A marvelous life : the amazing story of Stan Lee

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Title:

A marvelous life : the amazing story of Stan Lee

Author:

Fingeroth, Danny, author.

ISBN:

9781250133908

Edition:

1st ed.

Physical Description:

viii, 390 pages, 8 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations (some color) ; 25 cm.

Contents:

Cover; Dedication; Preface; 1. JFK, the Beatles . . . and Stan Lee; 2. The Dress Cutter's Son; 3. The Pied Piper of West Forty-second Street; 4. The Psychopathology of Comic Books; 5. Breaking Out and Staying In; 6. Gathering Forces; 7. From the Ashes; 8. Webs Tangled and Otherwise; 9. Creating Characters; 10. The Ties That Bind; 11. Boom Boom Boom; 12. Revolution in the Air; 13. Surfing the Waves; 14. Tense Transitions; 15. Power Politics; 16. The Chaos and the King; 17. Returns and Departures; 18. Goodbyes and Hellos; 19. California Dreamin'; 20. Follow the Money; 21. Of Love and Law

22. The Undiscover'd Country23. Legacy; Photographs; Afterword: Last Thoughts on Stan Lee; Acknowledgments; Notes; Index; About the Author; Copyright

Personal Subject:

Lee, Stan, 1922-2018.

Corporate Subject:

Marvel Comics Group.

Subject Term:

Cartoonists -- United States -- Biography.

Comic books, strips, etc. -- Authorship.

Comic books, strips, etc. -- United States -- History -- 20th century.

Genre:

Biographies

Summary:

The definitive biography of the beloved-often controversial-co-creator of many legendary superheroes, A Marvelous Life: The Amazing Story of Stan Lee presents the origin of "Stan the Man," who spun a storytelling web of comic book heroic adventures into a pop culture phenomenon: the Marvel Universe. Stan Lee was the most famous American comic book creator who ever lived. Thanks, especially, to his many cameos in Marvel movies and TV shows, Lee was-and even after his 2018 death, still is-the voice and face of comics and popular culture in general, and Marvel Comics in particular. How he got to that place is a story that has never been fully told-until now. With creative partners including Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko-with whom he had tempestuous relationships that rivaled any superhero battle-Lee created world-famous characters including Spider-Man, Iron Man, the X-Men, the Avengers, and the Hulk! But Lee's career was haunted by conflict and controversy. Was he the most innovative creator to ever do comics? Was he a lucky no-talent whose only skill was taking credit for others' work? Or was he something else altogether? Danny Fingeroth's A Marvelous Life: The Amazing Story of Stan Lee attempts to answer some of those questions. It is the first comprehensive biography of this powerhouse of ideas who, with his invention of Marvel Comics, changed the world's ideas of what a hero is and how a story should be told. With exclusive interviews with Lee himself, as well as with colleagues, relatives, friends-and detractors-Fingeroth makes a doubly remarkable case for Lee's achievements, while not ignoring the controversies that dogged him his entire life-and even past his death. With unique access to Lee's personal archives at the University of Wyoming, Fingeroth explores never-before-examined aspects of Lee's life and career, and digs under the surface of what people thought they knew about him. Fingeroth, himself a longtime writer and editor at Marvel Comics, and now a lauded pop culture critic and historian, knew and worked with Stan Lee for over four decades. With his unique insights as a comics world insider, Fingeroth is able to put Lee's life and work in a unique context that makes events and actions come to life as no other writer could. Despite F. Scott Fitzgerald's famous warning that "There are no second acts in American lives," Stan Lee created a second act for himself that changed everything for him, his family, his industry, and ultimately for all of popular culture. How he did it-and what it cost him-is a larger-than-life tale of a man who helped create the modern superhero mythology that has become a part of all our lives. --

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Library	Call Number	Status
Searching... Hardwood Creek Library (Forest Lake)	921 LEE	Searching... Unknown
Searching... Park Grove Library (Cottage Grove)	921 LEE	Searching... Unknown
Searching... R.H. Stafford Library (Woodbury)	921 LEE	Searching... Unknown

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Summary

The definitive biography of the beloved--often controversial--co-creator of many legendary superheroes, A Marvelous Life: The Amazing Story of Stan Lee presents the origin of "Stan the Man," who spun a storytelling web of comic book heroic adventures into a pop culture phenomenon: the Marvel Universe.

Stan Lee was the most famous American comic book creator who ever lived.

