I think by now, everybody knows Stan Lee, the masterful maker of mighty Marvel mayhem has passed away this week. And yes, he loved alliteration. I never met Stan, but like many I knew the man through his work. It’s funny that people thought we needed the Comics Code Authority to protect our young minds, when in reality, it was Stan Lee mentoring us all to be better to one another, and to do help when somebody needs it. There are more heroes in our world because of this man.
A few of my favorite things
I’ve seen a lot of memes and stories about Stan Lee, especially this week, but I’m going to dig out some treasures I recall over the past years. Hang on, I have to dig them out of google...
Dang, I suck at meme finding. A long time ago, somebody wrote this little story about Stan complaining about all the weird things that happened around him, the joke being they were all the movie cameos. The other one I wanted to share was talking about how we all loved the cameos, but one day a Marvel movie would open up and it would say “Dedicated To” and that would be the last we’d see of Stan.
No such luck, the internet is swamped with memorial articles and cameo videos. But I have one more thing up my sleeve, and I think it really encapsulates how I feel.
Who Wants to Be a Superhero
About twelve years ago, Stan was part of an amazingly positive reality television show about a contest to see who’d be the next superhero in a comic Stan would write. It ran on SciFi for two seasons, but what I remember is the young man, raised in a single parent home, who exemplified everything Stan taught us. Here’s Feedback’s interview with Stan to determine if Feedback had what it takes to be a hero.
Note: the video embed thing doesn't let me set the time marker to the scene I want to show you.
With Great Power
I know we’ve heard it a million times, but that’s the lesson. Mathew, aka Feedback showed great courage and sincerity in that scene to say something in the one chance he had. To thank Stan Lee for all he’d taught us. That scene from a reality show stuck in my head as the message I think all the True Believers have always wanted to say to Stan.
‘Nuff Said.