All language subtitles for Stan Lees Mutants Monsters and Marvels (2002)en

What year is
Spider-Man?

At what point
do you create
Spider-Man?

Right after
The Hulk, I think.

Again, Martin said,
"We're doing good.
Let's do another one, Stan."

So, when I was a kid,

I had read a pulp magazine
called The Spider,

and I always liked it.

But that isn't what
gave me the idea.

That's when I had
to find a name.

But what gave me
the idea was,
I wanted...

You know, in superheroes,
the most important thing

is to get a new power,
and you run out of powers.

A guy can fly,
a guy is strong,
what's left?

Figured if a guy
could stick to walls,
you know, like an insect...

So I wrote down
a list of names.

"Insect-Man" didn't have it.
"Mosquito-Man"
wasn't dramatic.

Finally, I hit
on "Spider-Man."

"Spider-Man."
Man, that sounded dramatic.

It had a ring to it.
Still does.

And then I remembered
I had loved that pulp magazine
called The Spider.

And it was called
The Spider, Master of Men.

There was nothing
spiderish about him.

It was just a name he had.
He was just a guy in a hat
and, you know,

he hit people.

But I liked the name.
So I thought,
"I'll call him Spider-Man."

When I proposed the name
to Martin, my publisher...

Now, he had been on
board with everything,

you know,
The Fantastic Four,
The Hulk...

He thought I could
do no wrong.

So I told him
about Spider-Man.
He said, "You're crazy."

Said, "Stan,
people hate spiders.

"You can't do a book
called Spider-Man."

And he said,
"And you want him
to be a teenager?

"Teenagers can
only be sidekicks."

And then he said,
"And you want him
to have problems?"

Because I told him
I wanted him to worry
about money, pimples...

'Cause up until
that point,

the traditional heroes,
people like...

Well, The Fantastic Four,
there were no money
problems.

Reed Richards
is the brilliant
inventor,

and the problems
were more on
a cosmic scale.

And their real-life...
They didn't have
real-life identities.

I gave them later on,

but you're right,
in the beginning,
they didn't.

So Peter Parker
and Spider-Man...

Well, the Peter Parker half
of Spider-Man

is more like the first
character to come along

that actually had a life
outside of the suit,
where the problems

were almost as epic
as what he was facing
while in costume.

That's why "problems"
were small,

the problems that
everybody deals with.

That's just what
I tried for.

Basically, if we had
a formula at all,

the formula was,
we know we're doing fantasy.

We have guys who can fly,
burst into flame, all that.

But write them as
realistically as possible.

If those people
really existed,

what would their
lives be like?

And that's what
I was trying to do.

So, when I told Martin
about it, he said,

"Absolutely not.
It's the dumbest idea
I ever heard, Stan.

"You've lost it, Stan."

Well, I then did, I guess,
The X-Men and a few others.

Daredevil and Iron Man,

and I can't remember
chronologically whether
it was before or after,

but it was during
that period.

But I always felt,
"I want to do Spider-Man."
I thought it would be good.

We had a magazine called
Amazing Fantasy,
which I did with Steve Ditko.

He's really one
of the greats.

For some reason,
I loved the book,

but they weren't
superheroes.

What it was,
there was little five...

KEVIN SMITH:
Originally, it was
Amazing Adult Fantasy.

That's right.
That's right.

And I wanted stories
for older readers,

so I tried to write
science-fiction stories,
very short ones,

with O. Henry endings,
with surprise endings,

and each book might
have had four or five
of those stories.

I thought they were great,
but they didn't feature
men in tights.

So the public,
that wasn't what they
wanted at that time.

So we were gonna
drop the book.

Now, when you're putting out
the last issue of a book,
nobody really cares,

you can do...

So I figured,
"Aha! I'm gonna put
Spider-Man in there."

I call Jack Kirby,
who's so good at this
sort of thing,

and I said, "Jack,
I want you to do a character
of mine called Spider-Man."

I told him
what it should be.

But I said, "Don't make him
look like Captain America.

"I want just an
average guy."

I was gonna say "like me,"
but, of course, I didn't
think I was average.

I thought of myself
as Captain America.

So he did
the first few pages,

and I came over to his
board and I looked at it,

and I said, "No, that's not
what I want, Jack."

I said, "Look, forget it.
I'll give it to
somebody else."

It was too bold,
too heroic, too bulky.

Yeah, the guy
looked like you.
He looked really heroic.

Yeah, and I'm not
Spider-Man.

So, Jack said, "Fine."
You know, it was nothing.

We didn't think Spider-Man
meant anything.

And Jack had a million
other things to do.

I said,
"I'll get somebody else."
He said, "Sure."

I thought, "Steve Ditko
would be perfect for it."

He drew people that looked
like the kind of people

you'd meet in the street,
you know?

So, I gave it to Steve,
and, oh, man, was I ever
right in picking Steve.

He did a beautiful job.
And we published it.

We put it on the cover
of the last issue
of Amazing whatever.

Amazing Fantasy.

And, um, sent it out
and forgot about it.

Months later,
after the sales
figures kicked in...

It takes months,
or it took months...

'Cause back in the day,
it'd take almost
nine months, I read,

A long time.

The figures came out,
and Martin came in
to me one day,

and he said, "Stan,

"do you remember that
Spider-Man character of yours
that we both liked so much?"

(CHUCKLES)

And he said,
"How about doing
a series of him?"

And you know...

And there we were.

What do you think
about Spider-Man
caught on?

Do you think it was really
just the "I can relate
to this guy" aspect of it?

I think there were
a lot of reasons.

I think perhaps the main
reason was the "I can
relate to him."

'Cause he was shy.
He wasn't that
successful with girls.

He had to worry
about his family.

I think most teenagers
reading it

thought to themselves,
"Hey, that could be me!"

You know, so there certainly
was that identification.

But beyond that, I think,
I must say, truthfully,

You know, Doc Ock,I came up
with some great stories

the Green Goblin,

the Sandman, and...

Everything worked.

