A Marvelous Life

September 23, 2019
In this enthusiastic biography of Stan Lee (1922–2018), Fingeroth (Superman on the Couch), one-time writer and editor at Lee’s longtime employer Marvel Comics, tells the story of the man who helped create comic legends including Spider-Man and Black Panther. Born Stan Leiber in New York City, Lee was “a classic American success story,” who turned infectious moxie, geniality, and restless creativity into a career. Starting in comics as a teenager, Lee became a whirlwind of editorial energy (he did not draw) at Marvel Comics, which prided itself on more human, “neurotic,” characters than DC’s simplistic supermen. Lee’s voice, promulgated through punchy story lines and chattily self-deprecating columns within each issue directed at readers, built a fun, self-aware image perfect for a maturing audience. As the industry competed with television, Lee and artists Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko reinvented comics by combining “simultaneously cynical and idealistic” perspectives with a strong humanism, spinning off the Fantastic Four, Incredible Hulk, the Avengers, and the X-Men while addressing social ills like racism. Fingeroth’s insider account is likely too long on Marvel’s business permutations, but this biography is a fittingly ebullient tribute to a man who never failed to add one more exclamation mark. This is a sure hit for comics fans of all camps.

September 15, 2019
Pow! Zam! If it's connected to comic superheroes in the last half-century, Stan Lee almost certainly had something to do with it. Stanley Martin Lieber (1922-2018) was no superhero. He was litigious, scrappy, and inclined to take sole credit for the work of many hands. However, writes former Marvel Comics editor and writer Fingeroth (The Rough Guide to Graphic Novels, 2008, etc.), Lee had an uncanny handle on pop culture and a sense of what comic-book fans wanted. "Was Stan Lee at the right place at the right time--or did he make his time and place the rights ones?" The answer one derives from the author's longish, detail-packed account is, both. Another conclusion is that the comics business is no laughing matter. As Fingeroth writes, one editor in a comics mill when Lee's career was just taking off routinely rejected freelance pieces but then had them redone by his favored circle, and some artists and writers who should be better known, such as the long-suffering Jack Kirby, were eclipsed by people like--well, Stan Lee. One result, Fingeroth suggests, was the comix revolution of the 1960s, when creators took more financial risks but kept more of the proceeds as well as the rights to their own creations: "No one owned Mr. Natural but his creator, Robert Crumb. Mister Miracle--who no one ever denied was created by Jack Kirby--was owned by DC Comics." Lee read the zeitgeist correctly when he sensed that the superheroes who populated Marvel Comics were right for Hollywood, making the transition from televised cartoon series to A-list films. Fingeroth also credits Lee, in between lawsuits, for helping popularize the various comics conventions that have become staples of nerd culture. "From what you know of Stan Lee," he remarked when asked if Lee still enjoyed attending the conferences in his later years, "do you think he'd rather die at home, alone, in his sleep, or being adored by five thousand people in a convention auditorium?" Fans of comics culture will enjoy Fingeroth's tribute to his legendary boss.

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October 1, 2019

Fingeroth (Superman on the Couch) chronicles the eight-decade career of comics legend Stan Lee (1922-2018). Born Stanley Lieber, Lee became editor at Timely Comics, later renamed Marvel, at age 18 through family connections to publisher Martin Goodman. Lee's complex relationships with artists Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko are at this biography's core. In the 1960s, they collaborated to create enduring pop culture icons, including Spider-Man, the Hulk, the Avengers, and the Fantastic Four. Lee portrayed these superheroes as characters struggling through their own failures and flaws. He also built a relationship with Marvel's readership through his Marvel Bullpen Bulletin. Stepping away from writing and editing in the 1980s and 1990s, Lee sought to bring Marvel properties to Hollywood, with limited success. Legal issues and controversy followed Lee as Kirby and Ditko sought credit and compensation for their cocreations. Continuing to work into his 90s, making cameo appearances in Marvel movies, which turned him into a cultural icon, Lee fought hard against comics censorship in the 1950s. The work further explores Marvel's bankruptcy in the 1990s and other industry issues. VERDICT A high-demand biography for fans of Lee and Marvel comics.--Chris Wilkes, Tazewell Cty. P.L., VA

Copyright 2019 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

November 1, 2019
Stan Lee, who died last year at 95, was probably the world's most famous comic book creator, arguably renowned less for his role in begetting Marvel's fabled superheroes than for his cameo appearances in their movie adaptations and his ceaseless self-promotion. Lee became editor at the company as a teenager in 1941. But it wasn't until two decades later, when he developed the Fantastic Four and Spider-Man with artists Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko, that Marvel became a cultural phenomenon. Soon Lee relinquished writing to devote his time to public appearances to promote Marvel (and, concurrently, to build his own brand). His grandstanding rankled many who felt he was hogging the credit that should have been shared with the artists, and his failure to develop other successful characters after his early-1960s fecundity further tarnished his reputation. Even so, Lee remains a pivotal figure in the superhero genre that's come to dominate popular culture, and Fingeroth, a comics veteran who worked closely with Lee, gives evenhanded treatment to his accomplishments and foibles.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2019, American Library Association.)