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Home , Ardina, Bloodshed (comics), Charles Biro, Editions Lug, Inhumanity (comics), John Buscema

‘Tis ’

Stan-Fan Verily, In all Comics the universe, Fanzine! there was only one such as !

$9.95 In the USA No. 161 November 2019

A full-issue tribute to STAN LEE. ’Nuff Said.

Galactus TM & © Characters, Inc.

Thus, Shall I

Ponder the 1 82658 00374 6 significance of such a unique being as he! 5 A 1975 Radio Interview With STAN LEE Conducted On-Air By Carole Hemingway, KABC-Talk Radio, October 1975 Transcribed by Steven Tice – with Additions by Rand Hoppe

CAROLE HEMINGWAY: Hi, EDITOR’S INTRO: everybody. The time is 9:05 at A/E In October 1975, KABC-Talk Radio… this is ridiculous! Stan Lee, then Why did I invite you here? [chuckles; still living on the East Coast and Lee laughs] Who can talk about serving as ’ publisher, comicbooks? Nobody can talk about made one of his periodic trips to Los comicbooks for an entire hour. They’re Angeles—in this case, to help promote boring and violent… bloodshed! the new Simon & Schuster/Fireside hardcover Son of Origins of Marvel STAN LEE: Just ask me some Comics, the sequel to 1974’s Origins questions. Just introduce the of Marvel Comics. Both books were thing. There is violence, there is composed of stories he had scripted in bloodshed, but these are Marvel the 1960s for the early days of Marvel, Comics, which are a model of with Lee also providing new prose decorum. introductions to each tale. One of his most memorable appearances was HEMINGWAY: No, no, no… I’ve on talk-radio station KABC in L.A., been reading this… where the nighttime hostess was Carole LEE: You lucky devil… Hemingway. HEMINGWAY: No, no, no… you’re Hemingway had begun on the the devil. station a year earlier, and had quickly become a very popular presence on LEE: The introductions that I the nighttime air waves, remaining wrote, did you know… there until 1982, and later having another such radio gig (though in HEMINGWAY: No, they are pretty the afternoon) from 1986-93. She bad, actually. also later owned a media consulting LEE: Well, it’s been nice seeing firm operating out of Beverly Hills, you! I’m glad the settings are not California, and for some time wrote turned on or anything. [chuckles] a nationally syndicated newspaper column of social commentary. Carole Hemingway & Stan Lee HEMINGWAY: This is Stan Lee, bookend the cover of the brand new 1975 Simon & Schuster/Fireside by the way. He originated Marvel When I first read a transcription hardcover book that Lee had come west to ballyhoo: Son of Origins Comics and all those people with some of some of the latter part of this of Marvel Comics, with its dramatic painted cover by John Romita. sort of extra- power. We have hour-long interview with Stan Lee, [Cover art TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.] Marvel Girl, , , Iron I thought—as, apparently, did a few Man, Magneto, , , other readers as opposed to listeners— Ant-Man… that Carole and Stan had gotten off on the wrong foot and were hostile to each other. However, after the entire talk was transcribed, it was apparent LEE: I love The Silver Surfer. that it was nothing but a good-natured verbal “love & insult fest,” perhaps HEMINGWAY: He’s mean and cruel. a welcome aperitif to all the radio shows on which Stan did little but plug product. He and Hemingway made a good match—and when I discovered LEE: No, he’s sweet and adorable—almost Christ-like in his aspect that none other than the legendary had called in near and demeanor, and the college kids are really into The Silver Surfer. of the show to toss in his 2¢ worth (at a time when he had only recently returned to Marvel for what would become, alas, merely a three-year HEMINGWAY: They’re into The Silver Surfer… stay), I decided that it had to be spotlighted in this celebration of Stan LEE: the Man…. There’s a lot of philosophy… Your problem is… 6 Conducted On-Air By Carole Hemingway

