The Indian Express tells of special celebrations held this week for Marvel’s late, legendary writer/editor/publisher Stan Lee, for what would’ve been his 98th birthday if he were still alive:
Stan Lee, the iconic creator of Marvel comics, passed away at the age of 95 in 2018. This loss left an unfillable void, and on his birth anniversary (December 28) readers came together to remember the literary giant on his birth anniversary. His official Twitter handle started a thread yesterday entreating readers to share their favourite memories with Lee, and the result is heartwarming. […]
In an interview with the Associated Press in 2006, he had said, “I think everybody loves things that are bigger than life. … I think of them as fairy tales for grown-ups. We all grew up with giants and ogres and witches. Well, you get a little bit older and you’re too old to read fairy tales. But I don’t think you ever outgrow your love for those kind of things, things that are bigger than life and magical and very imaginative.”
Adventure and escapism can continue to be worthy avenues for everybody long after they’ve aged beyond childhood, and they don’t even have to be clogged with mature themes like jarring violence and gore in order to entertain. Something the people now in charge of Marvel clearly don’t comprehend. That’s why their brand new stories, in sharp contrast to Lee’s of yesteryear, aren’t aging well.
Here’s also Movieweb’s notes on this day of remembrance for Lee, which notes there was a planned screenplay about him:
Lee’s life and career were previously covered in the 2010 documentary With Great Power: The Stan Lee Story, and he could next have his story explored in an upcoming biopic. It was recently revealed that a script about Lee and Marvel collaborator Jack Kirby, dubbed Excelsior!, made it to the 2020 Black List. Written by Alex Convery, the story follows the “meteoric rise (and subsequent fall) of Marvel Comics and the star-crossed creators behind the panel.” As an unproduced script, there’s no guarantee at this time that the movie will be made.
It sounds more like another documentary in planning, but unless it’s honest and its producers willing to ask objective queries, what will be the point? If we don’t get a clear picture why they’ve collapsed (overly violent tales, loss of continuity and consistency, too many crossovers, lack of respect for Lee’s creations like Mary Jane Watson, to name but some examples), we’ll never know how to fix it. If it’s a serious biopic, chances are higher it’ll be sanitized through political correctness, and that won’t be helpful either. People have to know who the culprits were in Marvel’s downfall (Joe Quesada, Bill Jemas, Tom Brevoort, Axel Alonso, Dan Buckley, for instance), and if a planned movie’s scriptwriters won’t acknowledge it, then nobody will be able to form an opinion. So maybe it’s better if there won’t be a major movie based on Lee’s life.
