True Believer, The Rise and Fall of Stan Lee, by Abraham Riesman, Crown NY 2021

Marvel Comics, serious business.  And Stan Lee, a creative entrepreneur I remember for The Incredible Hulk and other equally colorful and exciting series - Spider-Man, Black Panther, Thor -  for more than three decades fought and created.    He and a bunch of other creative artists not headed for the "serious art world of NYC galleries and the Guggenheim" ran up a long list of very popular characters whose graphic lives made their way profitably into film, video, toys and games. But building this global business was ridiculously difficult and contentious.  And in the end we are not entirely sure what all happened to our hero - bankruptcy, contract battles, the works -  Stan Lee, but along the way he got supremely, crazily famous.  

The tributes poured in later at an event held by what became Stan Lee's former employer, Marvel. His admirers spoke up:  "For me, Stan Lee was probably the most important writer and artist of my life," said Jimmy Kimmel.   Disney CEO Bob Iger: "Stan was a superhero when it came to creating great characters and telling memorable stories" "...a visionary whose passion for art and storytelling left a lasting impact on pop culture and entertainment."  There were disputes, however, about just exactly how much of the legacy was actually his; collaborators such as Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko somehow missed out on financial and recognition rewards from the Marvel and Disney deals.  The author's research offers us other examples of the grift-ridden sub-surface in this whole growing comic industry where intellectual property laws were either not defined or not respected.

Stan Lee's background was not much unlike that of many Jewish immigrants in the early 1900s who escaped futureless lives in Eastern Europe to take a shot at America, the land of dreams.  But Lee turned his passionate imagination to thrilling stories that he and other talented few writers converted to colorful illustrated fiction - one had to have a great imagination to fall into these epics, but they were addictive.  And Lee in his own approach to managing artists and writers, editors and secretaries -  the business end of creativity, some of which might have seemed unmanageable -  took on bigger than life dimensions.  Like the time he climbed to the top of an office file cabinet to make a point. 

Brother Larry said of his older sibling  "He had different sides to him... It depends on who you talk to at what moment."

Of course the fabulous life could not have gone on forever, ending in a disturbing demise for Stan Lee.  The drama continued to build as he aged, and rumor abounded of the senior's confinement and treatment.  

Who can you trust when you've come to the end of a colorful, conflict-filled, million-dollar life?