And visually,

Very striking
character, too.

'Cause the way
Steve would have him
crawling on walls

and swinging on webs,
it just...

Everything came
together perfectly.

And it's very...

One of the very few
comic book characters,
even back then,

that was covered
from head to toe.

Like, even Captain America,
you still have this much
of his face.

Spider-Man's
completely enveloped
in his costume.

You know the good
thing about that?

You could be any kid.

You could be black.
You could be Asian.

You could be Indian.
You could be anything,

and imagine you
were in that costume.

So I think
that made it relevant
to everybody everywhere.

And that was accidental.

I don't think
we planned it that way,
but it was very fortuitous.

You get
credited with...

And I know
you're not even
comfortable with it,

with creator of this,
creator of this.

And you're always
the first person
in the room

to point out that
it wasn't just you.

As you said before,
it was a very
collaborative medium.

And I know there
are people that...

In the case
of Jack Kirby,

"Oh, there must be a point
of contention between Stan
and Jack," blah, blah, blah.

And that's not the case.
Let's talk about that.

Well, what happened was,
Steve is really the guy
who brought this to a point.

Obviously, Spider-Man
was my idea.

Even gave it to Jack first,
didn't want it,
then gave it to Steve.

Steve feels
since he drew it,

and gave it life,
so to speak,

that he created it
as much as I did.

Now, in my heart of hearts,

I feel the guy who comes up
with the concept

is the guy
who created it.

But Steve feels,
and I hope he doesn't...

When he sees this,
doesn't feel I'm
quoting him wrong.

He feels that the person
who physically gives it
life is the co-creator,

otherwise, all I had
was an idea which was
nothing solid.

Now, while I don't
really agree with that,

I have enough respect
for Steve, and for
the other artists,

that I am very happy
and very comfortable

to call myself the co-creator
of all of these things.

And you coined
the phrase,

"With great power
comes great
responsibility."

Which everyone that
knows Spider-Man
knows that line.

You know, it's funny.
I never thought it
would catch on that way,

but sometimes
people'll meet me, "Hey,
didn't you do Spider-Man?"

I'll say "Yeah."
They'll say,
"With great power..."

It's incredible!
I love it.

So at what point do you
hand over the reins of
Spider-Man, and to whom?

And was that tough?

Well, artistically,
Steve eventually left after,

I don't know, 20, 30, 40,
some amount of books,

and John Romita
took over as the artist.

And I said to him,
"You know, John..."

John doesn't draw like Steve.
His style is different.

But I said, "We don't want
to disturb the readers

"by suddenly seeing
a totally different style.

"Do you think you could
make it look like Steve
for a while?"

Bless him.
He did such a great job.

Those first few issues
looked like Steve
had done them.

But then, little by little,
he began to draw it
in his own style,

and it became
his strip.

And years later,
other artists took over,

and no matter
how it was drawn,
no matter who drew it,

the strip was always,
I'm happy to say,
powerful and successful.

Now, who wrote
after you?

Oh, after me?
Well, let's see.
I think...

The first guy. I mean,
there have been a zillion
Spider-Man writers, but...

I think it was
probably Roy Thomas,
because...

What happened was,
I think around 1970,
I became the publisher,

and I didn't have the time
to write all the stories,
or hardly any stories,

so I had to look around
for somebody who could do
the editing and the writing

and handle
the art direction.

And Roy Thomas
I considered my
best writer at the time.

Very bright guy, and
a sincere, dedicated guy.

So I made him the editor,
and he wrote Spider-Man
and a number of other books.

In order to talk about
Spider-Man and the
Spider-Man family

and everything
that you accomplished

in the 11, 12 pages
of Amazing Fantasy
that still holds up today,

all one has to do
is look at something
like Superman or Batman.

Superman's origin
has changed many times
throughout the years,

as well as the
character itself.

His origins changed?
I didn't know that.

His origins
changed a bunch.

Sometimes Krypton
is a very sterile
world.

Sometimes it's a world
where you got to know
the family.

They're bringing that
back a little more
in the comics now.

But the Superman family
has kind of gone through
some varied incarnations.

John Byrne did the revamp,
you know, in the '80s
and whatnot.

But Superman, when Siegel
and Shuster first came up
with the character,

you have a character
that can leap very tall
but didn't fly.

Leaped over tall buildings.

Tall buildings
in a single bound.

Batman has gone through
various incarnations
as well.

The original Bob Kane
story has gone through
a campier version

to kind of bring it
back to its origins
a little bit more.

Spider-Man, though,
on the other hand,

has always
remained constant.

The back story
has never really
altered.

Some people have
tried to tweak it,

but it's always
what you and Ditko did

in that original
11, 12-page
Amazing Fantasy story.

And that's, I think,
a true testimony

to what you guys
were able to accomplish

in a very short
amount of time,

very short amount
of pages.

You set up the world
that still exists today
for that character,

then when you went on
to write the Spider-Man book

outside of Amazing Fantasy,
you set up characters

that are still involved
in the Spider-Man
mythos today.

Uncle Ben and Aunt May,

not a traditional take
on the familial upbringing.

Like, Peter Parker's
parents weren't around.

He was being raised
by Aunt and Uncle.
Why?

Well, I wanted
to give him a reason

to be a superhero.

In other words, even if
you get a superpower,

why are you gonna spend
your life risking your
life fighting crooks?

And you did
the sensible thing
in the story,

which most people
would, I think,
take upon themselves

if they were bitten
by a radioactive spider

and they were given
the abilities,

they wouldn't necessarily
think, "I'll fight crime."

They're like,
"I'm gonna make
some money off of this."

(CHUCKLING) That's sure
what I would do!

The first thing
I would do is...
Well, he's not around anymore.

I was gonna say I'd get on
The Ed Sullivan Show,

but I'd certainly wanna
get on Jay Leno or Letterman,

and I'd wanna be exploited
and get paid for it.

So I figured
if I made him a guy

who has to have
a reason, a motive,

if he could think that
he's responsible in a way
for the death of his uncle.

