An evening with Stan Lee (Spider-man)

An Evening with STAN LEE (Interview posted on Dec. 14, 2003) by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) 
Most people, myself included, had a hard time believing the renovation of the Cinerama Dome would lead to anything but another corporate monolith to house as many screenings as possible of studio piffle. The Arclight, as it is now called, is far more than that. Not that studio piffle isn’t given plenty of space. I mean, they once had a special screening with Q&A of that cinematic masterpiece The Last Action Hero. But let’s give the Arclight it’s props. Along with showing it’s fair share of art house and otherwise independent flicks, it also has already hosted several screenings designed specifically with film fans in mind. I recently attended one such event; a screening of Spider-man presented by Hollywood’s Master Storytellers followed by an extensive Q&A with its creator, the iconic Stan Lee.
So why did it take so long for “Spider-man” to come to the big screen?
It’s due to really dull, legal reasons. Menachem Golan from Cannon films had bought the rights. What he did, in order to get enough money to make the movie, was, he pre-sold all the rights. The foreign rights, the video rights, the distribution rights and so on. When finally he couldn’t make it, all of the big studios who wanted to make the film found that it wouldn’t be a clean deal because all the rights had been sold to so many others. It took ten or twelve years for the lawyers to work out all the problems so that all the rights could be with the studio.
Tell me about the differences between your creation and what we saw on the screen?
That was my creation on the screen! (applause) The differences were very slight. I had him have web-shooters and they gave him web that shot out of his hand, which is probably a better idea, cinematically. I remember years ago, when Jim Cameron was going to direct Spider-man, he also wanted the web to come out organically. Raimi wanted to do the same thing. And I think it worked beautifully. I mean, how are you going to explain a teenager making a device that shoots web through half of New York. Well, I could have explained it.
Tell me about creating Spider-man.
I’ve told this story so many times, that, for all I know it might even be true. We were looking for another hero. The Fantastic Four was doing well. The Hulk was doing well. So I said, what can I do that’s different? We already had the strongest man in the world, we had a guy who could stretch, a guy who could burst into flames, and on and on. And I figured what if we had a guy who could stick to walls? In fact, when I tell this story, just to make it more dramatic, I say, “I was sitting looking at the wall and I saw a fly climbing up it.” I didn’t see any fly. We didn’t have any flies in the house. We had screens on the windows. Anyway, so I saw this fly… Wouldn’t it be something if a guy could walk on walls like a fly? Alright, that’s what I’m gonna do. But then the toughest thing is to get a name. So what do I call him? Flyman? Mosquitoman? Insectman? I went down the list and then I got to…Spiderman. I don’t know, it sounded dramatic, mysterious, it had the right rhythm. I figured when I wrote it on the masthead it would look a little like Superman. For those of you who care about such things and have spent sleepless nights wondering why there’s a hyphen in Spider-man name; it’s because I didn’t want it to look too much like Superman. After we lettered it, especially with that tapered lettering, I said, “Jesus, it looks just like Superman”. So we threw in the hyphen which shows what a man of integrity I am.
Superman lives in Metropolis. Batman lives in Gotham City, but Spider-man lives in New York City. Was the thinking going in? That you had us in a real place?
I always hated a lot of things about comics. I hated the fact that they never used real names. If a guy drove an automobile it was always something like a “Whiz-Bang V8”. If he went to the theatre, it was always the “Bijou”. With Smallville, Gotham City, Metropolis, I figured, why not a real city? The one real place I knew was New York. I was born there, I lived there all my life. All the stories were in New York, except “The Mighty Thor”, that was Asgard. That took a little imagination. I hadn’t been there too many times. When we did “The Fantastic Four”, we had them in the Baxter Building on the East Side of Manhattan. Go ahead, look for it. (laughter) I always wish we had been rich enough to buy a “Baxter Building”. And then in “Iron Man”, we had him living in a mansion on 5th Avenue. It was easy for me to write these stories because I could picture the locations. I thought Peter Parker wasn’t rich enough to live in Manhattan. They found out that there was actually a Parker family that lived in Forest Hills, and the people claimed that I copied the name for millions. You don’t know what people will claim. How did I know there was a real Peter Parker in Forest Hills?! Anyway, I think the lawyers got us out of that one.
I really feel that New York City has welcomed Spider-man and all these characters and likes that they’re there. Do you get that impression when you hang around New York?
I don’t “hang around” New York. I grace New York with my prescence. (laughter)
What about the Spider-man TV series in the 80s? Why did they set it in Los Angeles?
