116 Comic Mythmaker transcript (Stan Lee)
Michael: [00:00:00] Famous and gravy listeners, Michael Osborne here. I've got two things to say before we start today's episode. First, we could really use your help growing the show and there's a very simple thing you can do. Leave a review for Famous and Gravy on Apple Podcasts. If you're listening on Apple, you just scroll down on our show page, tap the Stars, and write a few words.
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Isaac: This is Famous and Gravy biographies from a different point of view. To participate in our opening quiz, email us at [00:01:00] hello@famousandgravy.com. Now here's the quiz to reveal today's dead celebrity.
Michael: This person died 2018, age 95. He began reading Shakespeare at 10 while also devouring Pulp magazines. The novels of Arthur Conan Doyle, Edgar Rice Burroughs, and Mark Twain, and the Swashbuckler Movies of Errol Flynn
Friend: 95. Sean Connery. He wrote those? No, he read them. Oh, he read them. Oh, he read them at H 10.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Had a real lame clue. Yeah. And he saw an episode of Happy Days. Went All right. I guess
Michael: he was an effective salesman and described as an energetic, gregarious, optimistic, and alternately. Grandiose and selfa face.
Friend: Uh ooh. Self-effacing. I'm feeling that right now. Was it Carrie Grant? I absolutely know who this is.
This is Ed McMahon. It, it is not Ed McMahon. He
Michael: could be startlingly [00:02:00] prolific. Quote, almost everything I've ever written, I could finish at one sitting he wants, said I'm a fast writer. Maybe not the best, but the fastest, 100% Donald Trump.
Friend: I'm here. I'm here. Writer. But since we went off the wall guesses, uh, Christopher Lee,
Michael: not Christopher Lee, who we've actually done an episode on, it's worth a listen.
It turned out really good in 1961, he and the partner produced the first issue of the Fantastic Four, about a superpowered team with humanizing dimensions for the company known as Marvel. He went on to create Spider-Man. Stan Lee.
Friend: Mm-hmm. Stan Lee.
Archival: This is Stan Lee.
Michael: Today's dead celebrity is Stan Lee.
Archival: Wow. I have a theory.
When you work with artisan writers mm-hmm. Any kind of creative people mm-hmm. You get their best work if you let them do it the way they want to do it. Mm-hmm. You get a guy with talent, [00:03:00] you can't tell him too much. You can't say, you don't do it this way, do it that way. Right? Gotta let him do it his way.
Now, maybe that was an excuse for me being lazy, right? But I, I pretty much tried to keep hands off. 'cause again, as I say, I was lucky. I had built up. The greatest staff of artists and writers you could find anywhere.
Michael: Welcome to Famous and Gravy. I'm Michael Osborne.
Isaac: I'm Isaac Kestenbaum. And
Michael: on this show, we choose a famous figure who died in the 21st century, and we take a totally different approach to their biography. What didn't we know? What could we not see clearly? And what does a celebrity's life story teach us about ourselves today?
Stan Lee died 2018, age 95. So today I am overjoyed to have my friend Isaac Kestenbaum on the show. Isaac and I go back, I don't know, over 10 [00:04:00] years now. We've known each other at
Isaac: least. Yeah.
Michael: Currently you're the director of the Salt Institute. I'm gonna take a stab explaining what the Salt Institute for Documentary Studies is, and you tell me where I'm wrong.
Isaac: All right. I'll grade it. Like the first line of the obit.
Michael: Yeah, exactly. So when college students come to me and say, I want to be. The next IRA glass, they wanna be the next like great audio storyteller. Where should I go to get really good training? I say, look into the Salt Institute. Every alum I know who's come out of that program has world class storytelling skills, but also very much rooted in journalism.
And so I have no idea what you guys actually do there, but that's my understanding of what SALT is. How do you describe what salt is? Isaac? Yeah,
Isaac: that was really, really good. Yeah. I'm the director and I'm also a salt and graduate myself. I went in 2008 and I would definitely say you got it pretty right.
It's a semester long, immersive, intensive documentary studies program. We have audio, but we also offer writing as well as short film. You come for one [00:05:00] semester and you kind of go from having maybe some of the skills you want to being totally ready to jump into whatever field you want to do and make an immediate impact.
And I feel confident saying that. Like pretty much any media organization that you can think of, like scratch the surface and there's a salt grad there.
Michael: You started at StoryCorps back in the day. Mm-hmm. Right. I mean, you were a producer. Mm-hmm. And then somewhere along the way you became an educator. When did that happen?
Isaac: That's a good question. My, it happened right now. When you told me that I was, that I was one. Well, yeah, like you said, I was at StoryCorps and then I was an independent producer for a really long time and I did a lot of different projects like audio tours and films and
Michael: like narrative series done ton of stuff.
Isaac: Yeah. And along the way I started teaching shorter workshops for Union Docs, which is a organization in Queens. So I just really like teaching.
Michael: Yeah, no, I, I miss it. And I, I feel like I need to find my way back to teaching. You and I have been talking about looking for a reason to collaborate. A few [00:06:00] weeks ago we got on the horn.
Yeah. And I was like, you know, you should just come on and do an episode. We started batting around names and we landed on Stan Lee. Did you grow up a comic geek?
Isaac: I was a huge comics nerd, probably from age nine to age 15. And I've got boxes and boxes of comic books that I have from that day. And so I was reading through some of them.
So at one point we, we organized all of them. So this box, holy cow. I've probably got like eight more boxes like this. So I've got like Silver Surfer, I've got the Infinity War Infinity Gauntlet. I've even got ravaged. This is one of the, like the last one that Stanley wrote. It's about as good as it looks.
Um, so yeah, I grew up like a huge comics nerd.
Michael: Stanley's been on the list for a while. I knew it was gonna be kind of a hard episode because there, there've just been murmurings from my nerd friend committee that we're gonna find some stuff out there that's gonna be kind of hard to sort through, and that has proven [00:07:00] really true.
But I have come all the way. To it. I cannot wait to do this episode. I think there's a lot to discuss, so maybe let's just get to it. Yeah,
Isaac: I got
Michael: it. Category one, grading the first line of their obituary. Stan Lee, a writer and editor, often credited with helping American comics grow up by redefining the notion of a superhero, including the self-doubting Spider-Man, the bickering.
Fantastic. Four. The Swaggering Iron Man. And the raging, incredible. Hulk died November 12th at a hospital in Los Angeles. He was 95.
Isaac: Isaac, there's a lot for me here. I'm gonna start with the phrase, often credited with helping American comics grow up.
Michael: Yes. Wow. That is loaded, often credited. We ourselves are not crediting and we're just saying he is often credited.
With helping American comics grow. So we should explain that for anybody who doesn't know. There is [00:08:00] deep and fabled controversy around who came up with what in the heyday of Marvel comics, really in the 1960s when this is gonna be a real topic of this conversation. Stan Lee is somebody who claimed a lot of credit for a lot of the Marvel comic superheroes, Spider-Man, incredible Hulk Ironman, and so forth.