Thanks, especially, to his many cameos in Marvel movies and TV shows, Lee was--and even after his 2018 death, still is--the voice and face of comics and popular culture in general, and Marvel Comics in particular. How he got to that place is a story that has never been fully told--until now.
With creative partners including Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko--with whom he had tempestuous relationships that rivaled any superhero battle--Lee created world-famous characters including Spider-Man, Iron Man, the X-Men, the Avengers, and the Hulk!

But Lee's career was haunted by conflict and controversy. Was he the most innovative creator to ever do comics? Was he a lucky no-talent whose only skill was taking credit for others' work? Or was he something else altogether?

Danny Fingeroth's A Marvelous Life: The Amazing Story of Stan Lee attempts to answer some of those questions. It is the first comprehensive biography of this powerhouse of ideas who, with his invention of Marvel Comics, changed the world's ideas of what a hero is and how a story should be told.

With exclusive interviews with Lee himself , as well as with colleagues, relatives, friends--and detractors--Fingeroth makes a doubly remarkable case for Lee's achievements, while not ignoring the controversies that dogged him his entire life--and even past his death. With unique access to Lee's personal archives at the University of Wyoming, Fingeroth explores never-before-examined aspects of Lee's life and career, and digs under the surface of what people thought they knew about him.

Fingeroth, himself a longtime writer and editor at Marvel Comics, and now a lauded pop culture critic and historian, knew and worked with Stan Lee for over four decades. With his unique insights as a comics world insider, Fingeroth is able to put Lee's life and work in a unique context that makes events and actions come to life as no other writer could.

Despite F. Scott Fitzgerald's famous warning that "There are no second acts in American lives," Stan Lee created a second act for himself that changed everything for him, his family, his industry, and ultimately for all of popular culture. How he did it--and what it cost him--is a larger-than-life tale of a man who helped create the modern superhero mythology that has become a part of all our lives.

Author Notes

DANNY FINGEROTH was an award-winning writer and editor at Marvel Comics. A highly-regarded pop culture critic and historian, he is the author of acclaimed books including Superman on the Couch: What Superheroes Really Tell Us About Ourselves and Our Society and co-editor of The Stan Lee Universe, an annotated collection of rarities from Lee's personal archives. Fingeroth worked with Lee on numerous projects and conducted original, in-depth interviews with him (and many others) in the course of researching A Marvelous Life. Fingeroth has spoken and taught on comics-related topics at Columbia University, the Smithsonian Institution, and at Milan's Mimaster Institute, among many other venues.

Reviews (4)

Publisher's Weekly Review

In this enthusiastic biography of Stan Lee (1922--2018), Fingeroth (Superman on the Couch), one-time writer and editor at Lee's longtime employer Marvel Comics, tells the story of the man who helped create comic legends including Spider-Man and Black Panther. Born Stan Leiber in New York City, Lee was "a classic American success story," who turned infectious moxie, geniality, and restless creativity into a career. Starting in comics as a teenager, Lee became a whirlwind of editorial energy (he did not draw) at Marvel Comics, which prided itself on more human, "neurotic," characters than DC's simplistic supermen. Lee's voice, promulgated through punchy story lines and chattily self-deprecating columns within each issue directed at readers, built a fun, self-aware image perfect for a maturing audience. As the industry competed with television, Lee and artists Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko reinvented comics by combining "simultaneously cynical and idealistic" perspectives with a strong humanism, spinning off the Fantastic Four, Incredible Hulk, the Avengers, and the X-Men while addressing social ills like racism. Fingeroth's insider account is likely too long on Marvel's business permutations, but this biography is a fittingly ebullient tribute to a man who never failed to add one more exclamation mark. This is a sure hit for comics fans of all camps. (Nov.)

