So I woke up on Wednesday, March 7, and I saw that in addition to Tuesday’s Arctic temperatures, so low that weathermen warned that if you expose any bare flesh outside, you risked getting frostbite, that the sidewalks were buried in snow, and it was still falling. I again thought how lucky the New York Comic-Con organizers were that this didn’t happen during the weekend of the con. I wondered if I’d have trouble getting to a concert in Manhattan that night. Well, I thought, probably nothing worse would happen today.

And then I turned on my computer and learned that Captain America was dead.

The New York Daily News had just broken the story that morning, and not even The Beat or The Comics Reporter had it yet, but there are already pages of outraged posts at the John Byrne Forum, and it had been reported by CNN, among many other mainstream media outlets. Cap was apparently assassinated by a sniper in Captain America #25, which went on sale that very day (March 7).

Now I realize that this could be some elaborate fake-out. The mainstream media, unaware of how death in the superhero genre usually resembles a revolving door, fell hard for DC’s “Death of Superman” over a decade ago, and, of course, DC was not about to keep this iconic character dead.

Just as DC came up with four substitute Supermen to hold the fort until the real Superman returned, there will doubtless be one or more “new” Captain Americas. As Ron Hogan points out over at Galley Cat, this isn’t the first time Marvel has done that, and I can supply the details. Stan Lee (who wrote Cap longer than anyone else has) did it briefly in Tales of Suspense #96 in the 1960s; Steve Englehart had a kid named Roscoe take over as Captain America in the 1970s, and Mark Gruenwald had the “Super-Patriot” (now known as the U. S. Agent) become the new Cap in the 1980s. We’re overdue for another “new Cap” storyline. The difference is that each time in the past, Steve Rogers, the original Captain America, retired voluntarily from his costumed role before inevitably reassuming it later in the storyline.

Significantly, according to the Daily News, “Joe Quesada, 43, Marvel Entertainment’s editor in chief, said he wouldn’t rule out the shield-throwing champion’s eventual return.” In The New York Times (March 8, 2007) George Gene Gustines quotes Marvel publisher Dan Buckley saying about Cap, “He’s very dead right now.” Gustines also quotes some fans who don’t believe that the Captain is dead and terms their reactions “cynical,” but considering these statements from Marvel execs, isn’t their cynicism justified?

It turns out that in another comic currently on sale, Civil War: The Initiative #1, Ms. Marvel claims that Captain America is still alive. An official Marvel statement suggests that she may be mistaken or lying. Or is this an editorial mistake that lets the proverbial cat out of the bag?

On the other hand, ever since the demise of the Silver Age Flash in Crisis on Infinite Earths, readers have been all too aware that the Big Two superhero companies are perfectly willing to kill off superheroes for real and put some new character in as a permanent replacement. (Now it seems that the Silver Age Flash may finally return, but it took over twenty years!)

All of the previous “substitute Cap” stories have had the theme that Steve Rogers is irreplaceable as the true Captain America. My guess is that Marvel will indeed bring Rogers back as Cap. But I hope this isn’t just wishful thinking on my part. Gustines quotes another fan as saying “I’m fairly sure killing Cap with a movie in development (plus a possible Avengers flick on the way as well) would not be very sensible. So, I shall wait and see,” and praises him as “media-savvy.” And do we know for a fact that the Captain America in these movies is the original version from the 1940s?

The aforementioned Marvel official statement declares that “Captain America will continue to be published despite the very real death of Steve Rogers,” and concludes, “So, yes, Captain America, Steve Rogers, is dead.” Considering the miracles that are possible in the superhero genre, Rogers could still be truly “dead” and come back to life. But here Marvel seems to be hinting that they will create a new Captain America, one that they consider more relevant to the 21st century. It’s possible that Marvel might someday resurrect Rogers but not allow him to take back the role of Captain America from this newcomer.

The end of Civil War, in which Captain America decides he is wrong for fighting for the freedom of his fellow superheroes, and an already infamous Civil War: Frontline sequence in which a woman self-righteously denounces the Captain for knowing nothing about America since he doesn’t waste time on YouTube (Say what? I would think Cap keeps himself rather busy continually saving the lives of this woman and other Americans over the course of his career. This woman’s attitude smacks of ageism. This suggests that 21st century Marvel regards the original Captain as a dated character. “‘He hasn’t been living in the modern world and the world does move,” says Marvel Editor-in-Chief Joe Quesada.” in the CNN report.