As time has gone on, there have been more and more questions about how much he deserves credit, how much it's really the artists like. Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko. Yeah, I mean there's been legal wranglings over this. This was sort of a controversy before Marvel movies had taken over Hollywood and it's only grown since then.
And so that term often credited, is absolutely a couch. Mm-hmm. And an allusion to that controversy. In my
Archival: heart of hearts, Uhhuh, I feel the guy who comes up with the concept the guy created is the father. Sure. But Steve feels that the person [00:09:00] who physically gives it life is the co-creator. Now, while I don't really agree with that, Uhhuh.
I have enough respect for Steve that I am very happy and very comfortable. Mm-hmm. To call myself the co-creator, right. Of all of these things.
Isaac: It's a hedge, right. And then it's a hedge on top of a hedge 'cause he's often credited with helping American comics grow up. So it's like a further waffling there.
In the beginning of this, I don't know if I like it because like it's true, like he was often credited and he was never really definitively given the. Ownership of these icons, but,
Michael: well, what's interesting too is it says, if you just read it, a writer and an editor often credited with helping American comics grow up that what the sentence is actually saying is he is credited with helping them grow up.
Actually, I don't think that you have to hedge on that. Right. Whatever else Stan Lee was, he was a spokesperson and promoter of the medium. That is his legacy. He has been the face of [00:10:00] the industry by far and away the most recognizable name for decades. Yeah. In comics. He deserves that credit. The question about whether he deserves credit as a writer and editor, that's where the controversy come.
Isaac: Right? No, for sure. Yeah.
Michael: But you're right. It is a hedge on top of a hedge. Yeah.
Isaac: And like when I just first read this, what you see is you see Stanley and then your eyes immediately go down to the fun stuff, the self-doubting Spider-Man, the bickering, fantastic four, swaggering Ironman and Raging Incredible Hulk, all of which I love.
Each of those one word definitions of those superheroes just nails it perfectly.
Michael: Totally. I had the same reaction. Yeah.
Isaac: You know, one of the things that Stan Lee, I think was so good at is like giving these heroes real human issues, human problems, like the House Spider-Man is self-doubting, which I love how that is in there.
Oh,
Michael: that's a good call. I actually didn't notice that, but you're absolutely right. Like this is his innovation. Mm-hmm. Superheroes before Marvel had been pretty one dimensional, bland, and unambiguously. Virtuous. Yeah. What [00:11:00] Stan Lee and Marvel comics do is make 'em more complicated figure. So that's happening in this.
Obit line, self-doubting, Spiderman bickering, fantastic force, swaggering Ironman raging, incredible hook. Those are all complicated qualifiers. Yeah. Of those characters in a way that honors them. Yeah.
Isaac: It's not like the Mighty Ironman or like the Invincible incredible hu to the casual reader. You might just come away with that.
Still thinking he created them though, because like you see Stanley and then your eyes are just drawn to the heroes, which I think is kind of like in some ways the story of his career. Like right there. Totally in your sentence. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Michael: Let me ask this. Do you think that these are the right four characters in the Marvel universe?
I mean, you could increase the list that item infinitum, but are these the foremost important
Isaac: points? I've thought a lot about this. Uh,
Michael: I
Isaac: was
Michael: hoping you
Isaac: did. I mean, the biggest problem for me is there are no X-Men here.
Michael: Oh.
Isaac: I don't know if, if it's because they're such a big group that the writer couldn't think of a one word [00:12:00] thing.
They're my favorite and they're not here.
Michael: I, that's a good that. Okay. I think if you were gonna somehow get X-Men in here, you could take Fantastic Four Out, maybe, however you might want to include them because of their history in comics specifically. Right? That that was the first real success of Marvel in 19 60, 61.
What else about this obit, Isaac? Is it missing anything else for
Isaac: you? So I think the biggest thing is there's nothing about his legacy in here. Superheroes are huge right now. What he created is such a huge part of it. Like the world we live in is defined by this. You're
Michael: right, I I first I was thinking what he is talking about.
They absolutely get his legacy. It's often credited with helping stuff, right? Which is the complicated thing. Right. But it doesn't honor the why that controversy is so big and important and interesting in the first place because it is modern. Mythology.
Isaac: I think the other thing that's missing, there's really nothing about his personality in here.
There's certainly [00:13:00] his, his work is reflected here. Mm-hmm. I would like something just like charismatic writer or who became an icon in his own right. 'cause like so much of his, especially his like, after he created the Fantastic Four and all these other heroes, he was just kind of creating Stan Lee. Yeah.
As a brand for a lot of his career.
Michael: He's somebody who seems to be all about a good conversation. He's self-effacing and he's funny and he's a good storyteller. Yeah, I agree.
Isaac: All right. So where did you land? So initially I really wanted to say a mega pun and say I was gonna give it an UN fantastic four.
But talking to you a little bit, I think I'm gonna give it a little more grace. Um, I'll give it a six.
Michael: So I was going eight. Now that I've talked it out with you a little bit, I'm gonna downgrade that to seven. I think what is working for me is really working for me. I do think that they are hinting at a complicated story, but you're absolutely right that they totally underplay who he is and how big the thing was.
Those two omissions kind of swamped.
Isaac: I think if there had been xmen, I would've given it a higher [00:14:00] score.
Michael: Fair enough. All right, six and a seven. Let's move on. Category two. Five things I love about you here, Isaac and I will develop a list of five things that offer a different angle on who this person was.
And how they lived. What is your thing, number one?
Isaac: All right, so my, my thing number one is that he was a world builder. So the characters in the Marvel universe that he co-created, there's this huge cast of different characters and all the stories are interconnected and interrelated. It's like kinda one big narrative and it just feels like it can go anywhere.
Michael: My read on this is that the two or three things that really set Marvel apart are one, that they make more complicated characters. Two, that they start to interconnect, storylines and create a universe. This is your thing, number one. Mm-hmm. And then three, I think, and we'll, we'll talk more about this. I'm sure that there's also a different relationship with the fans themselves, right?
Those [00:15:00] three things are kind of like what Marvel was doing. I guess they even call it like the Silver Age or something, right? Yeah. I think
Isaac: that was the Silver Age. Yeah.
Michael: So you grew up. Reading comics. I, I think that there are points of comparison for me with these world building things, Tarantino films.
Mm-hmm. Stephen King mm-hmm. Really comes to mind. Mm-hmm. Like the Dark Tower series and the way a character will make a cameo in the stand or in, you know, some other book. You're like, oh wait, I know where that's from. Yeah. It's such a dopamine hit for the audience to have this deeper inside knowledge of an intersecting storyline.
Yeah. So is that kind of what you're speaking to?
Isaac: Yeah, a hundred percent. Like, it's just so fun as a reader. And I think also just the way that like characters could like team up with each other and appear in each other's issues. And this huge kind of like sprawling multi-part narratives that they would tell.
I think it's the kind of storytelling we almost take for granted. 'cause it's everywhere now. Like not just the Marvel movies, like even like the Fargo, like [00:16:00] extended universe, like they made, like all these Fargo TV shows, the Game of Thrones, like all that. Is, I think, indebted to this idea that you can build this whole complicated world.