I mean, what a motive
that would be.

That's when
I wrote that line,

"With great power,
comes great responsibility."

And, um, I liked the idea
of his aunt as surviving

and making her
always ill, so that...

Because to keep
a story interesting,

one of the best things
you can do with a character

is put him in a position
where he has to make
a life choice.

For example,
if he goes north,

he can fight the villain
who is about to blow up
the world.

But if he heads south,
he can reach a drugstore

which has the life-saving
medicine that his aunt needs
within the next hour.

Now, he can't do both.

Is he gonna let
the world get blown up,

or is he gonna
let his aunt die?
What does he do?

When you can get
situations like that,

you know you're gonna
hold the reader's interest.

So, by him having
an ailing aunt,

I always had an excuse
for him not to be able
to just get out there

and fight the crooks
without a care in the world,

but he always
had that worry:
"Is Aunt May okay?"

Another thing
that you always
think about is,

"Why doesn't a superhero
tell the world
he's a superhero

"and bask
in the adulation?"

Well, I had to
give him a reason.

His aunt,
who had a weak heart,

he's the only relative
she has left, her nephew.

She loves him.
He's her world.
She worries about him.

She makes him put on
galoshes if it looks
like it's gonna snow,

and so forth.

How could he tell her he's
Spider-Man, who's out there
risking his life?

So again,
he has a problem.

He must never let
his aunt know.

I think that worked out
best in one story
that we did

where one of his main
villains, Doc Ock,
Doctor Octopus,

develops a relationship
with Aunt May.

Aunt May kind of gets
a crush on him.

Peter Parker knows
that Doc Ock is a villain,

but Doc Ock doesn't know
Peter Parker is Spider-Man.

Aunt may invites
him to her house.

There is Peter sitting
with his most deadly villain,

but he can't say anything.

And he doesn't even
want to hurt Doc Ock,

'cause it would
break Aunt May's heart.

I mean, my God, that's
something that the old Russian
novelists would have loved.

Right, right. Deep pathos.
Talking about Doc Ock,

where does a character
like Doc Ock come from?

Is it first the name,
and you're like,

"Well, we'll find a guy
to live into the name"?

Or is it the idea
of the dude with the arms,

and then, "Ooh,
I know. 'Doc Ock.'"

Exactly. Once you have
your superhero, you're set.

But the big problem is,
every month coming up
with a new villain.

It occurred to me
a guy with tentacles
that are like arms

would be great.

So, the obvious name,
it didn't take very long,

was to call him Doc...
Oh, and they're always
scientists.

They have to be scientists,
or else how the hell did
they invent this thing?

So he was a doctor,
or it could have been
a professor.

But in fact, I might have
thought professor first,

but then I thought,
"Doctor Octopus."

And then I thought,
"'Doc Ock.' What a
perfect nickname."

It couldn't have
been "Prof. Ock."
It wouldn't have sat.

So that's why he was a doctor
and not a professor.

So, I came up with
the name Doctor Octopus,
as we just mentioned.

I love nicknames.
For instance, Spider-Man,
I called him "Spidey."

Nobody ever called
Batman "Batty,"

they never called
Superman "Supie,"

they called him "Supes,"
which I never felt
was a great nickname.

I love calling Iron Man
"Shellhead,"

Thor, "Goldilocks."

Captain America
was Winghead...

Daredevil
was Hornhead.

Oh, yeah, Daredevil
was called Hornhead,
and, um...

I always felt the readers
would understand.

It's not that they would
think you didn't take your
characters seriously,

but, you were being realistic.
You knew them well enough
to give them a nickname.

Last year, or
two years ago,

Marvel kind of broke
their bad streak
of movie properties.

For a while, DC, and
through Warner Brothers,

had Batman.
Well, before Batman,
Superman,

and I always felt
that they didn't
even have properties

that lent themselves
to cinema
as much as Marvel did.

Marvel's set being
very science-fiction
oriented,

perfect movies on the page,
you know, no-brainers.

And for a while,
Marvel couldn't
make that happen.

Then Bryan Singer's X-Men
kind of punched through
in a big, big way,

and for years,
Spider-Man was held up
in legal limbo.

James Cameron was gonna
do a movie at one point
with Leonardo DiCaprio,

and finally, this year
we're gonna see
the Spider-Man movie,

which, some would say,
is about 20 years
in the making.

People have been
waiting for the
Spider-Man movie.

That's gotta jazz you.

Oh, it more than jazzes me.
It's almost unbelievable.

I don't think there's
ever been a time

when the product
of one company is
gonna be represented

so much in movies.
I mean...

You know,
starting with Blade,

that was really the
first one that did well.

That's true,
that's true.

Obviously,
X-Men was a huge hit.

Well, they're working
on the sequel to X-Men now,

and on the third issue,
on the third movie.

Spider-Man will open up.
They're already planning
the sequel to that.

Daredevil,
I think, will be...

No, The Hulk will be next.
Then comes Daredevil.

Daredevil first,
then Hulk.

Is that how it is?
Daredevil then Hulk?
Okay.

Then there's, I think,
Ghost Rider is in the works.

Iron Man is in the works,
and it goes on and on.

It's a great time to be
a Marvel fan if you're
into movies as well.

Oh, man, yeah.
And the beautiful
thing is,

today there is nothing
that you can imagine

that can't be
put on the screen.

So these can all be
big-budget, powerful movies.

And I think that Blade,

and certainly X-Men
done by Bryan Singer,

have proven it's possible
to not only get
the young fans,

but get adults,
people who just go
to see a good movie,

Absolutely.

So, I'm hoping,
and I'm sure they will,

that the movies done
of the Marvel characters

will be done in a good,
adult way, you know?

So, besides all
the colorful stuff,

which we know people
will go to see,

there'll be solid stories,
with solid characters
and solid characterization,

'cause I think
that's what Marvel
has always been about.

