Fred and Loathing on The Internet

The Hulk These Days Is Pretty Credible

2024-Feb-14

The updates and their respective blog posts keep coming! The pre-processing job I mentioned in the last post is here, and in a different physical type than I was planning. I was thinking of splitting the results into four CSVs. Instead I went with a Sqlite database, just like I’ve got for my main app! I did not even test to see how much faster Pandas is by using a database over querying the four small CSVs because I was so satisfied with the results. I bumped into SQLAlchemy when I was troubleshooting traceback messages on some pandas.to_sql lines I used. Knowing this will make Pandas objects (df, series) less mysterious. Besides the backend job speeding up the /spotify/global dashboard, we have templating changes to help with viewers on phones. My sidebar used in the Spotify section was not too robust when it comes to vertically aligned screens. The next big step is making some phone only templates that trigger if the request to my web server mentions that the request is for a tiny screen.

Today’s review is not as fresh in my completed book list as usual.I try to get reviews out while the ideas in the book are lodged in my operating memory rather than the deep storage of my past recollections. I prefer to do that because not all books stir me enough to etch new ideas into my long term memory or sometimes the book might deal with subjects so alien to my general education that not much stated anything familiar to latch onto in my mind. True Believer: The Rise and Fall of Stan Lee by Abraham Riesman is definitely a book that leaves an indelible mark on my psyche and plays around with a pantheon of real and fictional heroes I was well versed in before reading. That of the comic book characters, the human creators; most of all- those from the Marvel imprint. I might give it the Best Book of The FredLambuth.Com Reviews award.

One of the very first memories I have is reading X-Men #1, the splashy second X-Men monthly title that began a new series numbering in 1991, to go with the original Uncanny X-Men beginning in 1963. This comic book came off a turnstile rack at a drugstore. I can confirm this method of comic book distribution still existed into the early 90s in Houston, TX. This being the first bound collection of physical 22-pages of illustrated super hero stories I ever remember holding is not a stretch of the odds. This very issue still holds the record for the most bought single monthly issue of comic book ever sold in the US market. I never did return to that drugstore to find issue #2. It was not my local neighborhood drugstore. Just a stop on the way home from some errand my mom had to do on the way home from school. I did study those twenty two pages of X-Men over and over. Mostly the art, a little bit of the writing to give the art more context, and the creator names. “Jim Lee:pencils, Chris Claremont:story, with characters created by Stan Lee.” (paraphrasing)

This memory of X-Men #1 is used as a prologue to set the expectations I have for a biography of Stan Lee. As of the year of this writing (2024), the name Stan Lee I would assume to have the same level of brand cache as Ian Fleming or J.K. Rowling would have. A name associated with the creation of characters and their mythos made more famous by being part of a cinematic franchise. I can attest Stan Lee has been a revered cult figure among comic book fans since I became one in 1991. This biography is a splendid book bringing forth the man behind Stan Lee. Stanley Lieber, who wanted to be famous for just about anything yet could not be happy being ‘just’ the most revered figure in the medium of superhero comics.

Stan Lee as the voice of Stan’s Soapbox in between those 22-page issues was a tender figure I remember enjoying reading even before I started putting keen interest in the superhero’s speech bubbles rather than their artwork. He curated a community feeling of readers into the Marvel name, which itself had so many different titles that he was speaking to a broader audience. The idea that Stan Lee would have changed it all for something like a moderately successful late night TV show kind of fame stung me deep down. I already had been aware that Stan Lee is not the paragon of virtue that could be connotated from his avuncular tone in writing or film appearances. I knew he was no Steve Rogers. That became clear when I looked up just who Jack Kirby was. That was fine, and possibly made Stan even more relatable.

If you’re reading this blog and don’t know who Jack Kirby is… well the gist of it is that Jack’s role with Stan Lee is that he’s probably at least 50% responsible for any character Stan claimed to have created. Jack Kirby was much more than just an illustrator taking story points from anybody but himself. This book does a wonderful job to elevate the battle between Stan and Jack as creators to a greater question I also did not really take the time to think about. Was Stan Lee making money hand over fist from his creative claim to being the creative force behind most of the Marvel Comic stable of Silver Age heroes?

The idea of comic book creators in the pre-90s getting the shaft when it comes to reaping the financial rewards of their creations was not news to me. What was new to me was Stan Lee’s actual spot on the sides separating creator and owner in American comic books. He was really neither. At least not for Marvel, before and after the halcyon era in the 60s. Stan was the top employee and got a bigger weekly paycheck from Marvel than Jack Kirby or anybody else in ‘The Bullpen’ got. Despite the biggest paycheck and creative fame, Stan was still just a wage earner. An employee of Marvel, or whatever company owned the label at the time. Perhaps if Stan was rewarded more lucratively as just a writer, publisher, editor, or whatever employee title he had at Marvel at the time, he might have not harbored such dreams of fame in mediums other than comic books.

His personal life was covered intimately by Riesman. A tender look at a man sired by Jewish immigrants who were upset their boy was not as proud of his Jewish heritage as they were. From the looks of it, Stan wanted to be very famous and his ethnic trappings were something he needed to not point out to the broader audience he was trying to please. Stan married a WASPy sounding semi-British ice queen and stuck with her all the way to her end. By the book’s account, she spent money faster than Stan could make hawking pulp stories of men in costumes punching megalomaniacs who were also in tights. They sired an only child. A daughter that could spend money just as fast as her mother.

This book is not all close up examinations of the warts and follies of Stanley Martin Lieber. Abraham Rieser warns you in the introduction Stan is not The Man, he is a man. There was nobility in him, and there was creativity. The author makes a convincing case that what Stan brought to the Marvel Universe was the coordinating effort to make it a shared universe. He was not just a task master to dozens of heroes in their own little hero bubble. Stan made a mythology, centered on New York City. Marvel Comics, and the Silver Age as whole, stood out by having heroes being human instead of Olympian without human blemish. Marvel’s New York was a more believable hangout for these human heroes than ‘Central City’ or ‘Metropolis’. Marvel had the magic that not even Silver Age Flash or Green Lantern could give because magic could strike from any angle, not just a narrow cast gravitating on one particular title.

Tragically, Stan’s creative force was something that happened by being in the right place and at the right time. By the mid-1990s, the Marvel characters Stan claimed to have created were beginning to be more profitable as intellectual property for movies or TV rather than illustrated characters on the printed page. The tag Stan Lee: Creator was getting enough cache for him to draw together capital. Stan Lee got to play with real money. Investment money. Capital! Not some mere working class type collecting a paycheck at the behest of the real owners. This capital was drawn together by the alacrity allowed by the dot com era of the late 90s, looking to find the sure thing that Stan represented: a bankable creator of characters that could be a Hollywood movie successful enough to generate a franchise. Stanlee.com!

This dream of being a captain of the creative industry fell prey to short sighted deals that often could be called shady. Hearing that Stan at least got a one-time or possibly ongoing payout from a Marvel brand absolutely ripe with cash since the Marvel Cinematic Universe exploded after Iron Man in 2008 stopped that later portion from being an absolute downer. I drifted somewhat through this portion of the book. I had no desire for a very well documented look into a very aged Stan Lee desperately trying to be more than just the godfather of the Marvel Universe; eventually being preyed upon for what little money he actually had left.

As mentioned before, great book. My bias clouds that verdict. Some schmo with zero interest in just how Marvel came to be Marvel might not think it's so great. Hearing the chisme about what really happened between Steve Ditko, John Romita, Joe Kubert, and so many other great creators that ought to be just as famous as Stan Lee, hanging around the New York City offices of Marvel Comics could fill several thousand page volumes I would want to read.