“Always The First Person In The Room to Point Out It Wasn’t Just You…” The Slog That is 2002’s ‘Stan Lee’s Mutants, Monsters & Marvels’

I had known about this truly intolerable documentary, in actuality a long-form interview conducted by the equally intolerable Kevin Smith, since it initially appeared in 2002 when I was considerably younger. I’d like to stress that I avoided it completely then, largely due to my immense dislike of Smith which was quite possibly formed by my immense dislike of a couple guys I went to High School who would routinely quote lines from his film Clerks.

Was it possible I’d allowed my bias to keep me from something interesting and engaging, even if I was sure it would contain misinformation and blatant untruths, as most celebratory showcases of Stan Lee and his career are guaranteed to contain?

I should have listened to the early 20s’ version of myself. Because getting through this was a chore, largely due to Smith’s consistent monotone voice and lack of any sort of charisma, engagement, or skills necessary to conduct and navigate a conversation with anybody; Lee, nearing 80, shows why he was correctly perceived as a guaranteed “easy interview” for decades by comparison. Smith responds nearly 98% of the time with a “right… right” that, were you to start a drinking game based on every time Kevin Smith says “right” you’d be sure to die of alcohol poisoning before the end of the film.

The uploads of this available on YouTube are out of order, perhaps due to licensing issues; please keep this in mind should you decide to seek out the grueling pace of this “greatest hits” style conversation. The film is mostly shot in Hi De Ho Comics in Santa Monica, California on February 22nd, 2002 with the exception of a brief interlude in Lee’s home which we’ll get to later.

While the low energy of this piece is notable, we must mention that some very blatant lies are repeated and often by Smith, who seems to establish these things are true simply by stating them in the form of a leading question to Lee. Also notably, Smith- who is perceived by the general public and promotes himself as a figure inexplicably tied to the hobby and profession of comic books- is surprisingly ignorant of basic facts- about comic history, Marvel’s history, and Lee’s career itself.

Seriously, I’m amazed at how much Smith doesn’t know and how much he gets wrong– like the Golden Age of comics not having super-heroes and being largely Romance and Westerns.

You might argue that I shouldn’t hold Smith to the same standards or requirements that I have, or that I shouldn’t expect that everyone else was reading books about comics by Ron Goulart at aged 10 like I was, or catching the film Comic Book Confidential when I was in Middle School. But here’s the thing: I’m not creating content that purports to be informative and factual, I’m not making films, I’m not taking someone’s time and conducting interviews with them- these people are– they should know the score.

Therefore, the false information in this propaganda is as morally wrong as it is factually; it does a great disservice to history and insults absent parties that were fundamental parts of the properties involved. Smith is not a random enthusiast who runs a podcast out of his basement- sure, he’s only one step up from that, but- he had a name, he has recognition, he has an audience. His involvement is going to elevate this career-spanning interview with Lee to more of an event- and it was promoted as such, appearing both as a bonus feature on the Spider-Man DVD collection and as a 2 volume VHS/DVD set of its own. And Smith didn’t even half-heartedly go over an issue of Marvel Tales before the interview, as we’ll see.

Here’s another reason that I may have held a certain bias for Smith as an interviewer- in 1998, he appeared with Joe Quesada and Jimmy Palmiotti as part of a roundtable interview in Wizard Magazine. During a brief word association part of the interview, Smith responds to ‘Jack Kirby‘ with “Why?” and “I just never got it.”

I don’t expect everyone to like Jack Kirby, not at all. But if the very first word out of your mouth is “Why?”, I think it says much about your character in regard to someone who apparently has a passion for comic books. I never liked and did not care about Will Eisner in the slightest, but I recognize his contribution. Smith seemed genuinely confused and baffled that anyone would “get” Jack Kirby… of ALL people. Perhaps Palmiotti made him understand it?

(It’s also worth sharing that when Smith made a cameo as a character named ‘Jack Kirby’ in the 2003 Daredevil film with Ben Affleck, a former employee of Marvel told me in 2011 at a Reed Exhibitions event that this was an idea of Quesada’s to offset criticism within the industry Smith had gotten for his flippant, if honest, remark.)

And now, Merry Marchers??? It’s time to get to this nonsense!