LEE: It is “Stan space Lee.” I hate everybody saying, “Stanley what?” I thought of changing of my name to “Stan Lee What,” so when people say, “Stanley what?” I can say, “You’re right. HEMINGWAY: We have Stan Lee What on the program. If you can possibly think of anything to talk about comicbooks, please call in. LEE: You’re too good-looking for radio. HEMINGWAY: Oh, really? LEE: I’d like you to have a TV show. HEMINGWAY: I like Stan Lee a little better. Go ahead… LEE: I’m mad about you. I’ve been interviewed by so many people and they’re just people. Then, I come in here, and here’s this doll who is speaking rotten to me over the microphone! [Hemingway chuckles] I’ve got fifty minutes left to make her a comic fan… to win her heart and her affections. And I have a cold in the nose to boot! [chuckles] There’s no way! HEMINGWAY: Let’s see. Can he, or can he not do it? LEE: This is the way we do our comic strips, see? Stay with us and see what happens. HEMINGWAY: Stay with us and I’ll give you some phone numbers: 870-7263 is our number in Los Angeles, in the Valley, 981-7900, in the South Bay area, 644-0790. LEE: You said that dramatically! HEMINGWAY: Wasn’t that beautiful? [Ad comes on about cutting taxes for 1975: Glendale Federal Savings] “ Of The Spaceways!” HEMINGWAY: KABC-Talk Radio time is now 9:10. Now there are The splash page of The Silver Surfer #1 (Aug. 1968). Script by Stan Lee… “Goodyear Tires”… “Goodyear makes the goin’ great!,” etc., etc. I have to pencils by … inks by . He was called the “Sentinel ask you, Stan Lee: What kind of tires are on that fantastic limousine you of the Spaceways” on the cover—even though, ever since drove up to the studio in? #50, he had been exiled to Earth by edict of his former master, . [TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.] LEE: The only thing that would tear me away from you is if I had Hugh Hefner’s three-block long Mercedes limousine waiting HEMINGWAY: Oh, yes, tell me about my problem… outside. LEE: Obviously, you’re not a comicbook buff, but we have about fifty-five minutes left, so I will proselytize you, if you’ll forgive me. I think we should do something with you and turn you into a real human being. HEMINGWAY: [belly laughter] LEE: You’re a nice person… a lousy human being, but a nice person. HEMINGWAY: This is Stan Lee from Marvel Comics... LEE: You go out for coffee and I’ll handle the show… HEMINGWAY: Daredevil and Marvel Girl and all these people… LEE: The X-Men… HEMINGWAY: What’s the matter with your voice? LEE: I’ve got this terrible cold. See, when I live in where it’s foggy and gloomy and smoggy and dirty and dingy and terrible, I’m as healthy as hell. I come out here to beautiful Los Forget The Fantastic Four! This Is The Fantastic Flivver! Angeles and I get sick. I’m going to sue the city of Los Angeles. Stan Lee some years after this interview, with his 1987 Mercedes 420 SEL. Though he joked about his car that night being borrowed from Hugh HEMINGWAY: Please don’t. We have enough problems. [Lee chuckles] Hefner (whom, by coincidence, he would wind up virtually playing in a This is Stan Lee… 21st-century film cameo), Stan did have some posh cars over the years. 21 Tributes To A Titan A Few Of Those Who Worked For & With Him Remember STAN LEE Assembled by Roy Thomas

EDITOR’S INTRODUCTION: Because another A/E issue of Alter Ego (#150, to be exact) was dedicated to Beyond “Bullpen Stan Lee in conjunction with his 95th birthday, just Bulletins” under two years ago, I felt freer than I otherwise might have in setting The cover of the New up the precise contents for this one, which will be on sale nearly one year York Daily News for after his passing on November 12, 2018. I invited a handful of key people Nov. 13, 2018, the who worked editorially for Marvel Comics in when Stan day after Stan Lee’s was on the scene as editor and/or publisher to share their thoughts about passing. With thanks working with him. I realize I could have approached any number more, to Michael T. Gilbert. and perhaps I should have. Maybe some of those folks will share their [TM & © the respective thoughts with us for a future issue. trademark & copyright holders.] The first tribute-payers below are three of the surviving gents who served under publisher Stan as his editor-in-chief, presented in in which they served: myself, , and . Two Until I met him, I’d had other comics writers and editors after others, and , sadly, have left us—and Gerry whom I might have patterned myself; but standing on his right Conway, who served for a few weeks in early 1976, sent his apologies hand, morning after weekday morning for years, mostly swept but did not at present feel up to putting his thoughts on paper. Others those other influences away, much like those rivers that Hercules accepting our invitation were , who came on staff in the channeled through the Augean stables. For here, I quickly realized, early 1970s; , who signed on a year or so later; was a man who was very clearly in command of what he was doing and , only briefly a staffer but another of Marvel’s top as both writer and editor… and who knew how to get the best, the writers of the 1970s. very best, out of writers and artists (and other editors) alike.

