"WITH GREAT POWER...."

I should have paid the $200.00 at that Wizard World Comic Con in Austin a few years ago. I should have ponied up my money and stood in line for who knows how long to meet the one and only Stan Lee. Don't know what I would have said that he hadn't heard a million times before from countless true believers. Something along the lines of "your work changed my life", "I love everything you've ever done", "you were a major part of my childhood",  "I became a writer because of you", or perhaps, just a simple and heartfelt "thank you.". 

Shoulda, coulda, woulda.

 I had my chance and I didn't take it. Stan Lee died today at the age of 95. This is a year that has seen two other creative giants, Steve Ditko and Harlan Ellison, pass away. Ditko's work, whether alone or in tandem with Stan, had a profound impact on my life as did the one-of-a-kind writings of Harlan Ellison. Important artists in my 62 years. But Stan, man, Stan towered above them all.

Got to meet Forrest J. Ackerman, another major figure in my life, not once but twice, first at his home in Los Angeles (the legendary "Ackermansion) and again in Austin when he was our opening night guest at the first and only Drive-In Double Feature Film Festival. Got to see Don Rickles twice (once in Las Vegas at the now gone Stardust Hotel and Casino, the other time at Austin's Paramount Theatre). Saw Woody Allen on stage at the Paramount also. Introduced and did a Q&A with Adam (Batman) West in 2010 before a full house at the Paramount before a screening of the 1966 BATMAN film.

 

 I geeked out like a total fanboy when I met Michael Chabon and got him to sign my hardcover first edition his Pulitzer Prize winning novel, of THE AMAZING ADVENTURES OF KAVALIER AND CLAY (a work informed in no small measure by the life of Stan Lee). Met Neal Adams and told him that his artwork blew my mind when I first encountered it as a young lad. "Son," he replied, "that was my job."

 Met Gil Kane years ago at a convention in Houston. Practically everyone there was fawning over the current enfant terribles George Perez and Chris Claremont (yes, it was that long ago), while no one was at Kane's table except for me. Had a great visit with him. Chatted with Erin (BUCK ROGERS) Grey and Richard (FORBIDDEN PLANET) Anderson at a Wizard World convention. Sold books for and got my picture taken with William (STAR TREK) Shatner (he was an asshole, by the way). 

 I've had the opportunity to host a book signing event with the second man on the moon, Buzz Aldrin, go through a buffet line with Robert Duvall, visit with Peter Bogdanovich and Eli Wallach (both at the Paramount) , sit in on an English class lecture at St. Edward's University by James Ellroy, spot Sid Melton in the Las Vegas airport and share a plane flight to Los Angeles with Sugar Ray Leonard.

Not bad, not bad at all. But still, I had the chance to go for Stan and didn't take it. 

Stan Lee isn't my favorite comic book writer. That honor would go to Roy Thomas. But Stan was certainly the first comic book writer I knew by name. His byline was on practically every Marvel comic I bought in the 1960s. It seems that Stan wrote and edited everything published by Marvel at the time. My brother used to give me grief about how much I loved Stan's writing. He used to deride the entire concept of comic books and tell me, with more than a hint of malice, that there was no Stan Lee, that that was just a name someone made up. I knew better.

I'll leave it for others to document all of Stan's many accomplishments in the field of popular culture. While he may not have been the best writer in the history of comics, he was certainly the best at self-promotion, bombast and hyperbole. Yet Stan backed up the bally-hoo with solid, well crafted stories, drenched with emotion and leavened with humor, while creating from scratch the legendary Marvel Universe.

Oh sure, he had help in the form of such stalwarts as Don Heck, Dick Ayers, and Steve Ditko. Stan and Jack Kirby, my all-time favorite comic book artist, produced tons of excellent work. Their 100 issue run on FANTASTIC FOUR as co-creators, is a feat never to be equaled or surpassed in comic book history, a marathon of ideas, concepts and characters tumbling out one after the other, each one more impressive and game changing than the last. Consider: Dr. Doom, the revived Sub-Mariner, the Mole Man, the Puppet Master, Diablo, Dragon Man, the Hate Monger, the Red Ghost and his Super Apes, the Watcher, the Skrulls, the Inhumans, the Silver Surfer, Galactus, the Black Panther, the Mad Thinker, the Sentry, Ronan the Accuser, Annihilus, the Negative Zone, Psycho Man, Wyatt Wingfoot, Black Bolt, Medusa, the Frightful Four, Gorgon, Kurrgo, Master of Planet X, and on and on and on. Lee and Kirby produced what are hands down the greatest superhero comic books ever made. Once again, others can speak to the matter of who did what where credit is due. I'm not here to address that. I'm only here to say that Lee and Kirby were the Lennon and McCartney of comic books. 

It's been fun to see Stan cameo in all of the recent Marvel films and it's safe to say that there are millions of people out there who can easily quote Stan's most famous piece of writing without ever having read a single comic book by Stan or any one else.

"With great power there must also come great responsibility."

That was the final caption on the final panel of the very first Spider-Mann story by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko. It appeared in AMAZING FANTASY #15 (the last issue of that title before Spidey debuted in his own title, THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN.). I own a copy of AF #15 and it's what I would have clutched in my hands while waiting for Stan to sign it for me. In that line I never got in that time I had a chance to meet "The Man". 

That opportunity is gone as is Stan Lee. But Stan Lee has achieved immortality through his work. An immense and wondrous body of stories that bedazzled me as a youth and fired my imagination in a way that no other comic books had ever done. He touched my life in a way that is hard to explain unless you also are a child of the sixties, a starry eyed youth like myself riding the pop culture wave of an incredible decade. It was a great time to be a kid, to be a fan, to discover new worlds aborning on an almost daily basis. 

Stan Lee was just one of the guides to the wonderful world of imagination. He took me for a ride that, while slowing down, has never come to a complete stop.

Thank you Stan. Thank you for everything. Thank you for taking an entire generation by the hand and showing them that there are still heroes in this world, that there is still something good and decent and honorable to believe in. Thank you for showing us that no matter how bleak things might seem, there's always hope. Thank you for showing us how to dream big and live large. 

God speed you dear and wonderful man. Excelsior and 'Nuff Said and all that other stuff. Goodbye old friend. 

I love you.