Now, the fact that
they stay very close
to the comic as well,

in terms of origins,
characters,

they don't take
a character
and keep the name

and get rid of everything
else and kind of revamp
or redo,

or present something
that readers wouldn't be
familiar with in the movie,

that has to do something
for you as well.

You've seen
the Spider-Man movie,

and you're watching
your creation played out

pretty much
as you wrote it way back
when you did Amazing Fantasy.

It's really an indescribable
feeling that you get.

I mean, you look
at that and you say,

"Hey! That's mine!"
It's nice.

Especially, when you
see it so well done.

So if there's anything
that's gonna keep

Spider-Man, the movie,
the new movie,

from making 200, 300,
400 million bucks,

it's the fact that your
cameo has been cut out.

Yeah, they had
this big chance
for immortality,

and I ended up on
the cutting room floor.

The story
of your life.

I was selling sunglasses
in the street in this scene,
in Times Square.

You know, these peddlers,
they have a little flat
suitcase,

they open it up with four legs
and they're in business.

There was a little girl
standing next to me,

I'm trying the glasses on her,
and Peter Parker walks by.

So, I take the glasses
and I go, "Hey, would you
like a pair of these?

"They're the kind
they wore in the X-Men."

I think that would've
gotten the greatest
laugh in the world.

Maybe they ended up
not wanting that laugh,
I don't know.

At any rate, after that,

the Green Goblin comes in
and drops a bomb

and everybody runs
like crazy, including me.

After the scene was shot,
I said to Sam...

The director, Sam Raimi.
I said, "Sam, you know,

"I don't like the way
that makes me look.

"I mean, I'm leaving
that little girl,
running for my life.

"I should carry her
with me, you know?

"Like I'm a hero
or something."

So, Sam said,
"Okay, we'll do it again."

So, we take a second take,
the bomb drops,
I grab the girl,

I start to lift her,
I start to lift her,

I try to lift her,

I cannot lift her.

(LAUGHING)
She's too heavy!

She's only about 12-years-old,
I couldn't lift her!

All of a sudden
Sam yells, "Cut!"

And I thought he said
one of the funniest lines.

He said, "Stan,
if we do it your way,

"this is gonna be
a mini-series."

(BOTH LAUGHING)

So, we ended up
shooting it again,

where I just take her
by the hand and run out.

Anyway, I thought
that line about,

"Would you like to buy these?
They're like the kind
they wore in the X-Men,"

that would make the movie!

Like the Superman movie,
where he walked
into the phone booth

and he couldn't change,
and everybody remembered that.

Now, Spider-Man's
gone through

a bunch of different
incarnations outside
of comics.

Most people, of course,
remember the early '60s
cartoon with the theme song,

¶ Spider-Man
Spider-Man ¶

And all that artwork
is based heavily on
the comic book artwork.

Yeah.

They were almost
cutouts, and they'd
move the mouths only,

but it looked
very much like...

That was very high-tech
in those days.

Very high-tech.

But anyone who grew up
in the late '70s,
early '80s, like myself,

and watched Saturday
morning cartoons

can close their eyes
and recognize you
as the voice

that narrated Spider-Man
and his Amazing Friends.

That unmistakable,
legendary voice.

Now, that's
the funniest thing,
'cause...

My voice must
sound different

to other people
than it sounds to me.

To me, it's a voice,
a guy from New York.

It's a sexy voice.

Oh, I like that.

But, just the other day,
I was in an elevator,

going in an office building
and guy next to...

I was talking to
the fellow next to me.

Another man standing there
said, "Aren't you Stan Lee?"

I said,
"How do you know?"

He said,
"I recognized your voice."

I said, "From where?"

He said,
"From the cartoons."

Now, that absolutely
floored me,

and it's happened
to me a few times.

I mean, I guess my...

Why doesn't my wife
react that way?

She never thought
it was the sexiest voice
in the world.

How long have
you been married?

Fifty-four years.

She must
like something
about the voice.

Give me a little
more time.

How did you get
into Spider-Man and
his Amazing Friends?

Did they approach you
and say, "We want you
to be the narrator"?

I imagine so.
It was so long ago,

but, as you know,
I'm not shy about the...

I might very well...

You're no press whore,
you. I mean...

I might just very well
have said, "Hey, guys,

"you're gonna need a narrator!
How about me?"

Right.

So, in the movie,
aside, of course,

from Spider-Man
and the Green Goblin
characters you created,

Mary Jane
you created as well?

Right.

Watching that character
go from the page
to the screen...

Let's take her
back to the page.

Where did the notion
of Mary Jane come from?

Why Mary Jane? Why...

Were you responsible
for the issue

of "Face it, tiger.
You hit the jackpot"?

I think that was one
of the best last panels
that I had ever done.

In that story,
until you actually
see her face,

she's always hidden
by a flowerpot
or a hand.

See, what happened again,
in trying to keep it
realistic,

most kids, most boys,

don't particularly
want to meet a girl

whom their mother
or aunt recommends.

Was gonna set them
up with, right.

And especially, if they...
"Oh, she's a very nice girl."

Guys usually run a mile.

Well, I kept this going
for a long time.

In the series, Aunt May
wanted Peter to meet

her neighbor's daughter,
Mrs. Watson's daughter.

"Oh, she's a very
nice girl, Peter.
I know you'll like her."

And Peter did everything
he could to avoid her.

In the story where
they finally meet,

in the last panel
of that story,

I have the bell ring
or something,
I don't remember,

and he opens the door,
and the last panel,

John Romita drew
the most beautiful girl
you could imagine.

And I have her looking
at Peter and saying,

"Face it, tiger.
You just hit the jackpot."

I mean, I was so
proud of myself.

"You just hit the jackpot."

A funny thing
about Mary Jane,

originally there was
a girl named Gwen Stacy

before Mary.

I had wanted Gwen
to be the one

that Peter would
get serious with,

and she was
as beautiful as...

John can't not...
He can't draw girls
who aren't beautiful.

She was a dream.

Blonde, tall,
gorgeous figure
and so forth.

Mary Jane was a redhead.

