This year’s Hollywood XPO provided more content than this writer could possibly cover in one article. The interview with Stan Lee was one of the highlights. He’s definitely a living legend--a very busy living legend who has several projects in the works and therefore had several announcements to make. First, he’s a big hockey fan and the National Hockey League has invited him to come up with a super hero for each of the 30 teams. They’re known collectively as the NHL Guardians. That would be a monumental task for anyone less creative but this is Stan Lee we’re talking about here. He made creating a super hero sound like an easy formula. First, you have to give a super hero a super power. Then you don’t listen to the experts. Actually, you can see the YouTube interview where he tells the entire story but his publisher initially didn’t like the idea of “Spiderman” because first of all, people don’t like spiders. Secondly, you can’t have a teenage superhero. Fortunately, Stan didn’t listen to the expert’s advice because he went ahead and published Spiderman in spite of the naysayer and the rest, as they say, is history. Stan does cameo appearances in some of the films that were his initial creations although he missed a couple because they were filmed far away and he just doesn’t have the time to travel to far away places. When they’re filmed here in Los Angeles, he doesn’t want to miss them. In fact, Hulk is going to be a TV series again and he is hoping to play some sort of role in that.
Ultimo is one of the best selling comic books in Japan & the English translation is doing well here in the states so he announced that there’s going to be a film made based on the series. There’s another Japanese animation creation of his called, “Hero Man” the name of which he admitted was a bit obvious but they will be doing a cartoon series here in the states based on it.
Stan outlined the positive attributes of the Marvel/Disney merger because it will give Disney all those great characters and it will give Marvel all of the great marketing and distribution skills of Disney. There’s no downside to the merger.
There were several anecdotes during his talk. He tells the story of the DC Comics/Marvel rivalry. He explained that in the hight of the rivalry the DC people and Marvel people were actually good friends. He poked fun at the name because back in the day, Marvel was called, “Atlas Comics.” It was Stan Lee’s idea to change the name from Atlas to Marvel. When that happened, the people at what was then called “National Comics” hired an expert, paid them a lot of money and they came up with “DC Comics.” Stan thought the name was a bit lackluster compared to Marvel.
On a personal note, Stan Lee has been married to the same woman for 63 years this December. That’s a legacy in and of itself. He is a very charming, very good natured, very creative man. It was such an honor sharing the same room with a living legend.
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