Excelsior

It's a crisp and sunny day in Elgin today. Earlier, I watched herons and ducks on the Lossie. I had planned to write the follow-up to last week's post: the demise of the "chimerical" Thriller series from 80s DC.
However, it felt more important to write about Stan Lee, who passed away on Monday. Who else has had such an influence upon my reading and my thoughts?

My earliest memories of Marvel are the UK Power Comics but the colour Marvels I first glommed on
to were Stan and Jack's Fantastic Four.

While it's probably the writing of Roy Thomas and Gerry Conway that won me to Marvel, the UK weeklies of the early Seventies held me fast. The sense of belonging to what seemed like a movement was, perhaps, a by-product of Stan's huckster persona. But unlike DC, from my earliest exposure to Marvel, Stan's creator credits shaped my tastes and buying habits.
Of course, exposes of Marvel's practices in magazines like The Comics Journal in the early 80s fed the cynicism of my late teens. Certainly, like all of us, Stan might have been disingenuous, particularly about his role in the creation of Marvel's stable of characters. And yet, my values have been shaped  by Stan. His "Soapbox" column about bigotry has been Tweeted this week and I remember those messages very clearly. Naturally, that doesn't mean I haven't been prejudiced or judgemental in my time. But Stan wrote best about humanity and our aspirations as well as our many shortcomings.

It's easy to forget that the same man whom King Kirby lambasted with the character of "Funky Flashman" also tried to promote super-heroines at the dawn of feminism. One of his latter-day creations was the Amazonian She-Hulk, a heroine both voluptuous and ironic.
 In addition, Stan pioneered new formats for comics, like the b/w magazines that flourished briefly in the Bronze Age of comics.

This week, I bought this Fireside book for Xmas because I enjoyed the Dr. Strange edition so much two years ago, during my melancholy tenure in Giffnock.

In the summer, I had already decided I wanted to revisit the comics Stan crafted with Gene Colan- especially Cap and Daredevil, where social consciousness was raised for Marvelites.

I believe Stan's favourite Marvel character was his Silver Surfer and I would definitely like to re-read the collaboration with Moebius, which reimagines the plot of the Galactus Trilogy just as the late-70s Kirby graphic novel did.

I'll be honest: I have next to no familiarity with many of Stan's projects from the 90s to the present day: Ravage, for instance or tv's Lucky Man. I was more aware of the unhappy stories of relationships with family members and other trusted associates.

.
On a more positive note, for a global audience (and for the youngest members of that audience), Stan is probably best known for his cameos in Marvel movies. These were increasingly self-aware and self-mocking, elements of Stan's persona crafted during the heyday of the House of Ideas.




 I suppose my sense of loss for this titan of the comics world is greater than it was when Kirby died because I'm much older. But, finally I suppose, it's because Stan Lee was the friend whom the majority of us never met.






Coming soon: Kerblam!
All images are presumed copyright of their respective owners