Lee’s creative endeavors, during and following the explosive genesis-years of the Marvel universe, present the picture of a man trying to escape an industry he was embarrassed to be part of. In the mid 50s, Stan tried his hand at creating newspaper strips, which were perceived as more respectable than comic books. Despite working closely with capable comic-strip agent, Toni Mendez, his half dozen or so notable pitches were nearly all turned down. Those that made it to syndication fizzled quickly (Riesman, 2021). Lee’s big ideas were by no means exclusive to the sequential art format, however. A perennial idea pitched by Lee amounted to nothing more than partnering famous or current event photographs with word bubbles containing “hilarious captions.” A series of these books, titled You Don’t Say!, did make it to the shelves (Lee, 1963). Self-published titles Golfers Anonymous: The Perfect Book for the Imperfect Golfer (and Aren’t We All?), and Blushing Blurbs: A Ribald Reader for the Bon Vivant, both followed the same premise. Stan Lee definitely had an affinity for adding dialogue to word balloons, but as a concept in-and-of-itself, the format was never a hit.
After an appearance on The Dick Cavett Show in 1968, Lee concocted the framework of a talk show of his own, ostensibly focused on political issues facing the youth of America in the late 1960s. Although its aim was to give these youth a voice, Stan undercut that goal by treating his guests and the show’s topics in a dismissive and paternalizing manner (Riesman, 2021). Not surprising, the show never happened. Stan also developed relationships with filmmakers Alain Resnais, Lloyd Kaufman, and Ron Friedman. Numerous film proposals and other live-action projects were collaborated on and none materialized (Riesman, 2021). “On January 5 [1972], Stan Lee headlines a critically-panned Carnegie Hall show, ‘A Marvel-Ous Evening With Stan Lee,’ meant to be a celebration of the Marvel Brand” (Morrow, 2019). Reading about this disastrous affair brings to mind the myth of Icarus, whose hubris blinded him to otherwise obvious danger. All the fawning praise Stan was receiving in the press apparently bolstered his ego into believing a self-serving production like this would succeed on charisma alone. It did not.
The later life ventures of Stan Lee present us with a dizzying stream of pitches that aimed to promote both potential new creations and expanded media outlets for existing Marvel properties. A fraction saw the light of day and those lucky few were not long for this world. It would be easy to envision Lee trying to recapture the magic of the early Marvel bullpen days with his Excelsior Comics, Stan Lee Media, and POW! Entertainment ventures. Each endeavor produced a myriad of ideas, each gathered new bullpens of talent, and each ended without producing anything noteworthy.
In the mid-nineties, as a rebuke to what he saw as a Marvel Comics gone astray, Lee decided he’d launch a new line of books, starring all new characters of his indisputable creation, all supervised under his watchful eye. He dubbed the new line Excelsior Comics. Although he brought talented contributors into the mix, it was observed: “There was widespread concern among the creators tapped for Excelsior Comics that the whole enterprise was dead on arrival” (Riesman, 2021). Writer, Kurt Busiek, who was tapped to develop a character called Omega, eventually realized the whole Excelsior Comics endeavor was not long for this world and admitted to feeling relieved when it was finally cancelled. This episode is enlightening because it shows how second-hand perceptions of Stan, even within the industry, placed him on a glorified pedestal that did not match his talents. But once industry talent actually worked with him on creative projects, there was a realization that much of the legend was smoke and mirrors.
In 1998, Stan Lee partnered with Peter Paul, a thrice convicted felon, to form Stan Lee Media (SLM). The company grew quickly but was essentially a house of cards. Much could be written about shady business practices, investigations by the SEC, and fraudulent stock manipulation, but those are peripheral to a discussion of Stan’s creativity. Ostensibly, Paul was building a company that would allow Lee to birth new characters and new stories and then unleash them on the world via the internet. There was a lot of buzz and there were, especially in hindsight, absurdly grandiose goals. And then the new properties started taking shape: The 7th Portal, The Accuser, The Drifter, Stan’s Evil Clone. There was a collaboration with the Backstreet Boys and almost-collaborations with Mary J. Blige and RZA. Legitimate bigwigs, like Francis Ford Coppola were enticed into participating and a world-wide reach was envisioned. Eventually, people started seeing through the grand façade. Mark Evanier, a SLM employee at the time, put it this way: “I used to walk around that office and say ‘We don’t sell anything. We have no product. We have nothing.’ There was always a deal pending for us, 7th Portal or a Drifter line or something else, but the deals never materialized” (Riesman, 2021). The 7th Portal project got the farthest but then become the object of a lawsuit when two writers who spoke to Lee in the mid-nineties about a differently-titled project sued SLM for copying that concept and slapping it on the 7th Portal franchise. They won.
On the heels of SLM’s implosion, Lee and partners developed a new company called POW! Entertainment. Yet again, much could be written about this enterprise’s criminal misdeeds, but let’s focus on the merits of its creative output. The mission of POW! was, as with SLM, to create and launch new properties that sprung from the mind of Stan Lee. A number of movies were announced: The Femizons, The Double Man, Nightbird, and The Forever Man. None materialized. There was a pitch for a Playboy-collaboration cartoon called Hef’s Superbunnies, and a superhero comic starring Ringo Starr. Neither saw the light of day. There were endless projects that operated under the premise that simply slapping Stan Lee’s name on something would ensure success: Stan Lee’s The Secret of the Super Six, Stan Lee’s Superhero Christmas, Stan Lee’s Lightspeed, Stan Lee’s Sunday Comics, a deal with the Sci-Fi Channel to create a movie called Stan Lee’s Harpies, a multi-medium epic called Stan Lee’s Mighty 7, a documentary titled With Great Power: The Stan Lee Story. Suffice it to say, the name did not help pull these projects from their eventual oblivion. A deal with a Disney affiliate to make three movies with the Stan Lee name never happened. A partnership with comics publisher BOOM! Studios had Lee creating new superheroes and then supervising other artists and writers as they developed them. Writer, Mark Waid attests to Lee’s close participation in the process, recounting one particular meeting that presented the rough draft of an upcoming issue, to which a disappointed Lee said: “I can’t have my name on this” (Riesman, 2021). Despite Lee’s oversight or, perhaps because of it, each of the Lee/BOOM! comics were cancelled soon after launch. There was another announcement for a movie called Arch Alien, a children’s book called Dragons vs. Pandas, a multimedia franchise called Nitron. You would not be alone if your response to those titles was: “never heard of them.” “POW’s primary product was announcements. Throughout the last decade and a half of Stan’s life, POW flooded the press with news about an overwhelming number of deals and projects that had emerged, Athena-like, from the head of Stan … None of these projects ever saw the light of day…” (Riesman, 2021). The one property that did emerge from the POW! days that may have some name recognition is Stripperella. The concept consisted of turning actress Pamela Anderson into a crime-fighting exotic-dancer. Once that work was done, Lee sold the idea (after adding his name before the title, i.e. Stan Lee’s Stripperella) to TNN. The animated show was then developed by other writers. It was cancelled after 13 episodes. And yet this was the anomalous POW! success story.