I’m really sorry you brought that up. Let me put it this way. It wasn’t on par with the movie. And it was really a shame because the guy who played Spider-man, Nick Hammond is a really good actor. And the stunt man who had to climb up the walls was brilliant. And that was in the days when you actually had to climb up the walls, we didn’t have a special effect for that. But they lost everything that made Spider-man popular in the comic book. There was no humor. There really was no human interest. There was just a guy walking around with a camera going, “Hey, there’s a crime taking place. So I better become Spider-man and catch the crook.” I mean, it was shallow. They had Peter Parker walking around with a little 35mm camera and it was slung over his shoulder with a strap. And the strap was this wide! You could restrain an elephant with this strap. You had this big giant strap and this little tiny camera. It was typical of the care and attention that went into the show.
The comic is almost more about Peter Parker than Spider-man. You know, the problems he has with his job, which just happens to be swinging from buildings and catching super villains. Was it part of your original thinking that you were going to make him a guy who trips over things?
In a way I think it was. I always thought comic book super heroes were always one dimensional. You didn’t know anything about their private lives. Well, you knew a little bit. You knew that Batman was Bruce Wayne and he was really rich and lived in a nice house, but that was it.  I mean what did they do when they weren’t being super heroes? I mean they never went to the bathroom as far as I knew. Well, I don’t think our characters ever did either, now that I think about it. But I thought it would be fun to have characters who had personal lives. And if the reader knows about the character’s personal life, then the reader cares about the character. And when you care about the character, that just makes the reading experience more exciting. If you’re looking at a cardboard character fighting a villain, you don’t really care. Let him win. Let the bad guy win. You just don’t care. But if you really care about the characters’ lives, it makes the reading experience more pleasureable.
Favorite Spider-man villain? My favorite has always been the one that’s being featured in the next movie, Dr. Octopus.
Doc Ock, you know it. I love nicknames. I think Spider-man was the only super hero at the time with a nickname. Spidey. And so when I created Doctor Octopus, I said, “I’ll call him Doc Ock”. But I love all the villains.
Do you have a role in Spider-man 2?
Just this afternoon, I got a call asking me if I would make a cameo in Spider-man 2. (applause) That’s like asking a man who’s dying of thirst if he’d like a little water. I can’t wait. They’re gonna call me tomorrow and tell me what it is. I can’t wait. Let me tell you what my original cameo in Spider-man. was going to be. I think you’ll see it on the DVD. But for those of you who don’t pop for the DVD, what it was was this. Sam Raimi said, “I want you to sell sunglasses on a street corner.” And this is right before the Green Goblin attacks Times Square. So there’s a big crowd and I’m selling sunglasses, and there’s a little girl, seven, eight years old standing over here.  I’m showing her a pair of sunglasses. There’s a couple of other people around and suddenly, the Green Goblin flies by and drops a bomb and we’re all supposed to go “AAAAAHHHH!!”  We’re supposed to run away in fear. So we did it the first time. I ran away. And then I said, “You know Sam, that makes me very cowardly. I’m running away and I’m leaving that poor little girl. I think I should lift her up and take her with me. It will make me look like a bit of a hero.” “OK”, Sam says. So we shot it again. And the Green Goblin flies in, drops the bomb and I grab the little girl, and I started to lift her….and I started to lift her.  I couldn’t lift her. It was like she was nailed to the ground. Sam says, “Stan if we do it your way, this movie will be a mini-series.” So what we happens is I take her by the hand and run off.  This is the funny part….before the bombs are dropped, I’m showing her the glasses and Peter Parker walks by.  He stops for a moment and looks at what I’m doing.  I turn to him and I ad lib this line. I said, “Hey, would you like a pair of these glasses? They’re the kind they wear in the X-Men.” It got a big laugh from everyone on the set, including Sam.  They didn’t keep it. I think he was right, because it would have gotten a laugh and he didn’t want a laugh at that point. Anyway, that’s a story I’m sharing with you that the rest of the world is oblivious to.
How about the Bullpen at Marvel and how they got along with their competition across town?
I’ll tell you about the Bullpen. I made up a lot of things. Heroes. Villains. One of the things I made up was the Bullpen. We didn’t have the kind of bullpen everyone thinks we did. You know, all the artists and writers sitting around telling jokes and swapping stories and looking at each others work. Most of the artists and writers were freelancers. They worked at home and brought their material in or sent it in. We had a couple of letterers on staff and one artist or two. I was there and maybe one other editor. That was it. But I wanted to give a feeling to the readers of a sort of spirit of the company. As far as getting along with people at DC, we were friendly as hell. In fact, at that time, there was a guy by the name of Carmine Infantino who had a job similar to mine at DC. In my column in the comics, I always acted like we were big competitors in the letters page, on the editorial page. I once put out a book called “Brand ECCHH” referring to them (DC). But it was all a gag. I mean, I would meet Carmine and some of his guys and I would bring my guys with me and we’d have drinks once a week at a little pub on 3rd Ave. and talk things over, but that wouldn’t have been so interesting to the fans as thinking we were feuding.
