Onscreen, Stan Lee — the public face of Marvel Comics and the subject, mostly, of David Gelb’s chipper documentary of the same name — had cameos as an astronaut, a general, a strip club M.C., a beauty pageant judge, a letter carrier, an intergalactic barber, a psych ward resident, a hot dog vendor and many hapless pedestrians. He was never the superhero. But Lee believed that his success was because his superheroes’ neuroses, flaws and ego trips made each one a little bit like him.
Lee, of course, lived a life unlike most mortals. He seemed to get younger the older he got (with help from sunglasses and a toupee). From his gateway job as the office boy at Timely Publications in 1939 up until his death in 2018, Lee’s decades in the comics industry ticked by at a pace that seems to bend the time-space continuum. According to his own archival audio that narrates the film, he didn’t respect his career until 1961, possibly still holding out hope that he’d reclaim his real name — Stanley Martin Lieber — when he wrote the great American novel.
It’s disappointing, yet inevitable that the creation story of Lee gives way to the characters he helped create. The doc awkwardly alludes to the ownership squabbles between Lee and his star illustrators Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko, whose heirs have waged a copyright battle against the company. (Marvel also produced this film.) That’s about as dark as Gelb is willing, or able, to get — although fans taking sides in the cultural cock fight between DC and Marvel will light up like the Human Torch at a clip of the former DC editor Julius Schwartz insisting his readers “don’t wanna be educated,” while Lee visibly snickers.
Stan Lee
Not rated. Running time: 1 hour 26 minutes. Watch on Disney+.