And the only thing is,

after we had Gwen
for a while in the series,

I said, "We ought
to get another girl
to play against Gwen

"to get some reason
for jealousy,
a little friction."

A little Betty
and Veronica
kind of stuff.

Yeah. Gotta
have friction.

So, I said,
"Let's get Mary Jane in
to make her..."

I don't know,
where the name...

Oh, a funny thing
about Mary Jane!

I was told later,
"How did you get away
with using that name?

"It's the name
for marijuana."

I never knew that!
I had no idea!

And her nickname,
'cause I told you
I like nicknames,

I called her "M.J."

They said, "That's how
they refer to marijuana!"
I was embarrassed.

And Spider-Man
was real into M.J.

(LAUGHS)
Oh, yeah! Right!

Anyway, so what happened was
I said, "Let's make Mary Jane
different from Gwen.

"Gwen is sweet
and lovable and nice.

"Let's make Mary Jane hip,
and cool, and with it,

"and a party girl,
a fun girl..."
You know, a swinger.

And we did.

And somehow, I found
I enjoyed writing
Mary Jane's dialogue

a million times better.

Sure, there's
some edge to it.

Gwen was
just a nice girl.

Mary Jane had
a personality.

So, at one point...

Gwen's father was
a police captain,

and, again,
I'm always trying
to throw surprises in.

I decided,
"Let's kill him.

"And really, we'll kill
a character,

"and do it in
a dramatic way."

I had... I think it was
the Green Goblin,
I'm not sure,

was fighting
with the police captain
and killed him.

Spider-Man was trying
to save the captain,
so he was on the scene.

When the captain died,
the Goblin, if it was
the Goblin, had left,

and everybody
saw Spider-Man
with Captain Stacy

and thought Spider-Man
had killed Stacy,

'cause I felt, "That's gonna
cause such a beautifully
dramatic problem."

Peter Parker was about
to propose to Gwen.

How could he propose
to a girl who would
find out he's Spider-Man

when she thought Spider-Man
had killed her father?

So, I loved
that situation.

And there's that really
beautiful moment, too,

where Captain Stacy kind
of knows that Spider-Man
is Peter Parker,

Right.

That's right.
But, of course,
she never heard that.

Powerful stuff, but
she doesn't hear that.

But that's
powerful stuff,

and that's not stuff
necessarily written
for a kid.

Well, I never wrote for kids.
I wrote for me.

Right.
Right, right.

Later, when Gerry Conway
took over the series, he...

I don't remember this,
but he says he asked me

if it would be okay
to kill Gwen also,
and he said I said yes.

He's probably right,
'cause I have a lousy memory.

But I shouldn't
have said yes,

'cause I was away
on a trip.

When I came back,
I read Spider-Man,

I see that Gwen Stacy
had been killed.

And I said, "It's gonna
look like we had something

"against the Stacy family.
What are you doing?"

But, anyway, it was done
and that was it, so...

And she's one
of the only comic
characters to stay dead.

You know, most comic
characters die, and then,
sooner or later,

come back in one
incarnation or another.

She stayed dead.

There was one story
where she came back

and she was a clone,
but it wasn't Gwen.

She stayed dead,
which is pretty good
for comics.

When you kill somebody,
you got to keep them dead.

(LAUGHS)
Right.

Another immortal character
in the Spider-Man mythos
is J. Jonah Jameson.

Oh, I loved him.

Where does
J. Jonah come from?

You know who
J. Jonah Jameson was?

He was me.

He was irascible,
he was bad-tempered,
he was dumb,

he thought he was
better than he was...

He was the version
that so many people
had of me, anyway.

Right, right.

And I always wanted
to play him in the movie.

I was so sorry
that, by the time
the movie was made,

I'm too old
to play the role.

Well, I don't really
think I'm too old,
but obviously they did.

Right.

And the guy who's
playing it in the
movie is wonderful.

He did it better
than I could have done.

And that's very high
praise from me.

That's saying a lot
from you, yeah.

Anyway, I wanted Peter
to have a freelance job,

not a staff job anywhere,
not a steady job,

'cause I wanted him free
to do his spideying.

So, I figured a freelance
newspaper photographer.

And then, it occurred to me.
"I'm gonna make the guy
he works for..."

In Superman, there was
Perry White or somebody...

Perry White.
He was the editor.

Who was probably
a nice enough guy.

I didn't want this guy
to be a nice guy.

I wanted him
to hate Spider-Man,

'cause I liked
the irony of the fact

that he has Spider-Man
working for him,

and he hates Spider-Man,
yet, he always wants to get
pictures of Spider-Man,

'cause he sells papers.

Also, in those days,
that was when there were
hippies and so forth,

I wanted him
to hate teenagers.

'Cause to Jameson,
every teenager

was a long-haired
commie "prevert" hippie.
You know?

So, I got a lot
of fun out of that.

He hated Peter Parker,
he hated Spider-Man,
Peter had to work for him.

Jameson wasn't a villain.
He wasn't bad.

He was just a bigot,

he was ill-tempered,
he was... We all know
guys like him.

And, as counterpoint
to Jameson,

I wanted to get...
I got a guy,

Robbie Robertson,
who was a black editor,

and I wanted him to be
the voice of reason
on the newspaper.

He really
carried the paper.

He pacified Jameson.

And I also wanted
the reader to suspect

that Robbie suspected
that Peter was Spider-Man,

but would never say anything.

to ever make that
connection himself.

Again,
and you'd understand this
as well as anybody,

by having a family
in a strip,
people you know,

you know their personality,
you know their character,
you know...

Then you know
how they would talk, you know
what they would do.

And to use that old cliche,
which isn't true,

the stories almost
write themselves.

Exactly.

I got a letter once from the
Office of Health, Education
and Welfare in Washington.

And they said, "Mr. Lee,

"recognizing the influence
of your comics,"
blah, blah, blah,

"and drugs
are a big problem,

"if you could do
an anti-drug story,
we'd appreciate it."

Well, who am I
not to obey the edict
of HEW?

