Playboy Interviews Stan “THE MAN” Lee!
The godfather of of the Marvel Universe Stan Lee sat down recently to give an exclusive interview with Playboy magazine. In this interview he discusses everything from what he thinks about “Ultron” to who he thinks the most “sexy” lady in the Marvel Universe is. Check out an excerpt from the interview below then make the JUMP for the rest of the interview and to share your thoughts!
(Source: Playboy.com)
At 91, Stan Lee is what you might call a superhero emeritus. His epic adventures are mostly behind him and his powers are on the wane. (He can’t hear or see so well, and a pacemaker regulates his heart.) But the comic-book writer who dreamed up Spider-Man, the X-Men, the Hulk, Iron Man and the Fantastic Four still works five days a week, travels wherever convention geeks gather and tops each autograph with his trademark “Excelsior!”
The son of poor Jewish immigrants from Romania, Stanley Martin Lieber (he later shortened it legally) never became the novelist he aspired to be while growing up on New York’s Upper West Side. But fantasizing about radioactive arachnids, magnetic force fields and vixens such as Black Widow gave him a great living and a legacy that will outlive us all.
In 1939 Lee’s uncle helped get him an assistant’s job at Timely Comics, a company the boss, Martin Goodman (a relative of Lee’s), later renamed Marvel. Showing early promise providing text for Captain America, Lee was installed as a Marvel editor at the age of 18, an “interim” gig he ended up keeping until 1972. For much of that time Lee plodded away in the Marvel writers’ bullpen to the point of burnout. Only after his wife, Joan, a British former model, pushed him to create characters “the way you’ve always wanted to” did Lee’s career take off.
Between 1961 and 1965, in one of pop culture’s most remarkable creative bursts, Lee, working with freelance artists including Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko, created the key characters in what became known as the Marvel Revolution. (Kirby’s estate would later sue for pieces of that action.) Superheroes were no longer two-dimensional goody-goodies but quirky, angst-ridden and flawed. The Fantastic Four bickered. The Hulk and the X-Men struggled with their alter egos. Even Spider-Man, a character who came to Lee—or so the story goes—as he observed a fly walking up a wall, was a wreck inside.
Today Lee’s creations are enjoying their widest audiences ever. After declaring bankruptcy in 1996, Marvel powered back with blockbuster movies, digital entertainment and, yes, more comic books. Disney acquired the company for $4.2 billion in 2009, though, surprisingly, Lee didn’t see a dime of that. By then he had formed his own company, POW! Entertainment. But he will always be Mr. Marvel.
Contributing Editor David Hochman, who last interviewed Sean Hannity, spent a couple of days with Lee at his Beverly Hills offices. “Stan has the sandpaper growl of a bygone era, but he’s remarkably sharp, plugged in and quick with a comeback. We should all be as cool as Stan Lee at his age.”
