A Curious Tale about Marvel: Stories and their tellers.

An extremely interesting read on Stan Lee. One thing that I found most interesting is the ponderous question:  How are comic book artists and creators treated in the 21st century (as opposed to the past)? Given the challenge that this particular journalist poses to us, I'm rather saddened that he didn't get more time with Lee.

I think we (in the 21st century) could all use a bit more reality and considerably less sensationalism. What makes stories power, what makes them hit home, is precisely what makes this piece meaningful: reality. You ask a question and expect an answer.

In my own case, I've got no allegiances when it comes to comics. I'm just a random passerby who happens to enjoy the stories. But, I'm like that with everything. I enjoy what I can try when it is good (or at least, when it is human and real), and whether that is a gritty portmanteau or a poorly crafted film adaptation of the Fantastic 4 made all the more real because it was trying to keep the copyrights to the film in the hands of said director, or, perhaps, the story of two people, Jack Kirby and "Mr. Marvel", Stanley Martin Leiber, a.k.a. "Stan Lee", and the life-long struggle of comic creators. Stan was, ultimately, he admits, "a salaryman", paid by his job titles and not his creations.

In the end, whether we're writing stories about Lawrence Lessig attacking the social construct of a corrupted Polis election system or the convoluted content rights problem, society will still want, as Neil Postman might describe, "stories of meaning". We all need tales that are human, tales that tell us who and what we are, and what ultimately makes us different or similar to other things—flexing those immortal boundaries and providing sense to who we truly are—an identity, a ferocity, a power unlike others—the power of truth.

And when it comes down it it, the truth is—"Mr. Marvel" is just another character in a rather interesting story we humans craft through our lives and livelihoods. A story formed by our organizations, our structural lines, our creeds, our ideas, and our ideologies. Perhaps, as Jack Kirby's character, Loki, is so fond of proclaiming, we are "so petulant, inferior [of] creatures", for we spend our days fighting amongst each other and never truly appreciate what we have been given through the combined efforts of one another (or "collective cooperation" as S.I. Hayakawa might profess)—respecting each piece, and each player in that great production: life. Perhaps, we, oh, so petty mortal kind, shall meet out fate on the annals of universal history, to be deemed deficient.

Of these things, I cannot tell, but what I can, of those limited experiences I know, within the bounds of bare reason, is humanity needs stories that teach us who we are and storytellers who are not afraid, not matter the consequences or the costs, to tell us—even if we ourselves are too scared to admit it (or to acknowledge the results)—what being human is all about.