• “I was writing when I was a kid. I used to win a little contest- they had something called ‘The Biggest News of the week’ contest at a newspaper The Herald Tribune… it was for high school students, and I entered it three weeks in a row and I won it three weeks in a row- they asked me to stopped entering it!”

This oft-repeated lie didn’t get widespread exposure until 2004’s ‘Stan Lee and the Rise and Fall of the American Comic Book‘ by Jordan Raphael and the late Tom Spurgeon; it’s unlikely that it’s the sort of book Smith would have read regardless.

When Lee talks about Captain America being dropped after World War II, Smith asks for clarification and seems confused, saying that “you’d think” there’d be patriotism after World War II, not recognizing or having the capacity to recognize the great toll that World World II had on Americans and people all over the world; it’s been well documented that Golden Age Super-Heroes were on the decline post-war simply because people had been through enough fighting and wanted to move on from conflict.

And Kevin Smith is a guy who is asked to speak in documentaries about comic books, jeez.

Smith refers to Lee as “the man who created Marvel, essentially.”

• (SMITH): “Let’s go back, when you first enter comics, super-heroes aren’t in vogue it’s more Romance and Westerns if I’m correct…”

UH… you are not correct in the slightest. Smith got all of his knowledge of the form from Saturday morning cartoons. This is amazing. And this is the interviewer– he knows nothing.

Lee goes over what he can recall of his Timely days, mentioning things like Silly Seal before eventually spotting on and declaring: “…as a matter of fact, when I got into it, Timely was MOSTLY super-heroes!“, to which Smith gives another monotone “right.”

• “Sometime in the early Sixties, Martin Goodman was playing golf with the publisher of DC Comics- I think they were called National Comics at the time-“

• SMITH: “And Marvel was still TIMELY at this point.”

• LEE: “And Marvel was still Timely, right.”

Uh… So, do me a favor. Keep score of how many things Kevin Smith, a guy apparently knee deep in association with the world of comics, gets basic Marvel history so terribly wrong. Because it happens with almost every historical statement or question he makes and is pretty glaring and pretty telling. Marvel was called ATLAS during this time that the fictional golf game that literally never happened was said to have taken place.

• “…at that time I wanted to quit. After all these years, I had made up my mind, I’m not getting anywhere, its a stupid business for a grown-up to be in… and the reason I wanted to quit… I felt, we’re writing nonsense.”

• “Joanie said to me, ‘if you’re gonna quit anyway, why don’t you do a book the way you’d like to do it and get it out of your system? Worst that’ll happen is he’ll fire you and you wanna quit.” So I figured, okay- so, I did that one book, the Fantastic Four- but I tried to make them different than the others…”

Smith will make a statement for Lee to affirm numerous times rather than put it in the form of a question; it serves to paint Lee as the sole visionary who created everything single-handedly.

• (SMITH): “Your very first super-hero comic creation that YOU created yourself, not just a character that you worked on, but you came up with them.”

Smith is referring to the Fantastic Four. Lee also says he “stole” the Human Torch from Carl Burgos and that, in 1961, the Torch hadn’t been used in “twenty, thirty, forty years!” You might say that Lee can’t be expected to remember all of these details from what was then four decades ago- I’d agree, except- this went out. It wasn’t edited, no one working on it seemed to know the history of what was being discussed. It’s a bad look!

• (SMITH): “Now, Doctor Doom is yours as well.”

Smith certainly buys into the Lee gospel and clearly has never read any information that wasn’t in a Bullpen Bulletin or Wizard Magazine by this point. But! He doesn’t GET Jack Kirby, okay??

• “Jack Kirby used to kid around with it… every so often, he would draw a little sketch of Doctor Doom with his mask off and of course, he always had MY face…!”

Say whaaaaattt?! Lee baffles me here as I’ve never heard or read ANY reference to Kirby doing this. Could Lee have just immodestly assumed that the sketch of Doom showing the scar on his face- as Kirby’s belief was that Doom only received a tiny scar, but his psychology told him that any flaw was unacceptable– was supposed to be him?! If anyone has ever seen reference to this, please comment below.

Smith notes the heavy scientific basis and Sci-Fi elements of early Marvel and asks Lee where that comes from, his ignorance of Kirby and Kirby’s contributions blatantly on display. Lee responds by not really answering.