Michael: There was a article I read years ago by, do you know who uh, Zaki is? Have you ever come across her name? I don't name. She wrote this article. It was around the time that Game of Thrones came to an end where she was distinguishing between heroic and individual stories and sociological stories. She used the Wire actually as a point of comparison, and she said A good telltale sign for a sociological story is a lead character can die or can drop off, and you're still invested.
And that the distinction she was trying to make is that you're not telling a story about an individual hero's journey. You're talking. About a community, a collection of people, and it leads to this idea that there's mystery. Like if these two people can meet, if Ironman and the Hulk run into each other on some funny storyline, you as the reader [00:17:00] fill in all these blanks of all the other chance encounters that must be happening with those characters.
You know, somewhere behind the scenes, it creates this bigness in your mind.
Isaac: Mm-hmm. Yeah. It just feels like anything could happen.
Michael: Exactly. Yeah. Okay. I love that. All right, so I'll, I'll go for my thing number two. I need to talk this one out a little bit. Okay. I wrote Heroes and Celebrities character creation, so I wanna talk about.
Stanley Lee himself, not his given name. He was born Stanley Lieber. He broke up his first name Stanley, into Stan Lee, and then officially changed it. And you sort of said this a second ago. I mean, he kind of creates his own brand. Mm-hmm. And his own character. Something I started thinking about a lot in the research.
This episode is as famous and Gravy has gone on, I've really come to look at celebrities as superheroes. Mm-hmm. In a way they are real people, but we fictionalize them. We myth make around them. What's interesting about Stan Lee is that he's sort of [00:18:00] combining not two but three threads in his own narrative of himself.
He's not a reliable, not narrator. Right. Whether or not he's the guy who had the full vision for Spider-Man or Hulk or Ironman or whomever. No, probably not. But he's either a contributing figure to those characters or he's creating the culture with which artists are empowered, right? Either way, he deserves credit.
So where am I going with my thing? Number two here, heroes and celebrities. There was something about researching the mythology of him. Thinking about superheroes as modern mythology. Yeah. And then thinking about celebrities as modern mythology. There was something about looking at all three of those things, Isaac.
Mm-hmm. That reminded me of this human need to make people into symbols. Mm-hmm. He does that for himself, and he's also doing that for these characters. Our tendency is like, who's responsible? Stanley's responsible. [00:19:00] And he doesn't totally shy away from that. However, and the part of the reason this book True Believer comes out is like most of that is not true.
How much he created things, you know, we don't know. There's a lot of darkness behind the scenes. Yeah. The author of that book almost paints him as a kind of desperate figure. Mm-hmm. And I land somewhere in between. If I had to summarize my thing, number two, I do think that Isaac, we hit a point in our lives where.
It's less about how we create new stories for ourselves, and it's more about how we edit the story of our lives. And I'm not sure that that's a bad thing. I think that we can rewrite our own histories with some embellishment here and there, and that's really kind of okay. And Stanley really does that, and I'm sort of fine with that.
It's good to be the author of your own life and, and maybe that's what I'm really trying to get at
Isaac: here. Yeah.
Michael: And I see a lot of that in Stanley's life. So that's my thing, number two. [00:20:00] All right. What do you got from number three?
Isaac: So for, for thing number three, I have fan service. And I chose that phrase because again, like I think the world that we live in is such a Stan Lee world, and when I say fan service, it just means that like you're throwing in an Easter egg that like only the fans, that's why I chose that phrase.
But what I mean by this, in this context, Stan Lee really changed the way that creators talk to fans. Mm-hmm. In the comics industry. I think he especially does that in the letters column at the back of Yeah. He has like a letters column at the back of every issue, every comic. There's one that's fantastic for number 10, uh, which came out in 1962, and he says like, look, enough of that dear editor, jazz, from now on, Jack Kirby and Stanley.
That's us read every letter personally and we like to feel that we know you and that you know us. So they changed. So they, like everyone who wrote dear editor, they changed it to like Dear Jack and Stan and that's kind of the way that they go forward and I just feel like it's this way of connecting with fans That was like super unusual at the time, which I really love.
That's
Michael: a great one. And there's a lot in there actually. I mean, [00:21:00] he's doing DVD commentary behind the scenes before DVDs exist essentially. Exactly right. Yeah. This is a sort of like peek behind the curtain, what it's like to be us. Stan Lee is the one who establishes the editorial voice for Marvel. Yeah.
You know, with all this kind of exclamation point. Yeah. And Jolly Jack Kirby and whatever, all that stuff,
Isaac: Stan, the man, Lee, Jack, Jack, king Kirby, the, the
Michael: self-aggrandizing of it is great. But you know what's also, I think really important though too, you know, Stan Lee is a product of the Great Depression.
When he tells the story about how he got into comics, it's almost happenstance he wasn't all that interested, but he kind of stumbled into a role where he was promoted very highly early on as like a teenager. He becomes editor, the industry goes through some major ups and downs. The way he tells it, he's ready to leave in the early sixties, and his wife is like, well, why don't you just do something for yourself here?
Right. Right. And that he sort of has this, I'm gonna do it differently, [00:22:00] and my way moment in his forties. Something I really like when it comes up on Famous and Gravy is I'm way more attracted to the midlife successes where somebody's like, you know what? I don't care anymore. I'm just gonna take the reins and go for it.
Yeah. And I think that that's actually really evident in his relationship with his fans and with his audience as, as soon as it has some traction, he knows his audience. Yeah. And he's developing a rapport with them that is serving them in a deep way. Yeah,
Isaac: totally. His editorial voice that he dis develops as he's talking to them is so charming, and it just feels like, it feels like he's having fun, uh, engaging with them.
Yeah.
Michael: It's got so many escalations. Yeah.
Isaac: And there's like, there's no g It's always like looking good, you know? Or like Yeah. Kind of. It's spelled like K-I-N-D-A, like it's also casual, conversational, casual. Casual. Casual, yeah. Casual. That's what
Archival: it means
Michael: to serve the
Isaac: audience. Yeah. You feel like we're inside.
You feel like an
Archival: insider. Exactly. We had never gotten fan mail before. Hmm. I was at the company for years and I was writing the stories [00:23:00] the way my publisher wanted me to write them, and he did not have much respect for our readership. Anyway, finally, I decided I would try to do some stories that I might like to read after the Fantastic four.
Yeah, we actually started getting letters
Isaac: and I think the thing you said about doing DVD commentary before there were DVDs is really accurate because not only is the letters column like this great way where he interacts, but they're like breaking the fourth wall all the time, like on the cover of the magazine, they'll say something like, look, this might not be the best story we've ever done, but like, you know, why don't you buy this?
Like, literally they said that like, but you know, we think we've done some other good ones, so like buy this. Anyway, just that sort of like yeah, talking directly to the reader as like a a me and you like relationship was is so it's just the two of us here. Buy the comic. Come on. You know me like I've done some good stuff.
Exactly.
