Twenty six months.
That’s how long it’s been since we lost a living legend. That’s how long it’s been since Stan Lee died and every time we’re reminded of his passing it feels like we’ve been punched in the gut all over again.
(I was insanely busy the day he died and didn’t find out about his death until that night. While I usually play my emotional cards pretty close to the vest, the friend who was the bearer of bad news immediately asked me if I was OK. She said it looked like every drop of blood had abandoned my face when I found out.)
It feels like a lifetime since we lost Stan on November 12th, 2018. Hell, 2020 felt like an entire century all by itself. But when he briefly trended on Twitter last month, millions of us were reminded how much he meant. How big a vacuum he left in our lives. And how profound both his loss and his absence have been.
December 27th was Stan’s birthday. He would have been 98 last year.
The simple truth is, if you grew up virtually anywhere in the Western world over the past century, your life was touched by Stan Lee. Few other human beings can say the same.
Entire forests have been felled chronicling Lee’s enormous body of work. Anything I write here would merely be the tip of the iceberg.
Marvel Comics has been a powerhouse in contemporary pop culture for decades (even during it’s bankruptcy back in the 90’s). Joining the Disney family and launching the MCU, the biggest and most profitable movie franchise in history, cemented it as one of the biggest pieces on the global entertainment chess board.
Put another day, neither the MCU nor Disney would exist without Marvel. And Marvel wouldn’t exist without Stan Lee.
This is by no means meant to diminish or reduce the significant contributions made by creators like Jack Kirby, Steve Ditko, John Buscema, Chris Claremont or many others who played a part in the House of Idea’s creation and success. But Stan was the creative glue that kept Marvel together during both its infancy and during its transformation into the juggernaut it is today.
Lee was instrumental to the creation of many of the characters that forged Marvel’s unique identity. Spider-Man. Captain America. The Incredible Hulk. Thor. Iron Man. The Black Panther. The Fantastic Four. The X-Men. Dr. Strange. The list goes on and on. And Lee didn’t merely create a shared universe populated with a legion of relatable and appealing characters, he created a brand new way to create the comics that told their story. Dubbed the Stan Lee style, Marvel still uses it to publish it’s library of books today.
Lee was a creative pioneer and there was a reason Marvel and subsequently Disney kept him as the face of the brand well after he stopped writing.
In short, any human being who has watched or enjoyed a Marvel movie-which is nearly everyone on the planet-owes a debt to Stan Lee.
Lee did it with dignity and integrity. There were doubtless bumps (and a few scandals) along the way, but Lee never had a scandal or needed to leave the spotlight to rehabilitate his image. There were few shooters as straight as Lee or people who stood as tall. Or as humble.
But Lee’s creative contributions were only a small part of what he gave us. He coined the phrase “with great power comes great responsibility” and those weren’t just words he wrote to sell comic books. Lee had a captive audience that stretched across continents, an audience that spoke dozens of different languages and often felt overwhelmed by a world that changed with neither hesitation nor mercy. An audience that inhabited a world that often terrified it’s youngest and most vulnerable citizens.
And he used his platform to talk to that audience with signature Stan Lee responsibility.
I still remember reading Stan’s Soapbox every month growing up. His personal words of wisdom nestled in between the four-colour pages of super hero drama and antics. I remember how he condemned the bigots and the bullies and the intolerant. How he described acceptance and mercy and compassion as the greatest forms of bravery and how courage was the best super power anyone could have. I remember him telling us every month that anyone and everyone could be a hero, and while we couldn’t fly or lift mountains or wear masks to protect our secret identities, simply being kind and doing the right thing made us super.
Lee was the first person who ever spoke to me about racism and intolerance. I read Lee’s thoughts on those and many other subjects well before my parents or my teachers or any authority figure ever broached them with me. And not only did Lee seem much more informed on these issues, but he spoke to me (and everyone else) like an equal while every other adult seemed intent on talking down or pandering.
We could use some of Lee’s wisdom these days. While it feels like we’ve all aged an entire lifetime since we said good-bye to him, it doesn’t feel like we-or the world-has gotten any wiser. The headlines are filled with violence and fear. Our days are full of quiet shadows while keeping our most loved ones away is the best way to keep many of them safe. These are troubled times and I often find myself thinking of all those hours I spent reading Lee’s Soapbox as a kid. And all the important lessons I picked up from them.
There are a lot of people who could learn from Stan. There is no shortage of leaders who are a fraction of the man he was. The world could really use him and his Soapbox right now. In the end, the best way to honour him has always been to embrace the lessons he tucked into his comic books every month.
Maybe its high time we started trying a little harder.
Image via www.bleedingcool.com
