be.

I hope to give them that chance now.

I want to make comic books much more important than they've ever been.

Basically, it's really a religious crusade, I like to think.

(AUDIENCE LAUGHS)

WOMAN: Indeed. (LAUGHS)

STAN: By this time, I had been at Marvel for many years.

I had had a lifetime job, and I was damn well worth it.

Here's what I think we ought to do.

I marked them all up.

But the company was sold.

One of the owners of the new company said,

"Stan, don't worry, you're going to be better than ever."

And he was gonna give everyone new contracts.

So the new contract I was offered was

instead of a lifetime contract, a two-year contract,

which made me very unhappy.

I always resented the fact that when I wrote these stories,

I never thought, "Gee, I ought to try to copyright something myself and own it."

It always belonged to the company.

So from a business point of view, that was a mistake.

I was heartbroken. There wasn't much I could do about it.

In a series of deliberate and deadly terrorist acts...

BARACK OBAMA: It is time for a change.

CROWD: Yes! Yes, we can!

KENNETH BRANAGH: Let's put a camera up.

Let's not keep this young man waiting.

STAN: Marvel finally settled things.

MAN: Guys, let's clear. Everybody, please.

STAN: They gave me title Chairman Emeritus,

which was an honorary title.

I was very happy about that.

BRANAGH: And, action! Camera! Car!

Stan!

Did it work?

Stan, thank you so much for being here. It is our absolute pleasure

and forgive us if there's lots of handshakes and autographs asked

before you get out of here,

but thank you so much. We are honored to have you.

- Thank you! Thanks a lot! - Thank you.

STAN: So many people walk up and say,

"I just want to thank you for all the enjoyment you've brought."

And I've been doing this since the 1940s.

People who've read the books then

still remember them and have stayed with them.

And now they have their own kids. Some have their grandkids.

I often look back at the early '60s in the famous Marvel bullpen

and think about the characters that came out of the imaginations of Stan Lee,

Jack Kirby, Steve Ditko, and all of the co-creators. It's incredible.

And when we sit around our conference room tables

in development sessions on these movies, I find myself thinking,

"Boy, if we could just tap into 5% of that crucible of imagination."

We're just trying to emulate what the comics have been doing so well

for so many decades.

STAN: In the days I was writing those books,

I was hoping they'd sell

so I wouldn't lose my job and I could keep paying the rent.

All of a sudden, these characters have become world-famous.

They're the subject of blockbuster movies,

and I'm lucky enough to get little cameos in 'em.

Cut. Ladies and gentlemen, that's a camera wrap

on the creator of Iron Man, Mr. Stan Lee.

STAN: The fact that I'm working with characters that I've created...

Action.

Superheroes in New York? Give me a break.

And the fact that they are being directed so beautifully...

Did it work?

That's Captain America? I thought he'd be taller.

- To work with such professionals. - Oh, man.

I am so fired.

And they all have a love of the characters.

Are you Tony Stank?

I never thought it would turn into something like this.

Anyway, before I was so rudely interrupted...

To work with creative people,

especially people who make movies,

is such a thrill.

No!

Yes!

It's overwhelming when I think about it.

Well, the '60s were fun, but now I'm paying for it.

MAN: And cut it.

I think I'll just take these...

bring them over here and hold on for safekeeping.

What's the matter with you kids? You never seen a spaceship before?

MAN: Action.

"Trust me, true believer."

I would have to be crazy not to feel fulfilled.

It's certainly been nice to see the world catch up with what Stan did.

Even if it took movies and TV shows to do it.

The world kinda has to admit now,

you know, maybe there is something to some of this stuff.

For goodness sake, how're you?

(INDISTINCT CONVERSATION)

THOMAS: The seeds of all that stuff are all set back in what Stan did

with Jack and Steve.

You know, you could always trace anything that they do now.

In fact, it all kind of flows from this fountain that was unleashed

when Stan and Jack and Ditko, you know, got together

and suddenly became this wonderful triumvirate,

creating a whole universe.

Neither of them could have, really, you know, done it without the other.

Join me in giving a big welcome to Mr. Stan Lee.

(AUDIENCE CHEERING)

Thank you.

I spent quite a lot of time

writing a 25-page speech that I could give you

and as I looked at it, I said, "Would I want to hear this speech?"

So I tore it up.

So I stand here now defenseless,

with nothing except to tell you

if you have an idea

that you genuinely think is good,

don't let some idiot talk you out of it.

That doesn't mean that every wild notion you come up with is gonna be genius,

but if there is something that you feel is good,

something you want to do, something that means something to you,

try to do it. Because you can only do your best work

if you're doing what you want to do

and if you're doing it the way you think it should be done,

and if you can take pride in it after you've done it,

no matter what it is,

you can look at it and say, "I did that and I think it's pretty damn good."

That's a great feeling.

I want to wish all of you the best luck in the world.

Just do your thing. Whatever you do, give it your best shot.

You'll be glad you did.

- Excelsior! - (AUDIENCE CHEERING)