Michael: That's awesome. It is unequivocally, uh, Stan. Thing too. Yes. Where why you, whereas you can debate about his creative contribution to the [00:24:00] superhero characters. This one is very much hill. A hundred percent. Okay. Well for my number four cameo hero, and I think you had this too, he becomes famous. He sort of has mid-level, marginal, pretty good fame.
Yeah. For the sixties, seventies, eighties, and, but like he really reintroduces himself to a whole new generation with his numerous cameos in the Marvel movies and kind of made it a thing,
Archival: you know, I guess one person can make a difference. Nuff said.
Isaac: I was thinking about, what are the other comparisons?
Well, it was like a Hitchcock, right? Yeah. And then, uh, maybe Tarantino. Scorsese.
Michael: Sc. So this is the thing. Most
Isaac: of it is
Michael: directors. Yeah. Right. So Hitchcock Tarantino, George Romero, maybe Mel Brooks. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. The one non director is probably Stephen King. But it's clear, like that is just such a fun thing for him.
Mm-hmm. To do. There's not a cameo out there where it doesn't look like [00:25:00]
Isaac: he's having so much fun's kind of to himself. Yeah. Totally.
Michael: Alright, so where's you go for thing number five?
Isaac: All right. For my thing, number five, I had code breaker. That's a reference to the comics code, which was, there's like a big controversy about comics where sort of the powers that be decided that they were corrupting the youth.
Yeah. All the comic publishers, I guess, got together and created on their own proactively, defensively this comics code that all this weird stuff about like what they could and couldn't show. Like there's like no monsters rule. Anyway. Ah. So I think with a lot of Stan Lee's life, everything is kind of murky about like what role he played in creating these things and how much credit he could should get for some of these stories.
Michael: And it's not anything that you and I like in this conversation to resolve any of that. Ultimately, it's unresolvable.
Isaac: What I will say is I think there's like a lot of really, or it's time like subversive and groundbreaking stuff that appears in some of these comics that he co-created.
Michael: I heard him in an interview talking about, I forget the name of the comic.
It was [00:26:00] some military outfit, but he mentioned like sort of offhandedly. There was a gay character in there. Mm-hmm. It was also a book
Archival: that had the first ethnic group of heroes in Sergeant Fury's platoon. We had a Jewish soldier named Izzy Cohen. We had a black soldier, an Italian soldier. We even had a gay soldier, and this was in the middle 1960s and it.
I think it took a little courage to do it then
Michael: creates the Black Panther in 1966. So there's representation and his politics are not necessarily super progressive or anything like that, but you do see a kind of honoring of humanity of all shapes, sizes, colors, you know, sexual orientations and so forth.
Really throughout the work. And it's so funny to me too that this all emerges in the 1960s. I mean, I think it does remind me a little bit of. Music and of rock bands. Mm-hmm. And of how a song is created. If you think the lyrics are the most important [00:27:00] thing, if you think the rhythm is, if you think it's about the guitar, riffs, whatever, who winds up getting credited is always gonna be a little bit unclear.
Yeah. I do think that he should get some credit for dialogue. I think if nothing else he is,
Isaac: you know? Oh, for sure. Yeah.
Michael: Like that, that, that is where he has his fingerprints.
Isaac: Yeah. I was just gonna bring up the X-Men again. Um, you know, 'cause, uh, well, I mean, I, I think there is an argument that the X-Men. Or a little bit about the civil rights struggle that was happening at the time.
Everyone is sort of afraid of them and, you know, hates and fears them, but the X-Men like fight for those people anyway. And uh, it's kinda, it is at least acknowledging that there are these like issues that are happening. There's
Michael: a lot of these kinds of questions of representation, fairness, equality are clearly in the air and marvel is rising when a lot of this stuff is sort of chaotically emerging out of culture.
Right? All right, so let's recap. So number one, you said
Isaac: world builder,
Michael: number two, I said [00:28:00] heroes and celebrities. I think what I'm really trying to get at is author of Your Own Life, number three,
Isaac: fan, service
Michael: number four. I said, uh, cameo, hero, and number five, Codebreaker codebreaker. Awesome list. All right, let's take a break.
Category three, one Love. In this category, we each choose one word or phrase that characterizes this person's loving relationships. First, we will review what we know about the marriage and the kids. So one wife Joan Lee, they were married in 1947. Stan was 25, she was 27. They were married until 2017. 69 years they were together and they had a kind of like shotgun wedding in Renova.
Isaac: I love that. Yeah. Yeah. It was a Reno divorce too. 'cause she was married so she had to go get a Reno divorce. Yeah. Which I just love. I love that detail. Well
Michael: yeah, I do too because it, it makes you think, okay, they're getting married under these circumstances. No way is it gonna last then it lasts almost 70 years and she is very much love of his life.
One daughter, JC, who was a born, when Stan was [00:29:00] 27, they had a second child who died very shortly after she was born and they never had any other kids. So in effect, JC is an an only child. It's also worth noting that his brother Larry was nine years younger. They weren't close in terms of emotional closeness.
Mm-hmm. But Larry was also in the comics book industry. I guess it is also, maybe before we say our one. Word. I think it's probably worth addressing the issue of elder abuse. Mm-hmm. That comes up. 'cause there's a lot of claims of elder abuse in the final years of Stanley's life, especially after Joan dies.
The, there's like 16 months in between her death and his death. And it does sound like the vultures descended to try to profit from any kind of memorabilia hanging around, begin the arguments over his estate. Yeah. I mean, it gets pretty ugly. There's no sugarcoating it. I, I feel like we need to introduce that fact whether or not we draw attention to it from here on out or not.
So [00:30:00] what'd you come up with for one Love?
Isaac: So I, I named it after a, a title of a favorite book of mine by Gary Steinhart. And actually, this is the part that probably bummed me out the most. So I was thinking like superheroes. So I decided on super sad, true love story.
Michael: Was that because of the sort of end of life part of it?
Uh, because jcs a complicated figure and it does sound like she's, who knows? But there's probably some mental health issues.
Isaac: Yeah, I think, you know, because I feel like, I do feel like Stan and Jones seemed to have a great relationship. Like they were married for how many years was it? Like
Michael: it's almost 70, 69 years.
Yeah,
Isaac: he said that I took one look at her and it was the face I had been drawing all my life, you know, so I feel like when they first met, I do feel like it was probably love at first sight. So I think there's some real love. There. But then I think, you know, this unimaginable tragedy of having their second daughter die and then it seems like they never talked about it.
There's like an interview where like Joan said, like, you know, we've never really discussed that. Which I feel like maybe some stuff is like repressed there. And then I think the [00:31:00] fraught relationship, I think you could certainly say with JC just made. Yeah. And then the kind of the way that it ended and just sort of like fizzling out like like you were saying.
Michael: I mean I had the same sadness and I don't know if I'd say bad taste in my mouth, but it kind of like, damn. Yeah. I was really hoping for a happier home life. There was a biography I read where Stan made it very clear to everybody at Marvel, if Joan calls, I don't care what meeting I'm in, I'm taking that call, and he talked to her every day.