• “I LOVE Science Fiction- but nobody knows less about science than I do! See to me, things just have to SOUND good… I guess I’m the biggest phony in the world, really…”

Lee claims he developed and came up with Thor’s hammer with the leather thong so that Thor can swing it and have a visible means of propulsion for flight. Kirby used the same design on Thor’s hammer in earlier stories he did sans Stan Lee at rival DC in Tales of the Unexpected #16- “The Magic Hammer” in 1957- same exact hammer, sorry Stan:

• SMITH: “Now, did you become Editor in Chief when Martin was still around, still alive…?”

• LEE: “Oh, I had always been. When Joe Simon and Jack Kirby left, when I was about 17 years old, Martin needed somebody to replace them…”

Smith is really knocking it out of the park with his passion for Stan Lee and Marvel. Was Martin Goodman even STILL ALIVE?! Holy shit! No better devotee of Stan Lee’s career ever lived! This shit would be hilarious if the falsehoods it contained wasn’t so harmful!

• “I have a theory. When you work with artists and writers, any kind of creative people- you get their best work if you let them do it the way they want to do it. Now, they have to be talented- if they’re not talented, forget it- but, you get a guy with talent, you can’t tell ’em too much- you can’t say, don’t do it this way, do it that way- gotta let him do it that way. Now maybe that was an excuse for me being lazy… but I pretty much tried to keep hands off… again, as I say, I was lucky… I had built up the greatest staff of artists and writers anywhere…”

Lee’s careful if revealing thought on The Marvel Method.

• “You know, before Marvel, as far as I know, no other comic company played up who wrote the story, who drew it, who lettered it, who edited it…”

EC Comics famously did. Charles Biro did. While not commonplace, Marvel was not the first. Lee may have been the first to credit letterers.

Lee then claims the credit box was inspired by screen credits in movies; an example of Lee adapting to his audience depending on the circumstance, as he seeks to flatter Smith, a (terrible) filmmaker.

• “We were the first, I believe, to have letter pages…”

And then he immediately follows that statement up by criticizing DC’s letter pages. Maybe Lee is less lucid in 2002 than I thought.

Smith then broaches the subject of Jack Kirby and fan perception of Kirby getting a raw deal; I’ll admit I didn’t expect that to come up and even stay in such a puff piece production- I also don’t expect Lee to answer honestly, either and wasn’t disappointed:

• “Well, Jack was the greatest guy to work with… he never did less than his best, you would never get a job from Jack and say “ah, this isn’t that good.” Everything about him was great. Towards the end, the last few years… something happened, I’m not sure what it was.

• One of the things was, they had a policy to give original artwork back to the artist. Now, I was out of it by now, I was the Publisher and I was travelling.. but, for some reason, Jack felt he didn’t get his artwork back. And he got mad at the company… people in the company told me the reason- and again, this is all hearsay- told me the reason he didn’t get the artwork back was they just wanted him to sign a form saying he would never to use it to republish it and compete with Marvel, or something of the sort…”

• And they told me Jack wouldn’t sign the form for that reason and they were at loggerheads. Eventually, I think, they worked it out after a long time. But during that period the fans learned about what was happening and the fans got mad at Marvel thinking we’re not treating Jack well and somehow, I think it rubbed off on ME… I think Jack may have felt in some way I was responsible or had something to do with it… Hell, as far as I was concerned, he could have everything back, it didn’t matter to me!”

• I had asked Jack to come on staff and stop being a freelancer, and I said ‘you know Jack, I would be happy to let you be the art director, I’ll just be the editor- what a team we could make! We’ll run the whole thing.’ He didn’t want to do it!”

• SMITH: Why do you think?

• LEE: I don’t know-

• SMITH: Just didn’t want to commit the time? Just liked being freelance?

• LEE: Your guess is as good as mine. But there isn’t a bad thing that I can say about that man… he was a joy to work with, he was a genius, he should have been a movie director because this man knew how to tell a story…”

I have a guess that’s even better because it’s the truth: Kirby had moved to California due to his daughter’s health. Kirby was on the West Coast. Even if had entertained Lee’s offer- if its even true- it would have been logistically impossible!

If Smith had done the minimum degree of research before this interview- as he would know what questions he planned on tackling- he may have known this! But the entitled don’t think like that.