And here I think of Captain America as representing American ideals, which have endured for over two hundred years, just as I believe Lee, Englehart, and Gruenwald did. Just reading the better Captain America stories from the last four decades, such as theirs, demonstrates how the character consistently adapts to changing times. I’d feel better if CNN and the Daily News had quoted Marvel representatives as extolling the greatness of the original Captain America rather than seeing Marvel, in and out of the stories, badmouthing the character as irrelevant to 21st century America.

If Marvel was intent on killing off Captain America, why couldn’t the company have given him a heroic demise, like the one that Stan Lee and John Romita, Sr. gave Captain George Stacy in Amazing Spider-Man #90 (1970) or the one that Chris Claremont and John Byrne gave Phoenix in Uncanny X-Men #137 (1980). Even Mar-Vell’s demise from cancer in Jim Starlin’s The Death of Captain Marvel (1982) showed more courage and dignity than the ignominious killing of Captain America, arrested and handcuffed as a criminal for his role in Civil War.

Here are some quotations from the Daily News and CNN reports that struck me as telling.

“‘What happens with the costume? And what happens to the characters that are friends and enemies of Cap?’ Quesada said with a smile. ‘You’re going to have to read the books to find out.’” (CNN)

“‘I was shocked. I was not expecting it,’ said Gerry Gladston, co-owner of Midtown Comics in Manhattan. ‘I’d rather they didn’t kill him–but it’s going to mean great sales.’” (Daily News)

And here’s the sad one, from the Daily News: “‘It’s a hell of a time for him to go. We really need him now,’ said co-creator Joe Simon, 93, after being informed of his brainchild’s death.” If this is all a fake-out to boost sales, I hope that somebody told Mr. Simon that’s all it is.

I will have much more to say about Civil War, though not until after finishing my coverage of this year’s New York Comic-Con, and probably my review of the 300 movie. And yes, I will buy and read Captain America #25 (if I still can find a copy at cover price), so Marvel’s sales stunt has worked. But I’m doing it out of a sense of duty as a comics historian. I feel no pleasure at the prospect of seeing Marvel kill off the embodiment of the American spirit, even if his demise proves to be only temporary. Marvel quickly undid the gouging out of Spider-Man’s eye (see “Comics in Context” #113), but that didn’t alter my distaste for that storyline. And if the rumor I heard during the New York Comic-Con proves to be true, even greater horrors await in the Marvel Universe.

It was only a year ago that New York Comic-Con audience, including myself, was happily photographing Joe Simon posing with an attendee dressed as Captain America (see “Comics in Context” #125). What questions might have been raised at panels at this year’s New York Comic-Con had we known what would happen to Captain America less than two weeks later?

For that matter, how has the spirit of Marvel, and of the superhero genre, changed since their Silver Age forty-some years ago? This year’s New York Comic-Con offered attendees the chance to judge for themselves by listening to the man who launched what he called the Marvel Age of Comics. And keep in mind, I record quotations to the best of my ability; I don’t make any of them up.

FRIDAY FEB. 23, 6:30 PM

The panel in the Javits Center’s Special Events Hall was titled “Stan Lee: An American Icon,” and indeed he is. Roy Thomas, Stan’s protégé in the 1960s who succeeded him as editor in chief, was supposed to interview him onstage, but had to cancel his trip to New York at the last minute.

Roy’s replacement introduced himself to the audience: “I’m Joe Quesada of Marvel Comics, and let me say, I’m lucky to have a job.”

Quesada reminisced about how when he was a boy, he didn’t read comics but his father learned about Stan Lee’s groundbreaking anti-drug storyline in Amazing Spider-Man #96-98 (1971). Quesada’s father encouraged him to read these issues and, Quesada told us, “I really got hooked.” Quesada continued, “What my father didn’t realize was that he was starting a whole other addiction,” that he said ultimately cost more than cocaine.

