STAN LEE HAD SUPER POWER
Watch The Great Film about the Comic Book King
With Great Power is a documentary following the early career and later years of comic book icon and Marvel inceptor, the late Stan Lee. The film recounts his career at Timely Comics as an editor, who worked on Captain America comics, picking up sandwiches and editing text for Joe Simon and Jack Kirby, who often argued with Stan Lee about concepts. He spent time with the editors, writing comics, playing his flute, and drafting story concepts. After a year, Jack and Joe left the company and Stan Lee stayed as the only writer in the comic department — Lee was put in charge of Captain America and won praise for his work in wartime comics.
At the time, comic books were pinned with corrupting children with violence and sex, so Stan Lee received negative feedback from comic book reviewers. Parents accused comic books of giving kids asthma because they stayed inside and didn’t go play. A comic book federation code formed to create standards for the comic book industry. Stan Lee had to lay off all his employees after comic books went “belly up,” losing work for many writers and artists. Stan Lee created his own industry with the first Fantastic Four Issue Comic Book, making a mature comic book where the character triumphed over action. For a change of character concepts, The Thing, a famous character in Fantastic Four, downplayed wearing a costume and Johnny Storm bought himself a Chevy Corvette. The heroes were normal people and had desires like average citizens did.
Stan Lee built his comic books after the atomic age of the ’60s, making stories about The Hulk as a scientific piece of fiction — basing the character on Frankenstein. The Hulk searched for someone to love him, just as Frankenstein did. Spiderman was another hit character, where morality originated from the death of Uncle Ben–spawning the phrase, “With great power comes great responsibility.”
In X-Men, Stan Lee told the story of how no one tolerates people who are different. Inadvertently, X-Men preaches how outcasts are victims in society. Each comic book produced something different from society — channeling outcasts and generating viewership based on unprecedented fans in adults, children, and young people. College students became big fans of comic books, prompting Stan Lee to lecture at a lot of universities. Soon, with growing popularity, Stan Lee’s creations were bought by movie makers and executive producers sought to make comic books into movies. Then, throughout the Marvel Cinematic Universe, it became an iSpy game to spot the Stan Lee cameo. That is something we’ll miss dearly.
It wasn’t until the second era of X-Men films that Marvel started becoming the trusted name in movies that they are now. Jack Kirby was the trusted name in comics who Stan Lee worked with on characters like the Hulk and X-Men. Jack’s death was an impactful moment in Stan Lee’s career. Marvel became bankrupt. Stan Lee had to sell properties, like Spiderman and X-Men, to keep Marvel afloat. Stan retired with Marvel in production at major film studios and with writers to create new concepts for comic characters that developed into more movies and television work. Stan Lee is an icon and he died a hero for many in the comic book sphere, as well as the movie business. PROVOKR knows you’ll love this documentary and will enjoy learning about the life of Stan Lee as a creator and producer of the superhero world.