The fact that they were married almost 70 years, it does sound like she grew accustomed to a lavish lifestyle that he wanted to provide for. Reading Between the lines, you get the sense that he feels some conflict about maybe having enabled his daughter Yeah. With a certain kind of expectation for providing for her and never quite giving her the tools to provide for herself.
All of that does sort of speak to, on one hand, a sadder home life. On another hand, I don't know, the [00:32:00] marriage is really good. I went with splash page and word balloon for my one love. So, say more. I was, I was looking for some, I had to get cute with my metaphor Splash page takes up the entire page. It's this highly stylized and dramatic thing that you see in the first page of the comic and its tone setting.
The, the word splash did something for me because I, I think that there is a kind of materialism with both his wife and daughter that Stan feels like he has to provide for, you know, they're gonna live in nice places, they're gonna spend a lot, uh, shop a lot and that, so that's splashy. Word balloon. I was trying to get at more of the kind of what we were talking about earlier.
There's a little bit of a disconnect between his words and reality, and I was also thinking a balloon is sort of fragile. It can be popped, it might drift away in the wind. So one other point that sort of sticks out to me as I reflect back on his family life. Does sound like his [00:33:00] dad was really down on his luck, and one of the reasons Stanley Lee was sort of claiming territory and maybe claiming credit mm-hmm.
Is because there was a certain kind of desperation to be employed at a young age. When he talks about having worked in the comics industry, he had ambitions to do other things. He wanted to write the Great American novel. He wanted to go to Hollywood and wakes up at age 40 and he is like, I've been doing this 20 years, at least I have a job.
But then all of a sudden has this moment to do something very different with Marvel. And from then on, his life is on a different trajectory. But I do think there is a certain kind of provide mentality that was wired into him at a young age that gives him a reason to get outta bed in the morning and be as self-aggrandizing as he is.
That's what's in the word bubble a little bit. But yeah. My, my metaphors for this were only so good. Shall we move on? Let's next category, net worth. In this category, Isaac and I will each write down [00:34:00] our numbers ahead of time. We'll then talk a little bit about our reasoning, and then finally we'll look up the net worth number in real time to see who's closest.
And lastly, we will place this person on the famous and gravy net worth leaderboard. Stanley Lee has this I am gonna provide no matter what attitude. It's funny as it relates to this category because on one hand he's claiming a lot of credit. He also through. Courts and through contracts and through the arrangement with Marvel, does not really experience the unbelievable economic windfall.
Yes. Yeah,
Friend: yeah. You
Michael: know, that he could have, right? I mean, he ends up settling to not profit from residuals, and, and I think the number is like $10 million or something. Right. In the, in the early thousands.
Isaac: I had a, a contract where he could get 10% of the profit of any film and television projects from Marvel and like, that's an interesting word, profit.
'cause I think like studios have this way where like nothing really makes a profit so they don't get taxed on it. Yeah. But either way he did, like, he [00:35:00] 10% of profit on all Marvel film and television projects is insane. I mean, whatever
Michael: else that means, had that been in place for the 21st century, we would be talking about one of the richest men on, on the planet.
Right.
Isaac: The Marvel cinematic universe is like, we're $31 billion now.
Michael: Right,
Isaac: right. So, so 10% of that is pretty good. Dunno know, but like, it seems like a lot. When the first successful Spider-Man movie came out, he sued Marvel publicly and someone at the time was like, this is as if Colonel Sanders is suing Kentucky Fried Chicken.
Like, it just made no sense to them. He like,
Michael: right, he is really a key creative force in the 1960s. He still has a senior position. Throughout the seventies, he sort of transitions into more of a figurehead mm emeritus figure. He does, starting in the eighties, try to make overtures to Hollywood and tries to get deals going.
That's another place where there's sort of conflict about how much success he had. He was involved in some successful animated things. He kept saying deals were gonna happen that didn't happen. There was the James [00:36:00] Cameron Spider-Man movie that got kind of bogged down for a long time, and this is all before you get into the very, very complicated.
And legally problematic. You know what, what was it called? SLM or something. Oh my
Isaac: God. Yeah.
Michael: I mean, and I, I don't feel like it's worth going into that much other than to say that during the.com era he was involved with somebody who eventually went to prison for fraud and who's a shady figure. It also sounds like he was really trusting guy overall.
So he gets involved in a lot of what proved to be shady business dealings. So I had a very, very hard time coming up with a number.
Isaac: I, I dunno if this is like super useful to you, but I also struggle with this category and I think it, it might be the word like worth in there. And I know that net worth is a common turn of phrase for like what someone made.
But maybe what you're struggling with and what I was struggling with is like how much money you made does not reflect whether or not you lived a worthy life. You know? And I think that's right.
Michael: No, and I mean, I, I think actually one of the things we're interested in, and [00:37:00] famous and gravy is how somebody experienced validation and how they are understood to be an important person in the world, right?
This is one of the primary ways by which we measure that, even if it's the most sort of cold and emotionless way we do that, it can be a revealing number, but I'm glad to hear you struggle with it as well. So let's just go ahead and reveal, so Isaac Kestenbaum wrote down 50 million.
Isaac: Michael Osborne wrote down 30 million.
Michael: All right. The actual net worth number for Stan Lee is 50 million. Did you see this number?
Isaac: I, I did when I was reading a ary. Wait, I mean actually knowing what in Stanley fashion, I'm gonna say no I didn't. I'm
Michael: glad it is 50 million. 'cause like you read one biography, you think it's gonna be 200 million and you'd read another biography.
You think it's gonna be 2 million? Yeah, 50 million sounds actually kind of about right at the end of the day.
Isaac: Yeah, it's probably around where I would've landed ultimately. 'cause I feel like [00:38:00] at the end of his life he is surrounded by all these people who are like a little bit shady and maybe trying to take money from him.
And like you read that he's selling his, his signature for like $150. I was like, do you really have to do that? Like, does he need that? Yeah. But then on the other, on the other side, you see that like even though he did settle, like he's still super involved in all this Marvel property. So you would think it would be a lot.
So I think 50 million is probably would I would've. Guest.
Michael: It certainly seems fair. You said something like the Marvel cinematic universe is worth 30 billion. I mean, my God, so awesome. Good for you, Stanley. All right, let's place him on the net worth leaderboard. So at 50 million, he is at position 32 in a tie with Bob s of all people.
Wow. So, and this places them in the 40th percentile on the famous engraving net worth leaderboard. Well done. That's a good number for Stanley. All right, let's move on. Category five, little Lebowski, urban Achievers.
Archival: They're the little Lebowski, urban achievers.
Michael: Yeah. The
Archival: achievers.
Michael: Yes. And proud. We are, of all of them in this category, we each choose [00:39:00] a trophy and award, a cameo, an impersonation, or some other form of a hat tip that shows a different side of this person.
Given that he was in all these cameos, there was almost too much of a list here. How did you think about this category?
Isaac: I, I just, I remember coming across this. A while back, but there's this amazing, um, key and Peele sketch where Jordan Peele plays an elderly Stan Lee who kind of drops in on, uh, a comic book writer's room.