So, I did
a three-issue series,
and it wasn't preachy,

but it had to do
with a friend of Spidey's,

I forget who it was,
had taken too much
of something.

I don't know anything
about drugs,

so I just said he
overdosed on something.

And he was on the edge
of the roof and thought
he could fly.

And Spider-Man
rescues him and says,

"You're a jerk
for doing that."
That type of thing.

And it was part
of a bigger story,
with a villain and so forth.

So, it didn't look
like we were preaching.

It was just an
incident in a story.

We then had
the Comic Code
Administration,

where they were
censoring all the comics.

They sent the book
back and said,

"You can't
publish this book."

They said, "We won't put
our seal of approval on it."

I said, "Why not?"

They said, "Well,
you're mentioning drugs."

I said, "We're not telling
kids to take drugs!"

And I said, "I was asked
to do this by a branch
of the Federal Government."

"Sorry, you can't do it."

Well, it's one time
when I was very proud
of my publisher.

I said, "Martin, you know,
I want to put these books
out anyway."

And he said,
"Well, go ahead
and do it, Stan."

And we put them out
without the seal,

they sold beautifully,
we got letters from
church groups,

parent-teacher's...
Everybody loved it.

And a funny thing
happened there, too.

The New York Times
gave it a good write-up.

Now, as you probably know,
when The New York Times
has a feature story,

other papers
around the country
usually pick up on it.

Well, I would get clippings
from the other papers.

But what they would do,
so often they would
headline their story,

something like, um,
"Marvel Comics Drug Issue
Causes Controversy."

And in looking
at the headline,

you would think that
we were pushing drugs.

So, I learned that there's
no good you can do

that doesn't turn
into something you're
embarrassed by later.

This is just stuff.
I don't know, it's...

We didn't have any place
to put these things.

Those various collectibles
are based on characters
you've created?

Yeah.

Is that supposed
to be a Stan Lee
action figure?

(LAUGHS) Yeah!
How about that?

And somebody
did a bust over there.

It's awful when you're
easy to caricature.

You know, that kind
of worries you a little bit,

but what are you
gonna do?

It's really Joan's world,
and you just live in it.

That was me
at the Hulk set.

With the
Thor episode.

That's right,
it was the Thor
episode. Yeah.

Now this,
the painting
over here,

the kind of Warholian
treatment of an image,

where did that image
first appear?

It's very famous,
you staring at
Spider-Man.

It first appeared
in that painting.

And then,
what I did,

I took a lot of
black-and-white
photos of that,

just 8-by-10 or so,

and I use those if
anybody ever wants
an autographed photo.

But I love that.

Done by a fellow
named Steve Kaufman,

who used to work
for Andy Warhol,

and he silk-screens
these things.

It looks like I'm
really being tough
with Spider-Man.

(LAUGHING)
Right.

Which I wouldn't
dare to be.

SMITH: Over here on the wall
is a framed Christmas card
from Bob Kane.

Bob Kane and I were
very close friends.

And, you know,
he was a funny guy.

He's the exact opposite
of me in one respect.

If I'm out in public
and somebody
recognizes me,

it embarrasses me
a little.

Bob and I would
go out to dinner

and when the waiter
brought the menu over,
the first thing he'd say,

"Do you know who I am?
I created Batman."

But he was so
nice about it.

He'd always say to
the waiter, "Come here,
I want to draw a sketch."

And on a napkin
he'd do a Batman

and autograph it
and give it to everybody
he met, you know?

So, now, years later,
you got to do your rendition
of his character

with the DC Just Imagine
Stan Lee Creating series.

Not really.
Just my rendition of
the name that he used,

'cause it
was a totally
different...

I wouldn't ever try
to improve on anything
he had done.

I just...
Just did a totally
different one.

And the idea,
the genesis of the project
was what? Who came...

Did you go to them
or they come to you?

No, no, no. I would never
have dared to suggest
anything like that.

A fellow I know
named Mike Uslan,

who's very
intimately
connected...

In fact, he's one
of the producers...

One of the producers
of the Batman series.

And he and I have
known each other
for a long time.

And he said,
"Stan, how would you
like to do your version

"of DC's
top characters?"

(LAUGHS) And I said,
"Yeah, fat chance."

He said, "But if
you had a chance,
would you do it?"

Nobody could turn down
a thing like that.

Came back a few
weeks later,

and he said
that Jeanette Kahn
and Paul Levitz,

who were running
the company,

they thought
it would be a great idea
and wanted me to do it.

And first thing I thought
is, "What am I getting
myself into?"

So, it became
a 12-issue set.

I've already done 10.
I have two more to go.

And the thing
I worried about, mostly,

was fans of
the characters.

You know, wouldn't they
resent me having
the temerity to say,

"Oh, I'm gonna do
my own version of it."

But they're buying it,
and they seem to like it,
and it's fun.

It was definitely
a project that garnered
a lot of attention, too,

when they announced it,
because, you know,
the big to-do

of the man who created
Marvel, essentially,

coming over to DC
to do them justice as well.

And the funny thing is,
I think a lot of the
versions that we did

I think would make
good movies.

Now, they're gonna
have a big problem.

"Well, how can
we make a movie
out of this version

"when we have
the other version?"

But I don't have
to make that decision.

Right. It's out
of your hands.

You know, I always
loved advertising.

I always wanted to be
in the advertising business.

And I thought calling us
"The House of Ideas"
was a good phrase.

Calling The Fantastic Four
"The world's greatest
comics magazine"

was a good phrase.

And "Make mine Marvel"
wasn't too shabby.

All those things.
I love slogans.

Of the many things
you're remembered for,

of creating
a modern mythology
that still exists today

and will exist forever,
for as far as we know,

of bringing Marvel
to where it is today,

of giving the world
Spider-Man, The Hulk,

the X-Men, Daredevil,
Iron Man, the list goes
on and on.

Um, one of your
unsung attributes,

what I think
is wonderful about
your personality

or the thing that
kind of defines you,
are the Stan-isms.