Here are their thoughts, in roughly the order in which they were This book, as was surely apparent long before you reached this piped aboard, beginning with myself, because I came to work for Stan in page, is not and never was intended to be a biography. It is, rather, July of 1965 and served as the company-wide editor (Stan and I agreed on the story of one man’s—of Stan the Man’s—journey through the the hyphenated title “editor-in-chief”) from 1972 to 1974… a period of a vine-encrusted jungles of 20th- and 21st-century popular culture, few months over two years…. both reacting to what had come before and greatly influencing what has come after. In harness with some of the finest and humor artists ever to wander into the mad, mad world of A Trio Of Tributes comicbooks, and working from his own personal and commercial instincts, only rarely with a preconceived road map, he charted by Roy Thomas a course that has been a pathway for all who have come since, Because I’ve written at length about Stan in many places, including whether they know it or not. (And mostly they do.) in Alter Ego #150 and in the sizable Taschen book The Stan Lee Story Working with and for him, in one capacity or another, for (not to mention in 2014’s 75 Years of Marvel: From the Golden Age much of the past 50-plus years has been a privilege and good to the Silver Screen), I’ve decided to mostly limit my thoughts to those fortune of which a boy in the trans-Mississippi Midwest could related to my final face-to-face meeting with him—on November 10, scarcely have dreamed when first reading the four-color exploits 2018—as it would turn out, less than two days before he passed away. of , the , and the Sub-Mariner in the First, though, I thought I’d reprint the few paragraphs I wrote in latter 1940s. 2017 as an “Afterword” for the first, 1200-copy edition (counting 200 Once, when it had abruptly occurred to him that there was “artist’s proofs”) of The Stan Lee Story, which by sheer coincidence an 18-year age gap between the two of us, Stan squinted at me and would go on sale at bookstores around the time of Stan’s death. That page said, “You know, I could have been your father!” would be replaced in the general edition of the book (published in July 2019) by a truncated account of our final encounter. Here is my original In many ways, Stan… you damn near were. “Afterword,” by courtesy of copyright-holder Taschen: My manager/pal John Cimino gave his POV of the events of Stan Lee is a whirlwind I first encountered in the pages of November 10, 2018, in this issue’s guest editorial on pp. 2 & 3 of this Marvel Comics in 1961… then in person four years later. Ever since issue. Here is my own, an expansion of the necessarily brief remarks that the latter day, he has been a dominant presence in my life, whether appear in the “Afterword” of the general edition of The Stan Lee Story. I was employed by Marvel at the time or not. For the next several Both versions are based on notes I wrote on November 12th of last year— years after 1965, he was for me a one-man course of instruction on the day after I’d flown back from L.A. to South Carolina and the very the way to write—and to edit—thrilling yet humanized comicbook morning I learned of Stan’s passing: heroes. Tributes To A Titan 25

Always Leave ’Em Laughing! Roy and Stan share a laugh just prior to RT’s departure on November 10, 2018. Seen in the background is Jon Bolerjack, Stan’s attentive caregiver and “handler” during the last few months of his life. Photo taken by John Cimino.

As we were about to get into Chandler’s car outside, Stan’s Stan Lee Memorial Remarks daughter J.C. drove up. We hadn’t seen each other in some years, and never really knew one another well, but we exchanged effusive Hi, Stan. greetings and I reminded her how around 1970 Stan had given This is my chance to thank you for all that you’ve meant to my my first wife and me the adorable little poodle, Samantha, that a life these past fifty-plus years. younger J.C. had formerly carried around in her big handbag, even bringing her into the Marvel offices on occasion. Then it was time First, as a reader back in 1961, you changed my view of what a to go. comicbook could be, when you and Jack Kirby assaulted my senses with the very first issue of The Fantastic Four. A few hours later, I was on a big jet headed back to the Carolinas. And, sadly, less than 48 hours after our brief visit, Stan Then, four years later, you hired me to be your assistant, your passed away. I was both surprised… and not surprised. I had protégé, your… whatever. I was happy to go along for the ride, and half expected him to go ever since his wife Joan had passed away I’ve never regretted making that decision. the previous year… but I could also have easily visualized his summoning up the strength (had he wanted to) to go on for several I’ve never forgotten that morning after the big power blackout years more. I’m eternally grateful to John Cimino and Chandler on the East Coast in November of ’65. Denny O’Neil and I stumbled Rice for their help in setting up that flying trip… and to Jon into the Marvel office after an evening of just sitting around in Bolerjack for being open to, even enthusiastic about it. It meant even a restaurant… in the dark. You came in with most of an issue more to me than you can imagine. of Daredevil written. You and Joan had set up what you called a “candle brigade” at your house, and you had two-finger-typed out page after page of top-notch dialogue… and then you apologized A couple of months later, on January 30, 2019, Stan’s company to production manager because you hadn’t been able POW! Entertainment joined forces with movie director (and Stan chum) to write even more. That’s when I knew I was working for the right Kevin Smith and others to host a memorial event titled “Excelsior!”at the guy. You never let anything stop you. TCL Chinese Theatre in Hollywood, where so many of Marvel’s recent string of hit films had played… and where, a few years earlier, Stan had So thanks, Stan, for that bright July day when, maybe 15 had his handprints immortalized in cement. I couldn’t attend, but at their minutes after we met, you stared out the window, down at the invitation (and arranged in part by Michael Uslan), Dann filmed me models strolling by on Madison Avenue, and you asked the saying the few words I would have spoken, had I been there: question that changed my life forever: “So… what do we have to do to hire you away from National?”