And they think that mm-hmm. He's just there, kind of like to, to visit and shake hands. So he's actually there to pitch them characters. And the characters that he pitches them are like, kind of so cringingly bad and kinda like reflect on him, uh, as sort of like an out of touch older guy like
Archival: heyday. He lives perpetually in his best year, 1982.
His nemesis is the evil writer's block. He'll live forever, as long as he continues to come up with great, interesting and relevant ideas. Well, that got nothing,
Isaac: [00:40:00] Mr. Lee. They're just kind of getting nothing in the room. I watched this again in preparation for this episode, and I think it actually gets at like a lot of these real issues.
You know, like after he kind of co-created all these characters with Jack Kirby, his kind of post Kirby career is pretty lame.
Michael: Reminded me a little bit of the Beatles. Right? I love The Beatles. I don't really like any of the solo work.
Isaac: Yeah. Like, uh, did you come across stripper at all in your research?
Michael: I, I did.
I did come across stripper. This was new to me. Yeah. Like this, like
Isaac: failed cartoon. He co-created with Pamela Anderson. That's not that different from the characters he's pitching in this sketch. Uh, there's a lot of bad ideas here. And then, uh, the, if I can spoil the ending of this little sketch, like it's revealed that somehow he has like actually hiring and firing power over this group that he's pitching to.
I mean, he like reveals that at the end and they all like. Kind of come around to him. So I also feel like that kind of gets at like somehow he like kind of lands on top and like it works out okay for him, even though he's pitching bad ideas. Like somehow it works out.
Michael: You know? I mean, this is the thing to talk about for a minute, Isaac, [00:41:00] because I do think one of the reasons fans and audiences are so interested in preoccupied with who created what is that we want to explain the success somehow.
Mm-hmm. You can't do it through any one individual. Sometimes genius emerges only through collaboration, which is kind of hard for us to understand because we want genius to reside with a single brain and a single individual. You know, I love that one.
Isaac: What was yours?
Michael: Well, so I went with Mallrats, the Kevin Smith movie, and I mean, so I, we rewatched some scenes from that and it's not a good movie.
Kevin Smith is somebody who I really, really like and don't much care for. Really any of his movies all that much. I don't hate 'em. I just don't think that they're all that great. But I love hearing him talk. I love the Stan Lee, Kevin Smith relationship. And the reason I chose this as my Lebowski is because I didn't grow up on comics.
I [00:42:00] had friends in high school who did, it was when we saw this movie and they're like, oh, Stan Lee. And then they explain who he was to me. Yeah. And they actually got me interested in some comics like the Watchmen and the Sandman Comics. Mm-hmm. Those are the ones I became obsessed with. And I came to understand that there is an art form that was really starting to have a te day in the eighties and nineties at around the time Stan Lee is reintroduced to a younger generation.
I do think that the Mallrats role, it's an important precursor for all the cameos in the Marvel movies too.
Archival: Tell me, Brody, uh, why did you and your girlfriend break up? She was a pain in the ass. She wanted me to be this typical boyfriend guy, said I was too into my own world comics and all. Yeah, I can relate.
There was a time when it was all about comics for me. You know, I, I had a girl, she always complained that I spent too much time with my own comics and, uh, eventually we broke up.
Michael: So it, it's more of a personal [00:43:00] lebowski moment for me because it was kind of when I was introduced to Stan Lee. 'cause he's not somebody who I should know about if I'm not reading comics necessarily, right.
Mm-hmm. But from then on I did.
Isaac: Yeah, I thought about that one too. And I do feel like something works about that cameo in a movie that's not that great and, 'cause I can still remember it, I can remember how he came across, uh, and it was like really sweet and yeah. And he is strolling
Michael: through the mall. He just happens to be walking.
I can, I can see Stanley walking through the mall in the 1990s. All right. Let's take one more break. All right. Category six words to live by. In this category, we each choose a quote. These are words that either came out of this person's mouth or was said about them. Maybe before we do this category. Are we both agreed that we're not gonna say with great power comes great responsibility?
Isaac: Yes, I agree. I'm not gonna say that.
Michael: But it should be said that that is attributed to him. This is the famous Spider-Man quote. Mm-hmm. And is an awesome quote. Those are words to live by just not ours. Okay? Yes.
Isaac: All right, so [00:44:00] I'm gonna go with a quote from Michael Shaban, and he said this about Stanley Lee after he died, and he says, some people are influences others.
A rare few rearrange the very structure of your neurons. Stan Lee's creative and artistic contribution to the Marvel Pantheon has been debated endlessly, but one has only to look at Jack Kirby's solo work to see what Stan brought to the partnership and unshakeable humanism of faith in our human capacity for altruism and self-sacrifice, and then the eventual triumph of the rational.
Over the irrational of love, over hate. That was a perfect counterbalance to Kirby's dark, hard-earned quasi nihilism in the heyday of their partnership. It was Stan's vision that predominated and that continues to shape my way of seeing the world and of telling stories about that world to this day.
Michael: Wow.
Is
Isaac: that too long?
Michael: Yeah. No, that's great. It says a lot. I mean, it speaks to the story you and I have been telling, but I like that it gets at his. Contribution to the [00:45:00] creative collaboration. I also love the phrase rearrange your neurons. Mm-hmm. I think I'm gonna start using that next time I get into an argument of like, let me see if I can rearrange your neurons.
I also love the spokesperson there, like Michael Shavon. That's a reliable narrator.
Isaac: And, 'cause I was thinking about the, the Fantastic Four, you know? Mm-hmm. And, and I was thinking their, their powers are not new. Like, turning Invisible has been done, had been the invisible man. There's like the guy who could stretch Mr.
Fantastic. Like there's already a superhero that could stretch super far. There's already literally a, a, a superhero called the Human Torch. And they just like made another one called the Human Torch. And then the thing is like the Rock guy. So none of those are new ideas, but what was new was that they all kind of hated each other and like disagreed with each other.
And they had these like really amazing personalities. And that the humanism, I think is what Lee brought to that, you know, like the design, the drawings are obviously Jack Kirby, but the humanity of these creations is what
Michael: I mean. So one of the reactions you had to the first line of the obituary was that [00:46:00] it lacked his personality.
One word you could consider is charm. Like the man is a charming individual.
Isaac: That's the word. Yeah. Yeah.
Michael: My tendency is to say anybody who has that kind of charm has to either be a psychopath or infused with humanity. Mm-hmm. Right? Like it's one or the other. The most charming people I know, one of the things they do is make it easier to draw somebody out when they're not being selfish, you know?
Yeah. And I, and I think Stanley Lee does that. I do think he's actually got a generous attitude towards fellow creatives and fellow humans. I think that's what makes him kind of trusting, you know? And I think it certainly makes him endearing.
Isaac: Mm-hmm. Love
Michael: that. Okay, well, what
Isaac: was yours?
Michael: I went with, I heard him in many interviews, asked about Spider-Man's origins.
It's one of these things that he is interviewed about so many times that he tells the story the same way. And he also uses this phrase a lot. And this is what I went with as my quote. I've told this story so many times. [00:47:00] It might even be true.