• “These great ideas that I had may not have been as successful if they if they weren’t drawn as well…”

• SMITH: “You are the Father of mutants in the Marvel Universe….”

• LEE: “And that was done out of laziness!”

Smith describes the Silver Surfer as “one of your favorite creations”- very insulting and Lee could have clarified to Smith here how Kirby surprised Lee with the Silver Surfer, bringing him fully developed and fleshed out. Naturally, Lee does not. And it continues.

• SMITH: ”But you created Iron Man.”

• LEE: ”Just for fun, I’m gonna get a character who’s a multi-millionaire, who manufactures war material…”

Lee remarks that he doesn’t know why Tony Stark doesn’t have an alliterative name like other Marvel characters- it’s because Larry Lieber named the character and wrote the dialogue from Kirby’s plot in the characters first appearance: Lee had barely anything to do with it. But he created Iron Man! Wahhh! Note that Lee claims he created characters “just for fun”, as if this were even possible in the Sixties comic book industry or at Marvel specifically, where Martin Goodman made the decisions.

Smith continues to show an appalling lack of ignorance or else he’s simply trying to prompt Lee for details for the audience when he asks, “What year is Spider-Man- what, what point do you create Spider-Man?“

• “But what gave me the idea, was- I wanted- you know, in super-heroes, the most important thing is to get a new power. And you run outta powers- the guy can fly, a guy is strong- what’s left? I figured if a guy can stick to walls, y’know, like an insect… so, I ran down a list of names. ‘Insect Man‘ didn’t have it… ‘Mosquito Man‘ wasn’t dramatic…”

While Lee does mention the pulp character THE SPIDER, the seeming importance of a “new power” in creating a character is a seldom used spin on his usual routine.

• “When I proposed the name to Martin (Goodman), my publisher- now, he had been on board with everything- the Fantastic Four, the Hulk- he thought I could do no wrong! So I told him about Spider-Man, he said ‘You’re crazy! Stan, people hate spiders! Ya can’t do Spider-Man!’ And he said, “And you want him to be a teenager? Teenagers can only be sidekicks!” And then he said, “And you want him to have problems?” ‘Cause I told him, I wanted him to worry about money, pimples…”

• (SMITH): “Cause up to that point, like the traditional super-heroes, people like The Fantastic Four, there were no money problems, they were- y’know, Reed Richards was a brilliant inventor…”

Wasn’t there a very famous Fantastic Four story where the FF are broke because Reed invested all of their money into scientific research? *cough*

• (SMITH): “You get credited with- and I know you’re not even comfortable with it, with creator of this, creator of this and you’re always the first person in the room to point out that it wasn’t just you- as you said before, it’s a very collaborative medium. Uhm, and I know there are people in the case of Jack Kirby- oh, there must a point of contention between Stan and Jack, and blah blah blah, and that’s not the case…”

Smith knows Lee isn’t even comfortable with it?? He’s allowed Smith to do it blatantly and often this entire conversation. How would Smith know what was not the case?

• “Steve is really the guy who brought this to a point… obviously, Spider-Man was my idea.”
• (SMITH): “Yes.”

• “Steve feels since he drew it and gave it life, so to speak- that he created it as much as I do, I did. Now, in my heart of hearts I feel the guy who comes up with the concept is the creator-
• (SMITH): “Yeah, is the father, sure!”

• “- but Steve feels and, I hope he- when he sees this, doesn’t feel I’m quoting him wrong- he feels that the person who physically gives it life is the co-creator, otherwise all I had was an idea which was nothing solid. Now, while I don’t really agree with that- I have enough respect for Steve- and for the other artists- that I am very happy and very comfortable to call myself the co-creator of all of these things.”

• (SMITH): “And you coined the phrase ‘With great power comes great responsibility…’

No idea why Smith immediately changes the subject- it may be giving him too much credit to think that he recognized how bad Lee sounds with his rationalization about NOT thinking the designer and main plotter of the legendary early Spider-Man run wouldn’t be the co-creator. How much merchandise has Ditko’s costume design made for Marvel for over half a century?

Smith is unsure who wrote Spider-Man after Lee left the title. He clarifies by saying he’s asking about “the first guy” to Lee after his initial question, genuinely unaware.