In keeping with the “icon” theme, Quesada placed the Marvel Age’s founding father among some heavy company. “He is Elvis, he is the Beatles, he’s Bill Clinton,” declared Quesada, introducing Stan Lee to the vast audience.

But Stan was not there. To fill time, Quesada started reminiscing about being on stage with Lee and Kevin Smith a while back, and then Stan came down the aisle, waving to the crowd. Everyone stood and applauded, even the little kids seated in front of me, and there was loud cheering. “I wasn’t late!” Stan explained; “I was waiting for them to call me!”

Much as he clearly loves public adulation, perhaps there’s a part of Stan Lee that feels it’s a wee bit excessive. “You mean,” he asked Quesada, “I’ve come over here to answer questions for these people, who know more about us than we do?” Stan turned to the audience, and asked good-naturedly, “Don’t you guys have anything better to do?”

One thing that a lot of these guys were doing was massing in front of the stage, several rows deep, to take flash photographs of Stan the Man. THis is something that the convention organizers should have anticipated, but didn’t. Lee may indeed have been concerned, but he characteristically masked it with humor. “They’ve left us alone!” No security!” with “all these hostile people!” he exclaimed in mock panic. “I’m scared!” The audience laughed, as he surely intended.

“Do you feel the love in the room?” Quesada asked him.

Finally the cavalry arrived, and Stan was relieved. “Oh, security,” he observed, and then warned the audience, “You better watch out. We got a guy in a red shirt here!”

Quesada asked him about his long career at Marvel. “Before I came up with the Fantastic Four,” Lee replied, “the comic book industry was a cultural wasteland.” That’s really not much of an exaggeration, but Lee nonetheless apologized for his characteristic hyperbole. “You have to forgive me. It’s been a tough day. I refuse to be serious.”

Then Lee continued his familiar story of what seems to have been a creative midlife crisis, and the turning point both in his career and the history of comics. Lee said that “The great thing about it”–comics–“was working with the greatest artists and writers.” But, referring to Martin Goodman without naming him, Lee explained that “Unfortunately our publisher thought comics were read by little kids or illiterate adults.” Lee claimed his unnamed publisher even decreed that he could not use words of more than three syllables. Dissatisfied with these restrictions, “Finally I was ready to quit.” Then he added, self-deprecatingly, “I make slow decisions. I was 40 years old when I said that.” (Actually, he was 39, which is close enough.) But “Then I did The Fantastic Four and everything changed.” Lee told us that he even used words of more than three syllables in the comics!

“I think at that point the books said Atlas Publications,” Stan recalled. Actually, Goodman’s line of comics had dropped the title “Atlas,” and if you look at the cover of Fantastic Four #1 or The Incredible Hulk #1, you’ll see no company name listed. But Stan’s real point was that he thought the company needed a catchier, more memorable title, “so I came up with Marvel.” (Though he didn’t mention it, this appropriately came from the title of the company’s first superhero comic, Marvel Comics #1, published in 1939.) This name, Stan pointed out, lent itself to slogans like “Make Mine Marvel!” and “the Marvel Age of Comics.” “You see how corny I am,” he confided to the crowd.

Even though Lee has done work for DC in recent years, it is clear that feelings linger from the old days, when Marvel’s rival so thoroughly dominated the comics market. Stan told the audience that back in the 1960s DC “called itself National Comics.” Observing Marvel’s success since it took on its new name, Lee continued, National “decided to change their name,” too. So, he said, they “hired a professional name change company,” which “labored for weeks” to come up with just the right new name. And, after all this herculean labor, Stan told us, “they came up with DC.” And Stan was and remains unimpressed. “Make Mine DC!? My God!”

Quesada told Lee that “One thing that got me hooked” on Marvel Comics, “besides the great stories was the sense of community,” and Quesada talked about what he called “this magnificent world of artists and writer” that Stan dubbed the Marvel Bullpen. Ah, yes, the sense of community at Marvel. I remember that from my time there in the 1980s and early 1990s, before most of my friends and I all got bounced.

Lee then praised Quesada and “every idea this guy comes up with,” especially Civil War to tumultuous applause. Quesada demurred, saying that Civil War wasn’t his idea. Lee retorted that “The great thing about being editor in chief us you can take credit for everything! I’ve been doing it for years!”