Archival: I was trying to figure what. Other power. Can I give somebody, now, I've said this so often, it might even be true, I, I can't even remember anymore, but I saw this fly crawling on a wall and I said, uh, gee, wouldn't it be something if a hero could stick to walls and move on them like an insect?
And, uh, that's how it happened. And low, a legend was born.
Michael: Um, and he sort of says that as a kind of off the cuff quote. There's a wink and a nod to some of the controversy, but it's a little bit my thing. Number two, about heroes, celebrities, and author of our own lives. I think we should have some freedom to tell the story of ourselves the way we need to.
This is actually a sort of attitude I bring to Famous and Gravy, is that we don't uncover new information. We're not journalists on this show. Mm-hmm. All we're trying to do is take a different interpretation of a live story, one that's not rooted in hagiography, but it's also not rooted in [00:48:00] lionization or canceling that.
The fun of this show for me is that we can take the same set of events and bits of information and just place emphasis in different ways. I've told this story so many times, it might even be true. I like that he is sort of actually acknowledging in an offhanded way. I'm gonna claim my own truth about me.
Obviously it has economic and legal implications in his case, so you can only go so far with it, but I think we need to. Be graceful and have forgiveness for how people want to tell the, the story of themselves. And I think that we could use more of that in our everyday lives and in our casual interactions.
So that's why these are words to live by in the most literal way. All right, category seven, man in the mirror. This category asks a fairly simple question. Did this person like their reflection? Yes or no? This is not about beauty, but rather a question of self-confidence versus self-judgment. I am dying to know how you thought about this one.
Isaac: Uh, I went with, no, I. I think that [00:49:00] a quick glance in the mirror, like on his way to do a cameo, he'd be like, oh yeah, I look okay. You know, he saw something on the stay on the man. Here I go, CELs, true believers, like face front. Here I go. But I think that like a longer look in the mirror, like at night, not on stage, not on screen, no makeup, anything like that.
I feel like there's a lot of insecurity and frustration behind him. And for someone who like kinda wrote these characters with like real flaws, the character of Stan Lee as he presented himself, didn't have any flaws. And I think that you kind of overcompensating for something else.
Michael: Yeah. I, I, I agree and I think that the fact that I always start to lean in a no direction when anybody wears a toupee.
Yes. Yeah. Yeah. That's just, that's just a telltale sign that you're not quite okay with your reflection. I went actually the other direction. Okay. I said he did. I totally had the same thoughts you just had. This kind of goes back to him landing with $50 million at the end, that while there is definitely some insecurity and maybe even a little bit of [00:50:00] desperation, there is a self-confidence one that emerges.
In a moment of surrender in the 1960s when he says, I'm gonna make more complicated figures. I'm gonna take on this editorial voice. I'm going to put myself as the face of this comics book industry. And there's a sort of embracing of fate because this is not a man who is initially drawn to comics and he just finds himself in this medium where, you know, he's even saying like, I would be at parties.
People would ask me what I'd do. I'd try and hide it. When it came out that I was doing comics, people didn't want to talk to him. Me, I mean, he's ashamed. Yeah. At times in his life about being in the comics industry. I think he also has this idea, these comics should be made into movies. Mm-hmm. This is a template for movie making.
Why hasn't Hollywood caught on? And even though he doesn't experience the total economic windfall of that. His intuition about that is born out by history's, right? Yeah, yeah. Like he's right, right. So I do think that he has some things, [00:51:00] his head can hit the pillow at the end of the night and say, I was really right about a lot of stuff here, and I feel pretty good about that.
Plus, I think the fact that there's an almost 70 year marriage and a real love of his life, even though there's a complicated home, family, home life, and he's too trusting and that kind of bites him in the ass at the end of his life, I still think that there's a fair amount of love, gratitude, and self-confidence.
But I hear your case for desperation. Like this one is a, we can both agree and still come to different answers.
Isaac: You know what? Yeah. I think you've almost rearranged my neurons on this, but, but not, not, not quite. Um, and I think, um, you know, you, you brought up these like kind of sad, scary allegations of elder abuse before and there was like a New York Times article maybe not long before he died, where they visited him to be like, what's really going on?
Is he really like being held captive in his own house? Yeah. And he's like, I'm doing great. He's like, I've never been happier. I love my life. Yeah. And I kinda kinda goes back to like, is he a reliable narrator? And
Michael: that, I mean, there's other recordings that were made available if this really shady character, this was in that True Believer book.
And [00:52:00] I mean, I think it's way too easy to oversimplify some of this stuff. Yeah. Which is this category is the oversimplification category. Let's go ahead and move on. All right. Category eight, cocktail coffee or cannabis. This is where we ask which one would we most want to do with our dead celebrity. So I'm retired from marijuana, but I, I definitely am going with marijuana here.
It's the, I want the cannabis. There was a time back when I was a heavier pot smoker where it feels like all of the heavy pot smokers I knew were obsessed with having. A certain kind of psychedelic glassware, a beautiful pipe. And that's what I want. I want a big glass bowl of some pretty potent weed and I just want, I want ideation.
Mm-hmm. I don't care if his ideas aren't great or not. This guy is a brainstormer. I think I'd love to just riff with him. 'cause I, you know, I think that one of the things about creating culture and a creative community is what's in that is activation energy. And I think he's got a lot of that right. And I think that part of the reason [00:53:00] he has frustrations in Hollywood for many years is that he brings that to the table.
But there's not anybody who quite picks up on the seeds of that and then runs with it until finally that does happen. He's just not the guy who does it. But I love that kind of brainstorm activation energy. I want to get high with Stanley, maybe somewhere outside or we could just look it up, maybe do a little world building and character building.
Isaac: I love it. Um,
Michael: I don't dunno. That's my scene. So what did you come up? Not
Isaac: that different from you. I also chose cannabis, but for slightly different reasons than you. 'cause it just seems like. He could probably handle his cocktails, you know, like I, yeah, it seems like they had like a lot of like cocktail parties in LA back in the day.
Yeah. And I'm sure he seems, he seems like
Michael: he seems like a good controlled the drinker. Yes. Right. Yeah. Yeah. You get that sense that like you can have a cocktail with him without getting too lit.
Isaac: Yeah. And there's the, and I feel like his energy is so high. I don't think coffee would really change too much about him.
Like there's these stories of him like jumping on his desk to like act out the poses that he wanted the superheroes to take back in the day. Right. So I feel like cannabis, like you said, he's not a big pot smoker. [00:54:00] So yeah, I want this kind of access to this other deeper part of his brain. But I also imagined, like in the sixties, in the Marvel offices.
And we're just like a movie, like we're both like sitting on a desk or like lying on a desk, like smoking pot and just like looking around the room and being like, stapler man. He comes from like the planet and like, yeah, no, like whatever. Yeah, just like ideating and world building and just like really, really let and loose.
I
Michael: mean, I actually, you know, where I think I want to get high is probably in a comic book store, you know? Oh yeah. There
Isaac: you go. There you go. Yeah. Yeah.