[Tributes continue on p. 30, after intervening photo & art pages.] 36 Marvel Staffers Remember Stan Lee

seem possible. I learned so much from him. So many of us in the business did; even those who never got to work with Stan owe a debt to his genius and inspiration. Long ago, speaking about comicbook writers, Steve Englehart wrote: “Stan is the father of us all.” Nice one, Steve. So, tell you what, fellow children, to honor him let’s give Jim Shooter & Stan Lee a good account of at a big Denver convention, 2016. Also seen is a ourselves. So, if he’s 1986 memo from Stan, in gratitude for a “Bullpen watching, he’ll be Bulletins” piece by JS about The Man. Courtesy of proud. Jim S. All you True Believers, too. He taught us all to face front. work that got me the most… Acclaim. Ahem. Kid Stan – Outlaw “Both of us suffered through being stabbed in the back by people we thought were close friends. People we trusted. by Tony Isabella “Both of us have been lied about, misquoted, slandered, libeled, Below, Tony Isabella remembers being hired as an assistant on and misjudged by people ignorant of the facts. Both of us have been the new Mighty World of Marvel magazine, which reprinted Marvel falsely accused of taking credit for other people’s work. Both of us material for sale in the United Kingdom. My own memory is of Stan have seen credit for work we did, things we created, taken away. telling me he needed someone who could write press releases, Bullpen Bulletins-style pieces, and the like more or less in his style, and my feeling “Stan has borne it all with courage, grace, poise, and dignity. that Tony, whom I knew as a comics fan-journalist of some talent, could He’s remained a again and again, even when it was handle that assignment. Maybe Tony got bounced from one job to the other difficult. even before he walked in the door. What matters is that he became a writer and editor for Marvel for the next number of years, and he was good at it. “I wasn’t there when the and its characters were Nowadays, he’s become best-known as the creator of Black Lightning, created. But I’ve spoken extensively with those who were, including the DC super-hero who has his own WB TV series—but before he was the Sol, Flo, Morrie, and others. I’ve worked with several of the key darling of the DC air waves, he was a Marvel man through and through…. participants in that incredible creative collaboration, including Jack, Steve, , Vinnie, and Michelangelo, to name a few. Although I had two fathers. To put it more accurately, my career as a their contributions were huge, even indispensable, it’s clear to me comics writer has two fathers. that Stan was the guiding force, the linchpin, and the most important creator of the Marvel Universe. I worked with him closely. I saw him Louis Isabella encouraged my writing when I was young, in action. He was and is The Man. building an “office” in the basement of our Cleveland home so I could write in relative peace. Stan Lee inspired my writing with “One thing I learned from Stan—actually, I guess I really learned his comics. I wanted to be part of the universe he created with Jack this from Spider-Man—sometimes you just have to be content that Kirby, , and others. It was one of the most satisfying you know the truth. moments of my life when I introduced Lou to Stan when the former “Stan, I want you to know that I’m still learning from you. By visited me in New York. remote control again, unfortunately. You’re a hero to me and I’m still Stan was one of my first bosses in comics, along with Roy trying to emulate you. Thomas and Sol Brodsky. Roy had hired me to assist Stan and Sol “Thanks to you, I’ll never lose that kid inside.” on The Mighty World of Marvel, the British comics weekly reprinting the earliest adventures of the Fantastic Four, Spider-Man, and the , and some other projects. I could not have had three better That was 1995. Now, here we are. Stan is gone. It just doesn’t teachers. I wish I had been a much better student. Still, some of 42 STAN LEE & MOEBIUS When Titans Clashed—Together! by Jean-Marc Lofficier

only worked with Stan once—on the Silver Surfer graphic I novel he did with Jean “Moebius” Giraud in 1987-88. Jean and I, who were then business partners, first met Stan in a one-on-one at the American Booksellers’ Association convention in May 1987 in Anaheim, California, then again at the San Diego Comic-Con a couple of months later. Stan was very eager to find a way to work with Jean, and the feeling was reciprocated. The problem was that Jean was unfamiliar with most of the Marvel characters. He had first discovered them in their French editions in 1969 in the magazines Fantask, then Strange, published by Editions Lug, the current successor of which is Hexagon Comics, of which I am today editor-in-chief. The one series that had most impressed him was Stan and John Buscema’s glorious Silver Surfer of 1968-70, which had garnered much praise from French writers and artists, and had even been wonderfully parodied by top Marcel Gotlib Jean Giraud (aka “Moebius”) & Jean-Marc Lofficier That’s “Moebius” on the left, around the time of his and Stan Lee’s Silver Surfer: Parable —while Jean-Marc is seen (on right) walking his dogs in the countryside earlier this year. Jean Giraud, of course, drew and colored the cover of the Marvel/Epic graphic novel. The two separate issues won the 1989 for “Best Finite/.” Thanks to Jean-Marc for the photo of himself; the pic of Moebius was found on the Internet. We figure you know what Stan looks like by now—and alas, we have no photos of him and Moebius together. [Parable cover TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.]