Then, more seriously, Lee said, “I get so much credit,” but that “a lot of it should go to Jack Kirby, Steve Ditko, John Romita, John Buscema,” and he added other names from Marvel’s Silver Age as the audience applauded.

Then Lee explained that “You can draw a script in a hundred different ways,” but success in visual storytelling “depends on where you put a closeup, where you put a long shot.” Stan continued, “A guy like Kirby could not draw a dull panel.” Lee said that his artists were “like the finest directors” in movies. “If it wasn’t for these talented artists, I wouldn’t be sitting here getting these nice things said [to me] by Joe Quesada.”

Quesada ventured, “There has to be a ringmaster.”

Knowing a straight line when he heard one, Lee replied, “Of course, it’s all due to me,” and the audience burst into laughter.

The crowd got it. When Stan Lee appears in public, there are actually two Stans on view. One is his over-the-top public persona, and the audience recognized he was doing it ironically, as a self-created comedy character, mocking his own ego, and they loved it. Then, every so often, Stan lets the mask slip, and you see a more serious, generous Stan Lee, as when he graciously praised his many collaborators. And the audience loved this Stan, as well.

As I wrote last week, I missed seeing Stephen Colbert at the con earlier that day. Colbert has created for himself a brilliantly funny public persona, trusting his audience to understand and appreciate his masterful use of irony. And Stan Lee has done much the same thing, and like Colbert, devised a comic persona that has won him a loyal and enthusiastic following.

Quesada asked Lee to explain how he went about collaboration.

“When I first thought of Spider-Man,” Lee began, “ I wanted Jack Kirby to do it.” Stan said he told Kirby, “I wanted a teenager with the power of a spider who can climb up walls. And I said, ‘But, Jack, don’t make him look like Captain America. You know how you like to draw these heroic guys with big muscles. I want him to be just this little, wimpy kid, just like anybody.’” So Kirby drew the character, “and it looked like a young Captain America,” Stan told us. “I thought Steve Ditko had the kind of style that might be better.” So it was Ditko who drew the kind of Spider-Man that Lee was looking for. “That’s how important the art style is.”

With regard to working with Ditko, Stan told us, “With Spider-Man I did the first plot by myself, [and] probably the second plot. Then Steve Ditko made suggestions,” Lee continued. “Probably by the twentieth issue he was doing the plotting.”

This Lee was explaining how the “Marvel method” of creating stories worked, and how he could give a story his personal style even if someone else had plotted it. “When I wrote the copy,” he said, meaning the dialogue and captions, “I could give it the style.” Indeed, Lee revealed that he enjoyed having the artists do plotting: “It made it more fun for me,” he said, because “the pages would be a surprise.” Then “I would change it,” meaning the story, “in the writing.”

In “Stan Lee: A Retrospective,” the show I co-curated at the Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art, we have a good example of this. We have a page from Fantastic Four Annual #3, in which, according to the notes he made in the border, Kirby intended that Doctor Doom was raging because the Thing had crushed his hands in a previous story. In his dialogue Lee altered Doom’s motivation, having him instead seethe with fury over his previous defeats by Reed Richards. This more clearly motivates Doom’s attempt in the annual to wreck Richards’ wedding to Susan Storm.

Turning to his work with Kirby, Lee asserted that “I came up with Galactus,” but when Kirby sent him the pages for Fantastic Four #48, “All of a sudden I see a naked nut on a surfboard, and I said “What’s that?’” This was, of course, the character we now know as the Silver Surfer. “Jack said, ‘Well, I figure anybody as powerful as Galactus… he ought to have a herald who goes ahead of him….’” Stan added, “And to Jack it was just a throwaway character.””

Lee perceived, “There was a certain nobility to” the Surfer. “Jack drew him in such a way that he looked like the goodest [sic] person who ever lived, and I tried to write him that way.” Lee confessed, “I sort of fell in love with the character.” Lee said he then had the Surfer appear in further issues, and came to think of him as his character. “I sort of feel the Silver Surfer is mine because Jack just tossed it away.”

Lee declared he was engaged in a “real collaborative process” with such artists and that “I didn’t know what they were going to bring me.” He added, “Because I was doing all the writing, I could keep the style consistent.”

