Comics : Excelsior! The Amazing Life of Stan Lee

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In Detail...

	Excelsior! The Amazing Life of Stan Lee  FIND @ Amazon  Summary: Autobiography of Stan Lee (Spider-Man on Cover)
	Publisher:  Simon, Schuster New York Writer:  Stan Lee, George Mair	Staff Only Images Review Edit
	May 2002 : SM Cover : Industry Books

Stan Lee is a living marvel. It's surprising that it should take until 2002 before Stan felt sufficient push to write about himself. For a guy with a pretty strong personality, I'd guess that it wasn't modesty that held him back. More likely he wanted to wait until he felt he had really achieved something. For despite his outspoken bravado, Stan is clearly a hard worker, and not one to rest on his well-earned laurels.

The first thing to say is that despite the co-credit to George Mair, this really is Stan's book. George's contributions are clearly marked in italics, and form well under a third of the text. I'd guess that Mair also helped edit and organise the material, but he didn't write it. Some of the text looked familiar to me, so it could be that some of it is taken from earlier snippets written by Stan. But don't quote me on that.

The history starts from the beginning with Stan's childhood with his much younger brother Larry. It proceeds through his hiring at Timely comics, and heads right through to the current day. There's not a lot of dry times and dates and who said what to who, the content really is Stan just speaking from the heart about the things that mattered to him. At times, he's startlingly honest, and at others he's surprisingly discreet. There are some truly laugh-out-loud scenes, and some very touching moments also. Hey, what else would you expect from one of the greatest writers of our time?

I'm sort of kidding there, and sort of not. Stan truly is an excellent writer of prose. He's a dangerously intelligent guy, and he veers from the faux-modest to the mock-bombastic with scarcely a twitch of the pen. There's a ton of fun in the way he writes, and I feel almost priviledged that Stan saw fit to share some part of his personal history with us.

Speaking personally, I most enjoyed reading about the early days in Stan's life. Later, as the tale moved into the (several) "difficult" times at Marvel, I was torn between wanting to know the dirt on the various scandals: Stan vs. Ditko, Stan vs. Kirby, and wanting to just let the issues like. I guess the Stan vs. Ditko thing is the big one that everybody puzzles about.

Ditko has famously said that "Stan never knew why I left, and he chose not to ask." Most commentators (Stan included) assume that Steve was unhappy with Stan generally getting full credit for Spidey's creation. The Ditko quote seems to indicate that there's more to it than that, but Steve isn't talking, so unless he wants the truth to be told, we really have to go with the "disagreement over credit" argument.

Now, I don't know what your angle on that is, but personally, when somebody says "Spider-Man" I think immediately of a guy in red and blue stuck to a wall, or Peter Parker the wallflower casting a shadow at Midtown High while Sally and Flash mock his Cha-Cha/Waltz confusion. Which is to say, a lot of my perception is visual.

Stan says: "I feel that Steve has confused the 'Creation' of a strip with it's 'Execution'". With the gravest apology to Stan, I say "BOLLOCKS". In a combined visual medium like a comic strip, a character is not 'Created' until it exists on the drawn page. Stan's idea was only half-created until Ditko finished the job. That's my objective opinion.

In this biography, Stan says many, many kind words about Ditko's contribution. He then offers with one hand the gracious title of "co-creator" to Steve. But then with the other he says "I really think I'm being very generous [in offering co-creator]". I think that kind of stinks. Steve doesn't want Stan's begrudging bestowal of the title. The only thing that means anything is Stan's honest and open acceptance that Steve DESERVES the title. A recognition bestowed with the caveat that the giver is being very generous is absolutely meaningless. I'm staggered that Stan can't see that, and I'm not at all surprised that Steve has never responded to the offer.

Why am I making such a big deal of this? Well, because this little piece of curmudgeonly reluctance on Stan's part takes the edge of what is otherwise an incredibly frank and considerate collection of reminiscences. Over his years at Marvel, Stan has been screwed sideways by pretty much ever owner of the place - until he finally managed to earn a decent deal and the title of "Chairman Emeritus". But in this book he is remarkably non-bitter about the whole experience. Stan comes off as a great human being, and the representation of the Ditko thing is a nasty un-necessary wrinkle on what is otherwise a really enjoyable book.

In General...

Excelsior! is enlightening, entertaining, and a real delight to read. When I approached this book, I must admit that I was worried by Stan's recent contributions to comics, e.g. Spider-Man/Kingpin: To The Death, which clearly demonstrated that as a comic scripter, Stan's time had long past. But this book quickly persuaded me that as a writer of auto-biographical prose, Stan was still well and truly in his prime.

Overall Rating...

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