So there’s no big battle between Aquaman and Silver Surfer?
I’ll tell you something. We used to get tons of fan mail. One of the main things they’d always say, “If The Hulk fought The Thing, who’d win? If Aquaman fought Sub-Mariner.” I didn’t know! It depended on what you wrote. I always tried to answer intelligently. I usually faked the answer in some way. I’d say, “Oh, they’re too friendly. They’d never fight.” {at this point, Stan looks at a card submitted from the audience and reads it aloud} You won’t believe this. “Dear Stan Lee, who would win in a fight between The Hulk and The Thing?” For the first time ever, I’m going to try and give an intelligent, well-informed decision. I really think The Hulk would win. The Thing is incredibly strong. I mean, you wouldn’t want to pick a fight with him. But The Hulk is stronger and the longer he fights, the stronger he gets. So there you go.
You’ve given us so many heroes. Who do you admire? Who are your heroes?
I’ll be honest with you. I admire anyone who can do anything well. You know, a good athlete, a good writer, a good shoemaker. Anybody who does anything well. I’ll tell you another thing I thought of. For years, doing these comic books I was very embarassed by the work I was doing. I used to think, “There are men building bridges, doing medical reasearch.” Things that really mattered. And here I am doing these idiotic comic books. And years later, people come up to me and say, “I just want to thank you for all the years of enjoyment you’ve given me through your stories.” I’ve come to realize, I never appreciated it, but I think entertainment is much more important than I ever thought it was. I think people want to be entertained. I think people need to be entertained, and I don’t feel embarassed by it anymore.  I know I have a warm feeling for anyone who entertains me. Think about it. Who are the people who make the most money in the world? The people who entertain you. Actors, athletes, rock stars. So I guess it isn’t bad to in some way be in the entertainment business.
What did you think of the way the Daredevil movie turned out?
I thought Daredevil was good. It just missed being great, but I thought it was good. If I did that movie, I would have spent more time showing what things look like to him. If someone was telling a lie, I’d show that he can hear their heatbeat increasing, like he has a built-in lie detector, and how he could read print by rubbing his finger over a page as though the ink was braille because he was so sensitive. I think people love that sort of thing. I think they (the filmmakers) didn’t dwell on it enough, but what they did do was very good.
What other character that you created would you like to see made into a film?
You can believe it or not but I believe every character is in some stage of film development. They’re working on Sub-Mariner. They’re working on Iron Man. I didn’t create Sub-Mariner, but I worked on a lot of them. They’re making Ghost Rider. You name any Marvel character you know, and they’re working on a movie for it. Every movie company has been coming to Marvel and buying rights to all the characters. There are some Marvel-based movies in the works that I swear I haven’t heard of the characters.
What are you working on now. What’s coming out of that fertile head.
I started a new company called POW! Entertainment. I’m sure you all know that it stands for “Purveyors of Wonder”. We’re doing a lot of things. I’ve never had so much fun. The one thing is, when I worked for Marvel, they owned everything. At POW!, whatever we do, I and my partners, we own everything. So it’s a bit more exciting that way. We have a number of animated shows. One you may have heard of, “Stripperella”. It’s not for the average man. It’s a little erudite, a bit intellectual, but if you suffer through it, it’s alright. Obviously, she’s an exotic dancer by night and a super heroine later on at night. And Pam Anderson does the voice. It’s on television on what used to be TNN, but they thought Spike sounded more macho. We have one that we’re just starting. We’re working with Hugh Hefner. Now he’s as good a partner as you can get, because obviously I have to visit him occasionally. It’s another animated show. I reveal the real secret life of Hugh Hefner. You have to watch it. We’re working on a number of live action projects that are my concepts. So you know, they’re almost comic book-y. We’re also working on a number of TV series.
At this time, I had to beat a hasty retreat so as to not be late for my paying gig.  (sorry Karie) Stan had already regaled the audience for over an hour and I’ve no doubt he might have gone on for another two or three, but the preceeding should give fans a taste of the gleeful grandpa of the comic book world.

3 Comments:

1. can hulk defeat superman,i mean he stronger faster as he get angrier.

   Posted by ollie byrd on 07/22 at 12:54 PM

2. dear stanlee i love all your ideas hulk,spiderman and every other superhero you made . its ben my dream to make a sucsesful publish of a superhero you wuold love them.but sense i cant i make storys and comics. my name of the componey is classroom comics my freinds company is bunkbed comics hes realy good . i wacht all the shows of who wants to be a super hero and they were goodwhich superhero did you like as a girl i liked lumaria for her breast and sexy body if only she was naked wooowy. well thats all my email is .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) lease reply back. 

           your fan Levi wright

   Posted by Levi wright on 09/03 at 10:03 AM

3. hi

   Posted by levi on 09/03 at 10:04 AM