Kirkus Review

Pow! Zam! If it's connected to comic superheroes in the last half-century, Stan Lee almost certainly had something to do with it.Stanley Martin Lieber (1922-2018) was no superhero. He was litigious, scrappy, and inclined to take sole credit for the work of many hands. However, writes former Marvel Comics editor and writer Fingeroth (The Rough Guide to Graphic Novels, 2008, etc.), Lee had an uncanny handle on pop culture and a sense of what comic-book fans wanted. "Was Stan Lee at the right place at the right timeor did he make his time and place the rights ones?" The answer one derives from the author's longish, detail-packed account is, both. Another conclusion is that the comics business is no laughing matter. As Fingeroth writes, one editor in a comics mill when Lee's career was just taking off routinely rejected freelance pieces but then had them redone by his favored circle, and some artists and writers who should be better known, such as the long-suffering Jack Kirby, were eclipsed by people likewell, Stan Lee. One result, Fingeroth suggests, was the comix revolution of the 1960s, when creators took more financial risks but kept more of the proceeds as well as the rights to their own creations: "No one owned Mr. Natural but his creator, Robert Crumb. Mister Miraclewho no one ever denied was created by Jack Kirbywas owned by DC Comics." Lee read the zeitgeist correctly when he sensed that the superheroes who populated Marvel Comics were right for Hollywood, making the transition from televised cartoon series to A-list films. Fingeroth also credits Lee, in between lawsuits, for helping popularize the various comics conventions that have become staples of nerd culture. "From what you know of Stan Lee," he remarked when asked if Lee still enjoyed attending the conferences in his later years, "do you think he'd rather die at home, alone, in his sleep, or being adored by five thousand people in a convention auditorium?"Fans of comics culture will enjoy Fingeroth's tribute to his legendary boss. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Booklist Review

Stan Lee, who died last year at 95, was probably the world's most famous comic book creator, arguably renowned less for his role in begetting Marvel's fabled superheroes than for his cameo appearances in their movie adaptations and his ceaseless self-promotion. Lee became editor at the company as a teenager in 1941. But it wasn't until two decades later, when he developed the Fantastic Four and Spider-Man with artists Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko, that Marvel became a cultural phenomenon. Soon Lee relinquished writing to devote his time to public appearances to promote Marvel (and, concurrently, to build his own brand). His grandstanding rankled many who felt he was hogging the credit that should have been shared with the artists, and his failure to develop other successful characters after his early-1960s fecundity further tarnished his reputation. Even so, Lee remains a pivotal figure in the superhero genre that's come to dominate popular culture, and Fingeroth, a comics veteran who worked closely with Lee, gives evenhanded treatment to his accomplishments and foibles.--Gordon Flagg Copyright 2019 Booklist

Library Journal Review

Fingeroth (Superman on the Couch) chronicles the eight-decade career of comics legend Stan Lee (1922--2018). Born Stanley Lieber, Lee became editor at Timely Comics, later renamed Marvel, at age 18 through family connections to publisher Martin Goodman. Lee's complex relationships with artists Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko are at this biography's core. In the 1960s, they collaborated to create enduring pop culture icons, including Spider-Man, the Hulk, the Avengers, and the Fantastic Four. Lee portrayed these superheroes as characters struggling through their own failures and flaws. He also built a relationship with Marvel's readership through his Marvel Bullpen Bulletin. Stepping away from writing and editing in the 1980s and 1990s, Lee sought to bring Marvel properties to Hollywood, with limited success. Legal issues and controversy followed Lee as Kirby and Ditko sought credit and compensation for their cocreations. Continuing to work into his 90s, making cameo appearances in Marvel movies, which turned him into a cultural icon, Lee fought hard against comics censorship in the 1950s. The work further explores Marvel's bankruptcy in the 1990s and other industry issues. VERDICT A high-demand biography for fans of Lee and Marvel comics.--Chris Wilkes, Tazewell Cty. P.L., VA

Preface	p. 1
1 JFK, the Beatles...and Stan Lee	p. 5
2 The Dress Cutter's Son	p. 13
3 The Pied Piper of West Forty-second Street	p. 25
4 The Psychopathology of Comic Books	p. 45
5 Breaking Out and Staying In	p. 67
6 Gathering Forces	p. 75
7 From the Ashes	p. 87
8 Webs Tangled and Otherwise	p. 103
9 Creating Characters	p. 123
10 The Ties That Bind	p. 143
11 Boom Boom Boom	p. 169
12 Revolution in the Air	p. 185
13 Surfing the Waves	p. 195
14 Tense Transitions	p. 215
15 Power Politics	p. 231
16 The Chaos and the King	p. 247
17 Returns and Departures	p. 257
18 Goodbyes and Hellos	p. 273
19 California Dreamin'	p. 287
20 Follow the Money	p. 299
21 Of Love and Law	p. 317
22 The Undiscover'd Country	p. 331
23 Legacy	p. 343
Afterword: Last Thoughts on Stan Lee	p. 357
Acknowledgments	p. 361
Notes	p. 365
Index	p. 383

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Summary

Summary

Author Notes

Reviews (4)

Publisher's Weekly Review

Kirkus Review

Booklist Review

Library Journal Review

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