Michael: Like, it's funny, to this day I'm not much of a comics book guy, but I walk by a comic store and I kind of want to go in and then thumb through and thumb around and that would as, as a sort of like, let's walk around and brainstorm.
That's the right setting for that. Alright, I think we have arrived. The final category, the Vander beak, named after James Vander Beek, who famously said in varsity Blues, I don't want your life. In that varsity blue scene, James makes a judgment that he does not want a certain kind of life based on just a few characteristics.
So here Isaac and I will form a rebuttal to anyone [00:55:00] skeptical of how Stan Lee lived. Okay. If we're gonna start with the counter argument. Yeah. There's a complicated legacy here. I don't know how much that sucks for him, the, the elder abuse at the end of life. I think one question that we haven't quite addressed head on is, is that telling, right?
Does that say something, obviously I'm gonna do this in a way that's sensitive. It does look like the last 16 months of his life after his wife died and I'm sure leading up to her death, the end of life for him. It looks kind of awful. Mm-hmm. I think that there is a temptation to infer problematic interpersonal relationships because the end of life is so sad and I don't think I'm willing to go there.
But maybe that's part of the counterargument case that may be having a complicated relationship with his daughter, maybe having people around him who he can't trust as much raises questions about the depth of friendship. There is a somewhat [00:56:00] distant, if not fractured relationship with his brother. So maybe that's part of the counter argument too.
Mm-hmm. Is there anything else that you'd put in there that, of like why you would not want this life before we transition?
Isaac: No, I think that covers it. Yeah.
Michael: Alright, so let's move right into why you would want this life. There's actually. A lot to work with here. You know, having talked about everything we've talked about, Isaac, what sticks out in your mind as like reason number one?
Isaac: So I, for me, I think the biggest thing is that he was part of creating something that is going to outlive him. Yeah. Like he has left his mark on our world and eventually the copyrights on all of these characters are going to expire. And it's not gonna matter who holds the copyright to Spider-Man, that we're gonna all own Spider-Man.
And kinda like we already. All do in a way feel like Spider-Man's just like part of our world now.
Michael: Yeah, and I'll, I'll add to that, you know, it's easy to dismiss the success of comic movies as nothing more than CGI and simplified [00:57:00] storylines. I think that underplays. What superheroes represent and how much humankind needs mythology.
Mm-hmm. And needs. I imagined characters with a superhuman capabilities so that we can understand our own desires and our own inadequacies better. These characters are meaningful, even if they feel simplified and adolescent, if not, you know, childish.
Isaac: Right. And I think you can conflate like something that's simple and easy to understand, but something that is
Michael: immature.
Isaac: Immature, yeah. Yeah, yeah. And then they're, they're different things. Like some of this stuff seems so simple, like Spider-Man, I could have thought of that, but like, I didn't, you know, and like Yeah. Yeah. Right.
Michael: And, and I probably wouldn't have. So thing number one, you know, legacy of mythology.
Isaac: Yeah.
Michael: I'd say right behind that, or maybe one B for me is how much that is a result of creative collaboration and more than anything, imagination.
[00:58:00] Mm-hmm.
Isaac: That
Michael: something I think can happen as we age are imagination muscles. Can weaken and he lived a life where whatever else was happening, he is in this sort of ideation state and dreaming up and, and living in multi chromatic worlds or something. Mm-hmm. You know, like, and then imagined spaces and I think that that's kind of awesome.
I think thing number three, I do think that he found a soulmate. The read I get on the marriage. Is that he loved her and that she loved him back, and that when he tells the story of saying, I wanted to leave the comics industry, she's the one who says, well, you might as well just go for it. And I think that that says something.
While there's other places where the interpersonal life looks a little complicated, he's got. A woman he loves for 70 years and that's pretty awesome. Mm-hmm.
Isaac: Yeah.
Michael: What else? Is there anything else that we've talked about?
Isaac: I mean, I guess it seems like he mostly had a good time. You know, like he, I feel like he enjoyed, like you, like you see him in those cameos.
He's having a great time. And there were like accounts in some of the research I [00:59:00] did of like, they seemed like pretty awesome cocktail parties, like at their great house in Los Angeles overlooking the lights of LA out on the, out on the patio drinking cocktails. Like,
Michael: yeah, I, I, I a hundred percent agree with that.
In fact, there are people I can point to who I know they have darkness and I have know they have moments of doubt, but over overall, carry positive energy with them everywhere they go. And he is definitely a positive energy kind of guy. He's obviously a great storyteller. Whatever you make of the stories.
I love that. I think that his personality and his positive energy are risen to want that life. Well, maybe that's good. So let's recap number one. We said what it meant to create the modern mythology. Number two, imagination and a life of a creative collaboration. Number three, marriage and love, and perhaps a soulmate.
And number four, positive energy. Yeah. So with that, James VanDerBeek. I'm Stan Lee, and you want my life.[01:00:00]
Before we close, if you enjoyed this episode of Famous and Gravy and you're enjoying our show, and if you've got your phone in your hand, please take a moment to share this episode with a friend. Our goal is to grow our podcast, one listener at a time, Isaac plugs for past shows. If people enjoy this episode of Famous and Gravy on Stan Lee, what's another episode do you think they might enjoy?
Isaac: Uh, I'm gonna go with Louie Anderson, um Oh, oh yeah. Just one of my favorite all time episodes of yours. But I think especially just, you know, talking about someone with like emotional transparency or like really understanding themselves and I feel like Louis Anderson, there's a part where he talks about how he cries often and I feel like he's just so emotionally has, has real access to his emotions.
Michael: Yeah. Hiq guy, episode 53. Heartwarming Humor. Louis Anderson. I love that one. Deep bull.
Isaac: I almost went with macho man, Randy Savage. Also 'cause of the emotional thing where he's like, oh yeah, existed. Oh
Michael: my. Like,
Isaac: yeah.
Michael: It [01:01:00] was so hard to record that episode without doing Randy Savage impersonations the whole thing.
Of course. Yeah. I'm gonna go with a more recent one, episode 97 Time Pilgrim, Kurt Vonnegut. Mm-hmm. I think that there is a kind of world building quality there too. In fact, we probably should have talked about that when we were talking about world building. I think that there's also a way in which he is such a important storyteller of the 1960s and for the 1960s, even though he's not.
Of that generation. So episode 97, time Pilgrim, Kurt Flanigan. That's a great one too. All right, here is a little preview for the next episode of Famous and Gravy. He was nominated for the Oscar five times and his range of roles was astonishing, but his rare attempts at unsympathetic roles usually failed unsympathetic rules.
Wow. Who would it be? Carrie Grant, not Carrie Grant, famous and Gravy. Listeners, we'd love hearing from you. If you wanna reach out with a comment question [01:02:00] or to participate in our opening quiz, email us at hello@famousandgravy.com. In our show notes, we include all kinds of links, including to our website and our social channels.
Famous and Gravy is created by AM Kapor and me, Michael Osborne. Thanks so much to Isaac Kestenbaum for guest hosting. This episode was produced by Ali Ola, with assistance from Jacob Weiss. Original music by Kevin Strang. Thanks. See you next time.