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| This is my enduring image of Stan, and from the time when I was most enamored of him. |
What the hell do you even say? Where do you even start? Ninety-five
years. A long life—a charmed, stone-cold lucky, twice over, fairy tale roller
coaster of a life—a living reward for a body of creative work that is worth
billions today. He died knowing he was beloved, lionized, and canonized the
world over. We should all be so lucky.
Stan Lee’s career spans the whole of the comic book industry
from its modest origins to the mega-billion dollar Marvel franchise he helped
to create. I can’t parse this. It feels like the end of something. Earlier this
year when Steve Ditko passed, I knew that there was one shoe left to drop. It
doesn’t seem fair to this Spider-Man fan to have to mourn both of his creators
in the same year. But Stan Lee was not just Spider-Man’s creator, although if
that were all he ever did, it would certainly be enough. Stan was an architect
of Cool, the self-styled "Homor of the Comics," the kind of creator that contained multitudes. There's a lot to unpack. Please be patient with me.