in his humor magazine Fluide Glacial (which also published Carmen Cru, which my wife Randy and I translated for the US market under the title French Ice). So, when we had lunch at Comic-Con, I suggested the Surfer as the best “candidate” for a collaboration. This was greeted enthusiastically by Stan, since it was his favorite character. I also suggested to Stan that he should write a stand-alone story, with just the Surfer, without a plethora of other Marvel guest-stars, like the other stand-alone he had done with Jack Kirby to try to sell a Surfer movie, which had ended up being published by Simon & Schuster in 1978. This was, he said, something that fit his perfectly, and he wouldn’t have dreamed of doing otherwise. Jean was very intent on having his name on a “real” American comicbook, one printed on newsprint, colored with the Ben Day process. Archie Goodwin, who was then Epic’s editor, came up with the concept of publishing the story as two comics first, reusing the original Surfer logo from the ’60s, then collecting it in a jacketed hardcover with some additional features six months later. Stan went home to write the plot, almost suffering from stage fright, which I thought was both surprising and endearing. After all, if Moebius was Moebius, he was Stan “The Man” Lee. And Jean was not an intimidating figure; he and Stan had visibly clicked during the lunch and had found much in common in their philosophies of life. I genuinely don’t recall how long it took Stan to write the plot Stan Lee & Moebius 43

“The Coming Of Gallic-tus?” (Above:) French cartoonist Marcel Gotlib’s parody of the Stan Lee/John Buscema Silver Surfer comic first appeared in L’Echo des Savanes #7 in 1974. Thanks to Jean- Marc Lofficier. [TM & © Marcel Gotlib.] (Top right:) The last real comics collaboration between Stan Lee and Jack Kirby was their 1978 Simon & Schuster graphic novel The Silver Surfer—which resembled a replay of 1966’s Fantastic Four #48-50, only with the F.F. replaced by a gal named Ardina. Inks by Joe Sinnott. Thanks to Barry Pearl. [TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.] of what became Parable. I’d say a couple of weeks, perhaps a month, but I’m not sure. Eventually, I did get the typewritten plot in the post (remember the post?) and took it to Jean who, at the time, lived in a lovely house in the hills near Topanga in the L.A. area. I liked it, but my opinion in the matter was irrelevant; however, I thought Jean would like it, too, and I was proven right. He was delighted with it. I remember that Stan called me a few days later and, sounding rather insecure, asked if Jean had liked his story; and he was over the moon when I reported that he had, indeed, very much loved it. Jean then broke down the plot in rough pencil breakdowns (some of War And Pieces which were reproduced in that first Penciler John Buscema hardcover edition), ending up with 43 rendered his own version of Edward Hicks’ famous 1826 pages (the story was supposed to have painting “The Peaceable 44), which provoked his admiration Kingdom”—for Stan Lee to about Stan’s plotting ability. He often script, and his brother Sal B. had to add or cut bits when working to ink—in The Silver Surfer with his other writers. #4 (Feb. 1969). Thanks to Barry Pearl. [TM & © Marvel Truth to tell, I “plotted” the third Characters, Inc.] 48 STAN LEE, AL LANDAU, & The Transworld Connection by Rob Kirby

Stan Lee and web-headed friend in a photo taken in 1974, during the period when Lee and Landau were publisher and president of Al Landau Marvel Comics, respectively. Thanks to Ger Apeldoorn. in a photo taken sometime in the 1980s. Courtesy of his grandson, Robert Landau. Albert Einstein Landau was the godson of Albert Einstein... named after the hile greater knowledge renowned physicist in honor, Rob Kirby Wand insight into comics’ discovered, of his having helped to raise history has been funds to keep The Jewish Telegraphic accumulating in print during recent Agency going between the world wars. decades, both in book form and in magazines such as this one, there are Mighty World Of Marvel #2 (Oct. 14, 1972) possibly have become aware of the undoubtedly many other tantalizing We showed you the cover for MWOM #1 (Oct. 7, 1972) in Transworld name. The same holds secrets still waiting to be uncovered conjunction with Robert Menzies’ article on Marvel UK in Alter equally true for those aficionados and deciphered. One such mystery has Ego #150—so here’s the /Joe Sinnott cover for issue #2, of the many and varied reprint long surrounded a company known as which spotlighted the ever-Incredible Hulk. Thanks to the Grand comics published in Australia, Transworld Feature Syndicate, Inc., and Comics Database. [TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.] New Zealand, and on mainland how exactly it became involved with Europe—likewise the products Marvel’s global expansion. Through my of a variety of local publishers—where the Transworld name researches into the origin and development of Marvel’s own line would again often be displayed somewhere within their copyright of British comics, it’s now clear that, despite Transworld Feature information. Beyond that, there was little to go on. Syndicate being involved with the comic giant’s overseas activities until the 1980s, it was never owned by Marvel, or indeed by any Who, and what, exactly, was Transworld? The puzzle seemed of the companies that later bought Marvel. This discovery is unsolvable. somewhat at variance with what, for example, Roy Thomas seems The origins of the Transworld family were equally a mystery to have assumed when writing 75 Years of Marvel: From the Golden to me when I first began research for a history of Marvel UK after a Age to the Silver Screen (p. 494), but as you’ll discover in these pages, decade-long search to index every single story published by Marvel Transworld initially operated in quite a different area altogether. in Britain since 1972—not an easy task, pre-Internet. There was next to nothing to be found about who Transworld were; and. after the Read All About It! birth of the web… actually, there still wasn’t that much extra to go on. I would eventually find out more, but only after widening my If you’ve ever read any of Marvel’s own British reprint comics purview to take into account all those licensed comics referred to from the first half-decade or so of their existence—or indeed above that preceded Marvel’s creation of The Mighty World of Marvel any of the earlier licensed comics pre-1971, which used material in 1972, a lineage that went as far back as 1951. from the Marvel/Atlas vaults, hailing from companies such as Thorpe and Porter, Alan Class, Odhams, and IPC—you might In looking back right to the beginning, there were hints that 59