Smith tells Lee that Superman’s origin has changed several times over the years and Lee displays genuine surprise at this, which leads Smith to go into a long monotone geek rant about how Krypton is sometimes portrayed differently each time, Byrne’s take on it, blah blah blah- one can see Lee is just being polite now and that Smith meant the depiction of Superman’s origin is told differently- his origin hasn’t changed, which is what Lee took him to mean.

• “I’d wanna get exploited! And get paid for it.”

Lee would get his wish even later in his life, once he and his handlers realized how lucrative the growing convention circuit was.

• (SMITH): “Most people remember the early Sixties (Spider-Man) cartoon with the theme song… and uh, all that artwork was based heavily on the comic book artwork, in fact some of it was just, some of it was cut-outs and they moved the mouths only…”

Wow. Kevin Smith is really a fuckin’ moron. He refers to the 1966 Marvel Super-Heroes syndicated television show which infamously took existing Marvel art and gave it extremely limited, low-budget animation- not the better produced Spider-Man cartoon he believes he’s referencing. If i sound unfair, or like I’m projecting my own standards on someone else- look, this guy wears super-hero shirts in public. He owns a comic book store. He promotes comic books. And literally- literally! Every single thing he says on this entire fucking thing is factually and historically incorrect. An inept interviewer and an ignorant fan! It’s maddening.

• “But anyone who grew up in the late 70s, early 80s like myself, can close their eyes and recognize you as the voice that narrated Spider-Man and his Amazing Friends… that unmistakable, legendary voice…”

Smith’s sentimental feeling and knowledge of Lee’s career is revealing in this telling statement.

• (SMITH): “So, in the movie- Spider-Man and of course the Green Goblin you created, Mary Jane you created as well?”

• LEE: “Right.”

• (SMITH): “Were you responsible for the issue of- ‘Face it Tiger, you hit the Jackpot?’

Really? Smith doesn’t know this? Did he not read any Marvel Masterworks before doing this interview, just to refresh himself? I’m serious- this guy is a huge publicist and advocate for Stan Lee, to the point where he writes about his apparently legendary scripts in his films- and he doesn’t know SO MUCH.

It’s no different than these guys on Billy Tucci’s show with statues and posters of super-heroes surrounding them in their homes, and taking the time to devote themselves to discussing subjects that they haven’t even researched! It’s unbelievable!

• “You know who J. Jonah Jameson is? He was me. He was a irasscible, he was bad-tempered, he was dumb, he thought he was better than he was… he was the version that so many people had of me! (laughter)”

A break in the interview shows Smith looking around Lee’s home. Apparently, Lee- still spry and lucid in 2002- doesn’t know much of the memorabilia being displayed in his home, which leads me to believe that it was purposely set up for this shoot– other documentary footage of the Lee home and photographs do not show displays featuring crass 90s’ era Spider-Man action figures and it does not seem like the sort of thing Joan Lee or Stan would care about. (There’s a prominent Ditko-esque Spider-Man piece you’ll see standing up in the living room in photos as late as 2018- this was created by Joan Lee’s sister) Smith points out an action figure of Lee in a glass display and Lee bends to see it and then remarks, “Yeah! How about that?!” like he’s literally never seen it before.

This artifact is ridiculous but problematic in that various uploads exist on YouTube which carry the possibility of being discovered by a young and uninformed comics fan looking to know more about Marvel, comic books, or Stan Lee. And while those young and uninformed fans are an endangered species, it doesn’t mean we shouldn’t care about the rampant dishonesty entwined in the history of the Marvel Universe. Will a proper documentary on Jack Kirby ever be made? Without the involvement of dishonest enablers like Mark Evanier? Until it does, we’re stuck with stuff like this.

If you haven’t seen this, don’t seek it out unless you’re surrounded by friends who want to fall into a stupor out of boredom or who want to mock the drabness of the interview and make fun of Kevin Smith. Otherwise, I watched it so that you didn’t have to. No need to thank me, true believer- Four Color Sinners exists to be shared and offended by pussies who block me and commented on by cowards who can’t back it up online or on the street!

We will continue to call out liars and give credit where credit is due. In the meantime, send your hits and misses to: fourcolorsinners@gmail.com