Lee then explained that “you want to write a story in such a way that you’re talking to the reader.” Working on “Stan Lee: A Retrospective,” I realized just how important Stan’s narration is. Nowadays, narration and captions have fallen out of favor in superhero comic books, except when a character is narrating his own adventure. But Stan used captions, not in the guise of an anonymous, omniscient narrator, but as the voice of the storyteller, who spoke in Stan’s distinctive manner, reaching out to the readers, creating a bond of community with them.

Returning to the subject of working with Ditko, Stan revealed, “I think Steve made up the idea of Spider-Man shooting webs.” Lee maintained, “I wanted him crawling walls, [and] super-strong. I came up with the web-shooters idea.”

It turns out that Ditko claimed in a 1965 interview that he himself came up with the “web gimmick on wrist.” But in a 1988 interview an artist named Eric Stanton, who shared a studio with Ditko in the 1960s, claimed, “I think I added the business about the webs coming out of his hands”.

Who’s right? In 1962, when Lee and Ditko created Spider-Man, neither of them imagined how successful the character would become. So how likely was either one to remember precisely who came up with what? And now, forty-five years later, memories may have blurred even further. What impresses me is that Stan gave Ditko credit for the idea of Spider-Man shooting webs; who came up with the idea of the actual web-shooter devices seems less important (and, after all, both the Spider-Man movies and comics have now disposed of them as nonessential).

Taken with Lee’s description of how his collaborations worked, Quesada observed, it’s “like [the] jazz composition idea.” “Yeah,” Stan enthusiastically agreed, “like riffs.”

Next Quesada asked who was responsible for the “soap opera quality” and “cliffhangers” in Marvel stories.

Stan replied quietly, “It was me.” Then he explained, with undisguised practicality, “It’s a lot easier to take one plot and keep it going for a lot of issues.” Moreover, “and in those days I was writing all the stories! So it made it easier for me.” Then, in a confidential manner, Stan advised the audience, “I’m going to give you a real philosophical theory you can keep with you the rest of your life. You will find that some of the most creative decisions in life are made because of laziness and selfishness.” The audience laughed, and Quesada commented, “That’s good.”

Next Quesada asked if Lee had had any idea that the characters he co-created would become as successful as they have.

“If someone said you’ll be at a convention talking to people with nothing better to do, at in a million years,” replied Stan. “We were hoping the books would sell, so we wouldn’t lose our jobs and could pay the rent. If someone said you’ll be talking at conventions to people with nothing better to do, and that Tobey Maguire and Nic Cage and Robert Downey Jr. would be starring in movies based on what we were doing. . . .we would’ve said, ‘You’re drunk! No way!’”

“Did you think you’d do better than DC?” Quesada inquired.

“Oh, yes!” answered Stan. “I read DC books. There was no way they could compete with us!” And the audience laughed.

More seriously, Lee explained, “I felt they were in the wrong track. For example, in the Batman books most if the stories were detective stories. There was never any personal problem in Batman’s life. . . .We were concentrating on how can Spider-Man get enough money to pay for Aunt May.”

Lee explained that he and his collaborators “would try to get into the personal life of these characters, and I knew that that was better.”

It seems so obvious how Marvel in the 1960s differed from DC, but by Stan’s account, DC just couldn’t figure it out. Lee said, “We hoped they would never discover” what made Marvel comics sell. He told us that he had sources at DC, just as they did at Marvel, so he heard what they were up to.

“They wondered when our books started to outsell theirs,” Lee said. “They decided it was because you [Marvel] use more dialogue on your covers. I said next month, no dialogue on covers.” And of course, he continued, Marvel still outsold them. “They had another meeting,” Lee recounted, at which they decided “Marvel uses more red on their covers,” so when Stan heard this, he decreed that Marvel wouldn’t use red on the next month’s covers, and Marvel still sold better. This “went on and on,” Stan stated, “and I liked it that way!”

But what would Stan Lee have liked to do if he hadn’t been a success in comics?