(Clockwise:) Marvel’s Daredevil by Stan Lee and Wally Wood from Daredevil #8 (June 1965). Stan and Joan Lee, late 1940s. Drawing of Biro from Daredevil #12 (Aug. 1942). Biro’s Golden Age DD from Daredevil #12 (Aug. 1942). [© Marvel & Gleason Publications.] 60 Mr. Monster’s Comic Crypt! Charles Biro —The Other Stan Lee! (Part 1) by Michael T. Gilbert

o comicbook creator has had a greater influence on N popular culture than Stan Lee. Some may argue that “” creators and , having started the super-hero ball rolling, deserve the honor. Others may say the credit belongs to one of the field’s great innovators, Spirit creator and prolific graphic novelist . And then there’s underground comix artist R. Crumb, as well as his mentor, Mad’s . More recently, , Art Spiegelman, , and Neil Gaiman have each made their marks. And let’s not forget Lee’s main Marvel Universe co-creators, Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko. I won’t argue the point. For my money, each of those creators deserves our attention. But while comics fans are mad about Kurtzman and think Siegel and Shuster are super, most of our cartoon giants remain largely unknown to the outside world. Not so Stan Lee. When it comes to the public face of comics, Kirby’s not the king, nor Ditko, nor even Eisner. Stan’s the man! Thanks to raw talent, an indefatigable work ethic, and a genius

Once Upon A Crime…? Instead of Mr. Crime relating the grim stories in Crime Does Not Pay, here Charlie Biro regales the kids with fairy tales, as depicted on the inside front cover of Uncle Charlie’s Fables #1 (Jan. 1952). [TM & © the respective trademark and copyright holders.]

for self-promotion, the name Stan Lee means “comics”! Stan was my hero growing up, and I’m sad he’s gone. His was a friendly voice on the letters pages of every Marvel comic I read as kid, and his name was on the credits of most of the stories I loved—even those not primarily written by him. Together with Kirby and Ditko, Lee set the template for Marvel comics and the incredibly successful Marvel movies. Roy Thomas, , and Jim Starlin were just a few of the influential comicbook creators who followed in Lee’s footsteps. As a result, Stan indirectly influenced subsequent generations of comic fans and creators. But when one talks about influences, one question begs an answer: Which comicbook creator most influenced Stan Lee? Charles Biro gets my vote! Though almost forgotten today, in the 1940s Biro was one of the most successful comic creators of the Golden Age. Biro was a Pretty As A Picture! triple-threat talent: writer, artist, and editor. Biro drew many of the This Biro panel from Daredevil #42 (May 1947) was likely based on a covers and quite a few stories too, in a crude but powerful style. real restaurant favored by members of the National Cartoonist Society— The major books he edited, Daredevil, Boy Comics, Crime Does Not perhaps The Palms, where newspaper and comics artists were known Pay, and Crime and Punishment, sold in the millions. to decorate the walls with their art. Besides drawings by Biro and his buddy Bob Wood, we can sketches by fellow National Like Lee, Biro knew how to brand himself. His name would Society members , , E.C. Segar, John Giunta, appear prominently on many splash pages and covers. His was , Dan Barry, and Mort Meskin. Quite a lineup! [TM & © the the smiling face of Lev Gleason Publications, as Stan would be at respective trademark and copyright holders.] Marvel years later. 66 Comic Fandom Archive My (Admittedly Minor)

