Happy Birthday, Stan “The Man” Lee!

He’s one of the gods of comics, a living legend who co-created a world of iconic characters and made Marvel Comics the powerhouse publisher that it is—and today the man who brought us such superheroes as Spider-Man, Iron Man, the X-Men, the Avengers, the Fantastic Four, and a boatload of others turns 93. And I actually got to work with him a couple of times!

In 1997, I was editing books for a company called Byron Preiss Multimedia (named after its owner), which had the rights to publish original novels and anthologies based on Marvel Comics’ massive stable of characters. One of those titles that I handled was The Ultimate Hulk, an anthology of all-new stories set during the Hulk’s career…although for sales purposes, Stan “The Man” Lee and popular Hulk comic writer Peter David were listed as the editors. My job was to select the stories, submit them to Lee and David for approval, and then do the actual editing. (Full disclosure: I wound up co-writing one of the tales, “Assault on Avengers Mansion,” with SWC’s Troubleshooters, Incorporated author Richard C. White.) Beyond signing off on the story selections, Stan was also providing an introduction (which he wrote in his inimitable style). What made it even more special for me was the note he attached to the intro’s printout:

You’d expect him to write something like that, wouldn’t you? 😀

The other time I got to work with “The Man” was in 2004, on a planned three-issue miniseries titled Stan Lee’s Alexa. Those of you who’ve been following this blog may remember my stories about it; for those of you who don’t you can find them here. In a nutshell: Alexa Moran, a comic artist working for the Fantasy Factory (a company not unlike Marvel) run by “Happy” Harry Sturdley (a man not unlike Stan), discovers she has the superpower of opening portals to parallel dimensions—and accidentally pulls across two giants who are immediately signed to publishing contracts by Harry. He thinks they’re superheroes to be exploited, but they’re actually tyrants from another world who are making plans to turn Earth into their new kingdom. (The comic was the start of a very loose adaptation of Stan Lee’s Riftworld, a 1990s novel series by Stan and New York Times bestselling author Bill McCay.)

For this comic Stan got plotting credit; I wrote the script. Or to be more precise, I wrote the dialogue and captions for existing, unpublished artwork that was sitting in an art file drawer; the original scripter had left the project when Byron couldn’t afford the page rate the writer demanded. Here’s how I got the assignment from Byron:

Byron: You want to write it?

Me: … Sure.

Byron: Okay.

It wasn’t the rosiest of collaborations, though. Stan wasn’t completely enamored with my sarcasm-driven dialogue and politely snarky comments about the comics industry—after all, Stan Lee would never open a comic story with the line “When I was a little girl I never cared for superheroes.”—and I had to ask Byron to politely ask Stan to back off when he started asking for script changes…three months after I’d delivered the script, and while the comic was being lettered.

But Stan did stand up for me when it counted. See, Byron, who’d known Stan for decades—and who co-owned the rights to the Riftworld novels—felt certain that the only way this comic was going to sell was if Stan was listed as author. Alone. That for the greatest sales potential it would be best for everyone if my name got dropped—well, best for everyone but me.

My response? After first pointing out that no one would ever believe that Stan would write something brimming over with that much sarcasm, I took a harder approach: “Well, if you want my name off it, Byron, I could always pull my script. I mean, Stan is the comic writer—you could always ask him to write it.”

Understand: Byron and I had a sorta love/hate relationship. I appreciated that he gave me some of my first breaks as a professional writer—like the X-Men: The Chaos Engine novels and the graphic novel Sunn—but then he’d do something that would set my teeth on edge…like talk about removing my name from a project I’d busted my hump on. And I wasn’t going to have it; thus, the ultimatum. Because I knew he’d never get Stan—who was already too busy with his own wide range of projects—to write it.

Nevertheless, he took his idea of dumping my name to Stan—who immediately balked. If the guy did the work, Stan pointed out, why shouldn’t he get the credit? And so my name on the cover and title page remained untouched. Too bad the first issue didn’t sell well enough to finish the project…

Anyway, Happy Birthday, Mr. Lee—and thanks again!

(And speaking of celebratory milestones for folks related to Marvel Comics, check out this post from November 2nd that honors the 88th birthday of master artist Steve Ditko—co-creator, with Stan, of the Amazing Spider-Man and Dr. Strange, Master of the Mystic Arts!)

Coming tomorrow and Wednesday: A special two-part behind-the-scenes tale of Stan Lee’s Alexa—featuring never-before-seen art!