Considering Stan’s skill as a public performer, it should not come as a surprise that, as he told us, “When I was young I wanted to be an actor.” In fact, as a teenager during the Great Depression. Lee was a member of the Federal Theatre Project, sponsored by the government’s Works Projects Administration (WPA). “I was on the stage. Orson Welles was a member, too. But he was in another locale.” However, Lee told us, “It didn’t pay anything. Comics paid more.” Stan concluded, “I should’ve stayed in it. I could’ve been Brad Pitt!”

Of course now Stan found himself a stage performing for an audience. He told us, “You don’t know what a good feeling this is. You’re a captive audience. I can say anything! My wife won’t even listen to me.”

Here’s something else that isn’t as surprising as it may first seem: Stan Lee also wanted to work in advertising. “I treated all of Marvel Comics like a big ad campaign,” he told the audience, and mentioned how he came up with “catchphrases” for Marvel like “’Nuff said!” and “Excelsior!”

But, Stan claimed, if he hadn’t been in comics, “I would’ve starved.” He “wanted to write the Great American Novel,” he wanted to be an actor, and he wanted to be in advertising, but he conceded that each of these “wouldn’t have worked.”

Returning to the subject of comics, Stan spoke about his relationship with Marvel readers at a time when the world did not take comic books seriously: “We had an inside joke that no one else understood.”

So it seemed appropriate that Lee and Quesada started serenading the audience with the theme song for Marvel’s 1960s official fan club, the Merry Marvel Marching Society, whose very name is a joke. The audience, in the palm of Stan’s hand, applauded enthusiastically. Stan wrote the song, and Quesada complimented him, “Those are darn good lyrics.”

But Stan can do more than write jingles. He then told us that he once write a poem, titled “God Woke.” (In fact, there is a copy of the poem on display in “Stan Lee: A Retrospective,” and it will be published later this year in the book Stan Lee: Conversations, from the University Press of Mississippi.) “Someone read it,” Stan continued, and “believe it or not, we’re working on a major motion picture based on ‘God Woke.’’’

FRIDAY FEB. 23, 8:30 PM

Stan mentioned this at the opening of “Stan Lee: A Retrospective” later that night, and he seems genuinely astonished and delighted about that “God Woke” may become a movie. Here’s something else that years ago he could never have imagined happening.

The opening was a great success and, I’m happy to say, one of the highlights of my life in comics. All of us present excitedly watched as Stan went through the show, frequently surprised and, it seems, genuinely thrilled at the many original art pages and artifacts we had found from his lengthy career. He was excited when I showed him the copy of “God Woke” in our exhibit. We also had a copy of Esquire from the 1960s that had a feature article about Marvel on display on the bottom shelf of a display case. Stan actually lay down on the floor to get a better look, but we need not have worried, because the Man got back on his feet without difficulty.

Several veterans of 20th century Marvel were present, including Danny Fingeroth, Steve Saffel, Jim Salicrup and myself. It was disappointing that present day Marvel chose not to send a representative to the opening. But I felt the museum was alive and suffused with the true spirit of Marvel Comics on this memorable night.

Would that all of us could live to see the kind of success and appreciation that Stan Lee has deservedly received after his long, groundbreaking career. Perhaps the manga invasion of the last several years still would have happened, but I doubt that there would be an American comics industry today if not for the revolution Stan Lee spearheaded in the 1960s. He is Marvel’s true Captain, still going strong, still an inspiration. His familiar personal motto is “Excelsior!”, a Latin word meaning “higher” or “Ever upward!” and that encapsulates the classic Marvel spirit, something we still need today.

ADVERTISEMENTS FOR MYSELF

Recently Marvel has sent me two handsome new reprint volumes: a new hardcover edition of Neil Gaiman’s Marvel 1602, for which I wrote an introduction, and the massive and expensive Daredevil Omnibus Vol. 1, a compilation of Frank Miller’s early work with the character, including an interview that I did with Miller and his collaborator Klaus Janson back in 1981. I also wrote the 1980s Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe entries on the Kingpin (definitely: I remember discussing it with Frank before I wrote it) and Elektra (probably: it reads like my work) that are included in the back of the book!

Of course I also hope any of you passing through New York City between now and July will visit “Stan Lee: A Retrospective” at the Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art (www.moccany.org)!

–Copyright 2007 Peter Sanderson

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