Today we come back for our third actual Comic Relief! talk, and today is a big one. With the dramatic rise of the Marvel Cinematic Universe over the past 10 years, super heroes like Iron Man, Thor, Hulk, and Captain America have become common names in the household. With this resurgence in these classic heroes, it seems only fitting we take a moment to appreciate the source for (most) of them. Stan Lee turns 94 tomorrow, December 28, and with another year under his belt I figure it's good a time as any for us to take a look at the great legacy that Stan "The Man" Lee has left for us as fans of comics and super heroes.
Now this story all starts with the publication of Action Comics #1 back in the late 1930s which made it's debut of Superman, the first comic book superhero. This character sold like crazy and pretty soon all sorts of magazines were popping up with their own characters that would begin to form the two major companies: DC and Marvel. But before then Marvel comics wasn't Marvel, it was Atlas comics and before that, Timely publications. In order to truly understand the impact of Stan Lee, it is important to start from the beginning, so his story begins at Timely Publications in 1939.
A Hero's Journey Begins...
Timely Publications was one of the top comic competitors during the golden age of comic books. They provided us with our first flying Super hero, Namor, the first Human torch (Jim Hammond), and most notably Captain America. In 1939 Martin Goodman, an upcoming name in the pulp magazine business, started up his own magazine: Timely Publications. Martin would hire his wife's cousin, a 16 year old Stanley Lieberman (who one day would take the pseudonym Stan Lee) to be an office assistant for Timely. Stanley quickly took to the trade getting to see some of the most iconic creative teams hard at work, most notably in Joe Simon and Jack Kirby (creative team that created Captain America for Timely in 1941). Starting with small steps like occasionally lettering on smaller books, to eventually writing his own stories, Stan Lee was born and when he turned 19, Stan was made editor of the magazine by Goodman upon the loss of Joe Simon and Jack Kirby to DC comic predecessor National Comics (a post he would maintain until 1972 until taking up Goodman's place as publisher in 1972). However, this was just the beginning of the legend. Like all legends, things must first get hard before man's perseverance and determination can transpose them to heroes.
The years following the War (World War II) were not easy for Super books. Society, which had once embraced these books as a means of propaganda for war effort, had in peace time reared it's ugly head to attack. Court cases were thrown down at the great funny books from the golden age that would place massive restrictions on material put in the books in the form of the Comic Code Authority. The Comic Code Authority was put in place after opposition was raised against comic books by Dr Fredric Wertham in his book Seduction of the Innocent. In the book, the psychiatrist claimed that the violence and graphic nature of these books would serve as poor influences upon the nation's youth. The Comic Code Authority essentially acted as a form of censorship where books had to be given their stamp of approval in order to be published (this practice would be continued by some companies until 2011).
At this point Timely Comics had shifted it's brand. It had become Atlas comics. As Atlas comics, the super books had all but died, leaving a stream of pulp horror, romance, and western books in their wake. This, for Stan, was probably the lowest point of his career. He has stated in many interviews that this time period was one where he genuinely considered leaving comics. He felt his work was lifeless and lacked the fun of the books he had once written under Timely. Things were looking bleak, but in life things are always their darkest before a dawn. Little did Stan Lee know that he would be arguably the most influential name in the orchestration of the Silver Age of comic book Super Heroes along with Jack Kirby.
Heroes in the "Real World"
The 1950s were off to a rough start, but just as they had pioneered Superheroes in 1939, so too did they rekindle the flame of Super books toward the end of the decade. In their new series Justice League, DC Comics (then still National Comics) introduced a team of some of their hallmark heroes fighting alongside one another. Publisher of Atlas (formerly Timely), Goodman, approached Lee about creating a team of heroes to challenge their competitor for supremacy of the game.
Now at this point, Atlas had the talent there, but it's work had been lackluster. They were barely staying afloat due to tired work that was made in high quantity but was barely passable quality and cheaply made. However, the chance to work on a Super book again, was a reinvigorating challenge for Stan Lee and so he paired with reacquired talent Jack Kirby and created their first Super book since the Golden age, and their first team book: The Fantastic Four.