Encounters Bill Schelly & Stan Lee\ That’s Bill on the left in a recent pic, and Stan Lee “at home in the early 1960s” on the right, not long before he and artist/co-plotter Steve Ditko produced the superb Amazing Spider-Man #7 (Dec. 1963). This was the first Marvel comicbook that Bill ever bought, With STAN LEE drawn in by Steve’s excellent artwork and Stan’s seductive verbiage. by Bill Schelly [TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.]

f there hadn’t been Stan Lee, then someone would have had to I invent him. Wait—that’s exactly what happened: A Jewish kid from New York City named Stanley Martin Lieber invented “Stan Lee,” the character most of us grew up admiring—the fun-loving uncle who shamelessly bragged about Marvel Comics, who wrote many of them, who loved comicbooks and, yes, who loved us, his fans. I first heard of Stan Lee in the fall of 1963, when I pulled a copy of Amazing Spider-Man #7 from the dark recesses of a giant magazine rack at my local drugstore. The first cover blurb by Stan that I read was: “Here is Spider-Man as you like him… Fighting! Joking! Daring! Challenging the most dangerous foe of all, in this— the of Comics!” I thought: that’s different. DC comics didn’t have cover blurbs like that, except maybe putting the title of the story on the cover –certainly nothing so seemingly personal, addressing me, the potential reader (“as you like him…”). Intrigued, I opened it and read: “Never let it be said that the Marvel Comics Group doesn’t respond to the wishes of its readers!” And then, outright bragging: “A tale destined to rank among the very greatest in this… The Marvel Age of Comics!” “What’s ‘The Marvel Age of Comics’?” I asked myself. “It sounds like there’s a whole bunch of different comics being published that I’ve never heard of!” By the time I finished reading Spidey #7, I was thoroughly bowled over by the fabulous Ditko artwork and Stan’s deft, humorous script. Turning to the letter column, “The Spider’s Web,” I found letters that were fairly typical of a Green Lantern or The Flash letter column, but the answers were “straight from the shoulder” responses that seemed to take me inside the comicbook business. The “Special Announcements Section” began: “Here it is, the section we like best! A place for us to get together, relax a while, and chew the fat about comic mags.” It then went on to talk about the two newest Marvel comics, The and The X-Men, and the changes in a couple of their The column ended with: “Okay, time to close shop for now. other titles: “Don’t delay in letting us know how you like the So let’s put away our little webs till next ish, when we’ll bring you big changes in and .” Ant-Man another book-length epic which all you armchair critics can tear had become Giant-Man, and had a new suit of armor. apart to your heart’s content! Till then, keep well, keep happy, and “Hope you like it!” Stan said, adding, “That’s probably the most keep away from radioactive spiders!” unnecessary phrase ever written! If you don’t like the mags we edit Suddenly I realized I had a grin on my face. I really for you, we’ll shoot ourselves!” 87 STAN THE MAN Fawcett Collectors Remember Marvel’s Smilin’ Edited by P.C. Hamerlinck

P .C . Hamerlinck discovered Stan Lee’s work when I began reading I super-hero comics in 1973 at the age of 11. I was absorbing his often-profound “Soapbox” installments (where it became clear that Stan was just as much a hero as The Mighty or The Invincible Iron Man) before stumbling across Lee and company classics within the pages of indispensable reprint titles for us newcomers like , Marvel’s Greatest Comics, Marvel Double Feature, and Marvel Triple Action. In addition, my parents—knowing that I had a soft spot for Captain Marvel and, under their assumption P.C. Hamerlinck that the Big Red Cheese Cap and Marvel Comics were all found the gateway to one and the same—purchased for me in 1975 at B. Dalton Marvel’s past through Bookseller Son of Origins of Marvel Comics. Out of the book’s reprint titles like Marvel Double Feature #8 (Feb. grand re-presentation of those seminal stories, I found 1975); art by Jack Kirby myself the most captivated by Stan and ’s & . [TM & © “Brother, Take My Hand.” In his illuminating essay for Marvel Characters, Inc.] this Vietnam War-era Daredevil tale, Stan wrote: “It touches on man’s inhumanity to man, one of the biggest problems which faces us today. I admit it… I was trying to really say something in this story, and to say it softly.” He sure did. Later on, Mom and Dad Hamerlinck gifted me with some of the Marvel Pocket Books—paperbacks of vintage, full-color excitement starring Spider-Man, Dr. Strange, and the Hulk in their