The "'Nuff said."

You know,
the "true believer."

Um, but probably best
well-known is your
sign-off, "Excelsior."

Where does that
come from?

(LAUGHS) Well,
the ones you quoted,

"'Nuff said," and then
I had "Face front"...

These are ways
I used to sign my editorials.

I'd say, "Face front,"
"Stand,"

or "'Nuff said,"
or, "Hang loose."

And I had others
that I've since forgotten.

But I found that some
of the competitive magazines

were starting to use
my expressions.

Especially "'Nuff said."

And that annoyed me.

So, I said, "I've got
to come up with an expression

"that A: they won't
know what it means,

"and B: they won't
know how to spell it."

And I thought of "Excelsior,"
because it's a...

It's the slogan
for New York State,

the official seal
of New York State.

But, also, I had read that
in books of legends.

It's an old
English expression

that means,
"Upward and onward
to greater glory."

Well, what could
be better than that?

Unfortunately,
in the dictionary,

it has a meaning
that they print first.

Excelsior is what they use
to stuff packages with.

You know, those shavings
so a thing won't rattle
and get broken?

So, very often,
I get letters saying,

"How come you sign everything
with 'package stuffing'?"

And I'd have to write back,
"Read the second definition
in the thing."

But I love the word,
and in fact,

it might even be
a great way to close
this little interview.

Give it to them.
You know what they want.

All right, here we go.
Are you ready?

Excelsior!

(LAUGHING)

So, 60 years, plus,
of comics work.

Where does
it all begin?

I guess it all began when
I first walked into the
offices of what was then

Timely Comics.

Of course, had I known then
what I know now,
I might never have gone in.

Right, right.

I should have gone
into the offices of
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.

Or Warner Brothers.
But who knew?

No, no. And they needed you
in comics more than they
needed you in movies.

But let's go back
even before that.

Where were you
born originally?
Where were you from?

Oh, like everybody else.
New York City.

New York City.

It was the West Side,
I still remember,

East 98th Street
and West End Avenue.

You joined the service
at a certain point as well?

Yeah, I enlisted in, um...

I think '42 or '43
or something.
I was in for three years.

And I wanted to be a hero.
You know, I had written
about heroes.

And I saw myself winning
the war single-handedly.

They put me in the Signal
Corps, and I was supposed
to do wire repair.

I would have been the guy
who went overseas
and repaired...

Who climbed up
the telephone poles
or whatever,

and kept the wires going
for communication.

But before I could do that,
they found out I had written
comics.

And the next thing
I knew,

I was in the Training Film
Writing Division.

And I was the token
non-entity there,

'cause I was with people
like William Saroyan and
Frank Capra.

Jeez.

But they needed somebody
that was just a regular
person, I guess.

So, it was great.
A great experience.

I wrote a lot
of training films,

I wrote instructional manuals
for the troops and so forth,

and I drew cartoons
and posters.

When did you first
start writing, then?

'Cause it seems...
I mean, that is your
whole life, writing.

I was writing
when I was a kid.
I wrote compositions, and...

I used to win
little contests.

They had something called
"The Biggest News
of the Week Hunt"

at a newspaper,
The Herald Tribune.

It was for high school
students, and I entered it
three weeks in a row,

and I won it
three weeks in a row.

They asked me
to stop entering it.

The editor said,
"What do you want to be
when you become a person?"

And I said,
"I want to be an actor."

He said, "Don't be a schmuck,
you know, become a writer."

So, at what point did you
work on Captain America?
Prewar or postwar?

I worked on Captain America
prewar and I did them
postwar.

You know, I feel silly
doing what we're doing.

I mean, I should be
asking you questions.

No. I got nothing to say.

I mean, I can't wait
till you run out of stuff
so I can start asking you.

Then we'll go to me.
But in the meantime,
let's stick to you.

So, before the war,
you're working on
Captain America,

and Captain America
was a character
you didn't create

but you helped
define later on.

Joe Simon and Jack Kirby,
as they listed themselves,

they had created
Captain America.

And it was just becoming
really popular when I joined
the company,

and after a while,
when I had to have
some stories to write,

they started feeding
me Captain Americas.

I wrote quite
a few of them.

When I came back
after the war,

I guess I wrote some more...

I don't have the
world's greatest memory,
but at some point,

Captain America was not
as popular anymore

and they dropped
the character for a while.

And this is postwar?

Yeah, this was
after the war.

'cause you'd imagine
after the war there'd be
all this patriotism

and Captain America...

I think
once Hitler wasn't around
for Captain America to fight,

they ran out of stories.
I don't know.

But in the '60s,
when we started
the Marvel characters,

I had always loved
Captain America,
so I brought him back then.

Let's go back to...
When you first
enter comics,

superheroes
aren't in vogue.

It's more romance
and Westerns,
if I'm correct.

Well, actually,
when I entered comics,
there were superheroes,

but they weren't
as popular.

There was Captain America,
there was The Human Torch,
The Sub-Mariner,

so there were
superheroes.

As a matter of fact,
when I got into it,

Timely was
mostly superheroes.

It was later on...

See, what it was,
comics books
always followed trends.

For a couple of years,
it would be superheroes.

Then it would be
romance, or Westerns,
or animated characters.

I mean, one of my proudest
boasts is I created
Silly Seal and Ziggy Pig

with Al Jaffee,
who's one of Mad's top guys.

We were not very
creative in titles,

because our war magazines,
for example,

they had names like
Combat, Combat Kelly,
Combat Casey,

Battle, Battlefield,
Battleground,
Battle something else...

I'm sensing a theme.

And in the Romance books,
we had My Love,

Our Love, Your Love,
Their Love, My Romance,
Your Romance. It was...

We were in such a rut,
and we were real followers.

Whatever the trend was,
we would put out a lot
of books in that trend.

And that's how my publisher,
Martin Goodman,

who is a smart guy,
that's how he made his money.

