David Gelb's warm and charming documentary Stan Lee explores the life and times of the creative visionary who helped cement Marvel as a pop culture force. The film opens with a heart-tingling edit of Lee's life through a series of photographs, which is capped off by some great advice: "Keep working at it — somebody will recognize what you've done."
At its core, Gelb's film is about how Lee combined perseverance and pleasure to not only find his calling but also create something that captured the hearts, spirits and minds of comic book readers from all walks of life. Yet, that inspiring message is relegated to fan service, as Gelb effectively turns his film into an advertisement for Marvel Studios rather than an introspective dive into Lee's tumultuous life.
Gelb employs live-action model animation (à la Thomas the Tank Engine) to recreate specific moments in Lee's life, such as his beginnings at Timely Comics (which would become Marvel Comics in the early '60s), where he began as a glorified gofer at 17 years old and quickly became the company's art director, editor and chief writer within two years. These model recreations are well-intentioned and vividly rendered, but out of place for a Stan Lee love letter, begging the question of why an illustration comic book aesthetic wasn't used instead. These animated passages are never as moving or as interesting as the great swath of archival footage and audio recordings, which are far more insightful than the slightly off-putting miniatures.
The documentary is strongest when it navigates different time periods and how the characters conceived by Lee were directly influenced by the sociocultural fabric of the time. For instance, the teenage growing pains of Spider-Man were a reflection of the growing generation gap of the '60s, and the allegorical nature of the X-Men related to racism in America. Stan Lee also discusses Black Panther's significance to a demographic rarely represented in comics, and Iron Man as a response to the Vietnam War.
These stories are fascinating to behold, and only made more substantial by Lee's desire to mould his characters not in the manner of gods, but as ordinary people who deal with the same issues his readers face. It's this realistic, innately human comic-book figure that allowed a small imprint to challenge the old guard of the industry and establish a new lens with which to view our fabled heroes.
Moreover, the film's dive into Lee's creative process — dubbed "The Marvel Method" — is equally as absorbing, showing that these comics weren't meticulously executed but abstractly improvised. Often caught in a time crunch, Lee would give illustrators Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko a rough outline to colourfully draw, panel and advance. Only after the art was finalized would Lee write the dialogue bubbles, injecting them with a human edge and filling them with multisyllabic words that didn't talk down to young readers but invited them to broaden their vocabulary.
Gelb doesn't forget to touch on the visual magic that Ditko and Kirby brought to each strip, exploring the varied styles that instilled life into each now-iconic story. Yet, when it came to claiming credit, Lee was uncompromising. It all came to a head in a great exchange between Ditko and Lee on a radio show in the '80s, long after they stopped working together, where Lee, his ego still burning bright, insisted he wrote every single word in each issue and is the official creator of some Marvel's most beloved superheroes.
But all these great moments are fleeting — touched upon but never interrogated. Stan Lee breezes past the grittier aspects of the artist's life with a feigned hand that never personifies the nuanced spirit he championed. The documentary soars through Lee's seemingly conflict-less marriage, creative constraints and role change in the '80s and '90s, where he sold out and became a spokesperson for the company. Its curt 86-minute runtime cruises along the surface of each moment, never feeling like a definitive account, but rather a curated greatest-hits compilation.
The final moments of the film revel in the size and influence of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Lee's various cameos and the cinematic spectacle he laid the foundation for are celebrated — and, in the process, muting the perils of mass production and the personal and creative touches Lee was forced to sacrifice as a result. Add in a few choppy, cobbled-together voiceovers and Stan Lee never becomes anything more than a pleasant but superficial commercial for the studio itself, failing to give this visionary voice the substance, style and weight he deserves.
(Marvel Studios)At its core, Gelb's film is about how Lee combined perseverance and pleasure to not only find his calling but also create something that captured the hearts, spirits and minds of comic book readers from all walks of life. Yet, that inspiring message is relegated to fan service, as Gelb effectively turns his film into an advertisement for Marvel Studios rather than an introspective dive into Lee's tumultuous life.
Gelb employs live-action model animation (à la Thomas the Tank Engine) to recreate specific moments in Lee's life, such as his beginnings at Timely Comics (which would become Marvel Comics in the early '60s), where he began as a glorified gofer at 17 years old and quickly became the company's art director, editor and chief writer within two years. These model recreations are well-intentioned and vividly rendered, but out of place for a Stan Lee love letter, begging the question of why an illustration comic book aesthetic wasn't used instead. These animated passages are never as moving or as interesting as the great swath of archival footage and audio recordings, which are far more insightful than the slightly off-putting miniatures.
The documentary is strongest when it navigates different time periods and how the characters conceived by Lee were directly influenced by the sociocultural fabric of the time. For instance, the teenage growing pains of Spider-Man were a reflection of the growing generation gap of the '60s, and the allegorical nature of the X-Men related to racism in America. Stan Lee also discusses Black Panther's significance to a demographic rarely represented in comics, and Iron Man as a response to the Vietnam War.
These stories are fascinating to behold, and only made more substantial by Lee's desire to mould his characters not in the manner of gods, but as ordinary people who deal with the same issues his readers face. It's this realistic, innately human comic-book figure that allowed a small imprint to challenge the old guard of the industry and establish a new lens with which to view our fabled heroes.
Moreover, the film's dive into Lee's creative process — dubbed "The Marvel Method" — is equally as absorbing, showing that these comics weren't meticulously executed but abstractly improvised. Often caught in a time crunch, Lee would give illustrators Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko a rough outline to colourfully draw, panel and advance. Only after the art was finalized would Lee write the dialogue bubbles, injecting them with a human edge and filling them with multisyllabic words that didn't talk down to young readers but invited them to broaden their vocabulary.
Gelb doesn't forget to touch on the visual magic that Ditko and Kirby brought to each strip, exploring the varied styles that instilled life into each now-iconic story. Yet, when it came to claiming credit, Lee was uncompromising. It all came to a head in a great exchange between Ditko and Lee on a radio show in the '80s, long after they stopped working together, where Lee, his ego still burning bright, insisted he wrote every single word in each issue and is the official creator of some Marvel's most beloved superheroes.
But all these great moments are fleeting — touched upon but never interrogated. Stan Lee breezes past the grittier aspects of the artist's life with a feigned hand that never personifies the nuanced spirit he championed. The documentary soars through Lee's seemingly conflict-less marriage, creative constraints and role change in the '80s and '90s, where he sold out and became a spokesperson for the company. Its curt 86-minute runtime cruises along the surface of each moment, never feeling like a definitive account, but rather a curated greatest-hits compilation.
The final moments of the film revel in the size and influence of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Lee's various cameos and the cinematic spectacle he laid the foundation for are celebrated — and, in the process, muting the perils of mass production and the personal and creative touches Lee was forced to sacrifice as a result. Add in a few choppy, cobbled-together voiceovers and Stan Lee never becomes anything more than a pleasant but superficial commercial for the studio itself, failing to give this visionary voice the substance, style and weight he deserves.