earliest stages, courtesy of Lee, Ditko, Kirby, and the Bullpen. I really believed at the time that it legitimized my taste in literature simply when these works finally became accessible at our local shopping mall bookstore. C.C. Beck, in a 1979 letter to me, spoke highly of Stan. The two of them had hit it off at a Miami comic convention in April that same year. Beck credited Stan for “putting some humor back in comics”… but Captain Marvel’s co-creator couldn’t grasp the rationality behind Stan’s “Marvel Method” of putting comicbook stories together. Fast-forward to adulthood: I had seen Stan several times over the years on convention panels discussing his many achievements. My nearest interaction with him was nine years ago when I was writing an article for Michael Eury’s Back Issue magazine about a 1975 record album tie-in oddity called Spider-Man: Rock Reflections of a [see p. 12]—where Stan had recorded stage-setting narratives in between the record’s musical tracks. Through Roy, I asked Stan about the project, but he couldn’t remember a thing about it. But I remember putting that LP on the turntable back in ’75… and I can still hear Stan’s voice through the speakers joyfully C.C. Beck hamming it up for young listeners (and fans) like me. The artistic co-creator of the original “Captain Marvel” (on right) and Stan Lee (co-creator of another “Captain Marvel” in 1967), in spite of their dueling Captain Marvels, manage to enjoy each other’s company at the Miami Con in April 1979. IF YOU ENJOYED THIS PREVIEW, 88 CLICKFCA THE[Fawcett LINK Collectors TO ORDER Of America] THIS ISSUE IN PRINT OR DIGITAL FORMAT! comicbooks were quite literally “seducing Jim Engel the innocent.” Stan Lee made the Marvel Comics of the ’60s the most exciting In 1948/49, Lee wrote a series of thing of my youth. He created THE CLUB. He made me feel like editorials that were published in all of an insider in a most incredible universe of characters—and their Timely’s titles that defended his life’s creators. Stan, more than anyone WAS Marvel. Even IF all Stan work against Wertham-esque critics ever did was dialogue and editorial content (and nobody disputes who saw comicbooks as causing juvenile THAT), that was half the appeal of Marvel (at least for ME). Even delinquency. It is important to note that if you believe he had nothing to do with the stories/plots (and I this was a fight that Lee was bound Brian Cronin. don’t believe that), he gave Marvel’s characters their voices and to lose, as Timely-rebranded-as-Atlas their personalities. I never read ANY Kirby-only book after the Comics eventually co-founded the Comics 1960s Marvel years that held anything LIKE the appeal of his work Magazine Association of America (CMAA) and helped create the with Stan. Kirby ALONE at Marvel in the ’60s, dialoguing his own self-policing and restrictive in 1954 to ALTER EGOprevent #161 the government from policing the comicbook industry. stuff, would NEVER have grabbed me the way theFull-issue same STAN work LEE withTRIBUTE! ROY THOMAS writes on his more the Stan dialogue, titles, and editorial persona did.than Ditko 50-year alone relationship with Stan—andLee sharesknew 21st- that his was not a necessarily popular viewpoint and century e-mails from Stan (with his yetpermission, he still of course)! fought Art by for it. His most powerful response to Wertham wouldn’t have, either. Or anyone ELSE in the “Bullpen.”KIRBY, DITKO, Without MANEELY, EVERETT, SEVERIN, ROMITA, plus that Stan Lee “polish,” “veneer,” “personality”—whatevertributes from prosyou and want fans alike, andoccurred special sections in on “The Stan Raving Maniac,” in the final issue of Suspense to call it—I truly do not believe there’d have been aby “Marvel MICHAEL T. GILBERT,Age of BILL SCHELLY(#29,, and 1953), even the with FCA! art by Joe Maneely, as Lee wrote himself into the Vintage cover by KIRBY and COLLETTAstory! as the head of a comicbook company who is dealing with Comics” and the huge industry-wide super-hero boost that(100-page resulted FULL-COLOR magazine) $9.95 from it. His contribution cannot be overestimated. (Digital Edition)the $5.95 titular maniac, who wants to bring the editor’s comicbook

http://twomorrows.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=98_55&products_id=1425company down. Lee, as the editor, argues against censorship and defends comicbooks as harmless escapist fiction that gives their readers comfort in the increasingly dangerous real world,

Jim Engel with Stan Lee in 1994. You can see some of his art on p. 93.

Brian Cronin When people think of Stan Lee taking an idealistic stand, they typically have in mind one of his late-1960s “Stan’s Soapbox” columns that would run every month in Marvel Comics, starting with the introduction of the company-wide “Bullpen Bulletins” beginning in 1967. Those columns, especially the ones where Lee decried the evils of bigotry, are powerful reading today and likely had an even greater impact when they were first published. However, it is worth noting that, by 1968, Lee was writing from a position of strength. Marvel Comics was riding not only high in sales, but also in cultural relevance. Despite being in his mid-40s, Lee was suddenly an icon among college students and he knew it. Therefore, while I admire Lee’s views from that period, I am even more impressed by Lee’s actions during the late 1940s/early A Marvel Maniac—1950s Style! 1950s as he became one of the most vocal critics in the comicbook industry against the attacks on comicbooks by concerned parents Brian Cronin was impressed with Stan Lee’s defense of comicbooks in who were turning against comics based on the writings of “The Raving Maniac” from Suspense #29 (1953); art by Joe Maneely. [TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.] Fredric Wertham and people of his ilk who were convinced that