While the property may not have aged as gracefully as others, The Fantastic Four was groundbreaking when it was published. Characters in this team were heroes, but they were also human. They were prone to bouts of anger, melancholy, strife, things that we all deal with daily, but also the Fantastic Four acknowledged the politics of the global stage. In the original book, the Fantastic Four discover their powers due to a project they were working on for the Space Race. With the massive success of the first issue of Fantastic Four it was time for another re-branding. Taking the names of one of it's old titles, Atlas comics became Marvel Comics.
The idea of super heroes dealing with the problems of the real world was not new necessarily, but using them for political activism to the extent that Marvel did was revolutionary. Michael Benson, renowned comic historian probably puts it best:
"In the world of Superman comic books, communism did not exist. Superman rarely crossed national borders or involved himself in political disputes. From 1962 to 1965, there were more communists than on the subscription list of Pravda. Communist agents attack Ant-Man in his laboratory, red henchmen jump the Fantastic Four on the moon, and Viet Cong guerrillas take potshots at Iron Man.."Stan, collaborating with primarily Jack Kirby and Stephen Ditko, created various characters to relate to all different audiences and deal with things that were concerns of the day to day American. X-men served as a pioneer to books promoting the civil rights movement as Professor Xavier and Magneto served as poetic representations of the manifestos of Martin Luther King Jr and Malcolm X respectively, and later even creating both African super hero Black Panther (king of an Isolated African Kingdom that was a relative Utopia), and the first African American super hero The Falcon (whom would work close in hand with Captain America as a partner and equal). Spider-man gave us the first teenage super hero that was NOT a sidekick, but more importantly focused on the struggles that a coming of age boy deals with on a daily basis: choosing to be responsible over a far more convenient wrong and the like. However, the biggest achievement that would come from these creations would come in the form of Amazing Spider-Man issue #s 96-98.
Along Came a Spider, and Down Went the Comic Code Authority
As comics have always been an area of interest for a younger audience, it is no surprise that the Amazing Spider-man, within 5 years, would become Marvel's biggest seller. The rise of popularity of the Marvel brand among the young people of the country was not one that went unnoticed and so in the early 70's Stan was approached by US Department of Health, Education, and Welfare to do a comic that took a stand against drug use. Stan Lee accepted the offer and wrote a 3 issue arc for the Amazing Spider-Man and submitted it into review for the Comic Code Authority to inspect.
The Comic Code Authority shot down the three issue arc. The presence of Narcotics in comics was not acceptable to their standards. The acting head of the authority found the depiction of the use of narcotics in the arc lacking in decency and thereby in violation of the Comic Code standards. Stan Lee was left with a big decision, to back down from this and follow the code, or to throw this convention out the window and publish anyway. Stan took the high road and decided that the message of the book was above these regulations that were becoming increasingly outdated. After approaching publisher Martin Goodman, Stan received the approval to go on ahead and publish the arc WITHOUT the presence of the CCA stamp on the book.
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| If you look at the top right corner, you will notice something missing that was in the past two covers |
This of course resulted in the CCA taking a HUGE credibility hit. Later on that year the CCA reformed it's standards. However, these reformations meant little as the rise of independent comic companies made it near impossible for them to enforce. The CCA would not disappear, but over the years it's influence continued to wain and so too did it's hold over the content put in comics. By 2001 Marvel abandoned the CCA agreement for favor of their own rating system. In 2011 the CCA came to it's demise as it's last two companies, DC and Archie comics, abandoned the agreement as well.
Stan Lee would succeed Goodman as publisher of Marvel Comics a year later. The legacy of he left as both a creator, and political activist can be felt throughout comics. He is the man who created Iron Man, Spider- Man, The Fantastic Four and X-men, and also was responsible for the revival of our Golden Age favorites (Captain America, and Namor) and create the Avengers. His constant push on the boundaries that confined comics led to the dismantling of an agreement that quite frankly was an impunity on freedom of expression. He is Stan Lee and he really is THE Man.
Happy 94th Birthday Stan "The Man!" Thank you from all of us nerds for all you have given to us over the years. Your dedication to comics, and to providing us with role models to instill us with hope for a better world and a good moral foundation during harsh times is nothing short of extraordinary.
I will always be a True Believer! Excelsior!
That wraps it up for this edition of Comic Relief! Hope you all enjoyed!
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