He waited to see
what was selling,

and then he would
flood the market
with those kind of books,

And then I wanted to doim.
political and celebrities.,

So, I did a book
called You Don't Say!

and I had pictures
of movie actors
and politicians...

And a tragic thing
happened there, too.

That book would've been...

I would've given up the comics
and stayed with that.
It was incredibly successful.

Now, these are books
made of pictures,
real photos,

and then you would place
captions on them.

Right. And these
were magazine size.
They weren't comic book size.

I think they sold
for a quarter
or half a dollar then,

and in those days
that was like $3, $4 today.

And the third issue
of You Don't Say!

which was selling
fantastically,

I put Jack Kennedy
on the cover.

I still remember the gag.
He's making a speech,

and he's standing
in front of a railing,

and there was the big seal
of the President
of the United States

right in front of him
on the railing,

and behind him was
another seal

of the President
of the United States.

And he's standing there,
and he's like this,

and I put a dialogue
balloon over his head,

"Allow me to
introduce myself."

And it really...
It was great.

While the book was
on the presses,

he was assassinated.

Well, we couldn't
put the book out.

We killed it,
Martin lost a fortune,
and again,

I just lost the spirit
to do that sort of thing.

So, we gave
that book up.

So, now, at what
point do superheroes

kind of take hold
and become the norm,

as opposed
to just a trend?

I don't think
that happened until...

Really, until Marvel comics.

What happened was,
some time in the early '60s,

Martin Goodman was playing
golf with the publisher
of DC Comics.

I think they were called,
National Comics at the time.

They later changed
the name to DC.

And Marvel was still
Timely at this point.

And the publisher
said to Martin,

"You know, we've got
this new book,
the Justice League,

"and it's really selling well.
It's a bunch of superheroes."

Well, that's all
Martin had to hear.

He came back,
running back to me and said,

"Stan, we gotta put
out a bunch of heroes.

"You know,
there's a market for it."

It just happened
that at that time,
I wanted to quit.

After all these years,
I had made up my mind.
I'm not getting anywhere.

It's a stupid business
for a grownup to be in,

and I finally told my wife,
"Honey, I just want to quit
and do something else."

And how old were
you about at this point?

About 40.

I had been in it
too long, you know?

Oh, and the reason
I wanted to quit,

I felt we're writing nonsense.

I was told...
Martin always felt
that the books were read

only by young kids,
or adults who weren't
that intelligent.

So, he didn't like
me to use words

of more than two syllables
in the dialogue.

He didn't want
continued stories,

'cause the readers
wouldn't have brains enough

to remember from month...
And things like that.

Right.

I felt I was
writing trash.

Right, right, right.

Joanie said to me,
"If you're going
to quit anyway,

"why don't you do a book
the way you'd like to do it,

"and get it out
of your system?

"The worst that'll happen,
he'll fire you,
and you want to quit."

So, I figured, okay.
And I did that one book,
the Fantastic Four.

A bunch of superheroes,
but I tried to make them
different than the others.

For one thing,
they didn't have
double identities.

Your very first
superhero comic creation

that you created yourself,
not just a character
that you worked on,

but you came up
with them.

Well, I had done
others in the past,

but they're totally
unmemorable.

I mean, I don't even...
Names like the Destroyer,
Father Time...

I must have done
a hundred of them.

But they were nothing.

Yeah, the FF was
one of the Marvel ones.

What makes you put
those 4 particular
archetypes together,

and call them
the Fantastic Four?

I like to have characters
to work with,

as though it's a movie
or a soap opera

where the characters'
own personal lives

would help write the dialogue,
and come up with situations.

So, I thought
I'll get one of them...
You have to have a scientist.

He's the world's
greatest scientist,

but he's also
a little bit like me.
He talks too much.

He tends to be dull,
pedantic and boring.

And this gives the other guys
a chance to rib him,
you see?

So, I liked that.

I wanted to have a girl,
and I felt,

"Well, I don't want her
to be the usual girl.

"I want her to be
in love with the guy."

Also, she gets a superpower,
and that would be fun.
She's part of the team.

So she won't just be
a gal yelling help,

and the hero
has to save her.

I wanted to get a teenager,

but I didn't want
to get the typical
comic book teenager.

I wanted to get a guy
with his own superpower,
The Human Torch,

and I stole that
from Carl Burgos'
original Human Torch.

When I first went
to work for Marvel,

they had that character,
and I loved him.

And that was
from Marvel Comics,

back when they were Timely,
but the comic was actually
called Marvel Comics.

And he hadn't been used
for 20, 30, 40 years,
I don't know.

So, I didn't use
the same torch.

I used the name
and the power,
but I made him...

The original one
was an android

who was an adult
and a totally different guy.

I made this a teenager,
16-years-old,

who was Susan Storm's
brother.

And he didn't really
want to be a superhero.

He wanted to be
like you or I would be.

He wanted to be
out with the girls,

and driving a sports car
and, you know, living it up.

So, I thought
that was a nice touch.

Then the best one...

"The ever-loving
blue-eyed Thing."

Oh, yeah!
How I love the Thing.

I wanted somebody for humor,
and a little bit of pathos.

So, when they're clobbered
by cosmic rays,
they all get superpower,

but they can get
back to normal.

This guy turned into the
Thing ,and he couldn't
change back to Ben Grimm,

the normal pilot
he had been.

Kind of conceited
for a guy who's a monster.

He still thought
a lot of himself.

And he was always fighting
with the teenager.

The teenager would
give him a hotfoot,

he'd throw things
at the teenager,

and it was almost
like Abbott and Costello
or Laurel and Hardy.

I was able to get,
I think,

so much exciting comedy
in with the two of them,

and it balanced out
the seriousness of

having to save the world
from Doctor Doom all the time.

Now, Doctor Doom
is yours as well?

Oh, yeah,
Doctor Doom is my favorite
all-time villain.

Why so?

Well, first of all,
by making him
king of his own country.

I didn't know of any villain
who had ever been king
of his own country.

And, you know, it's funny,
I gave the country
the name Latveria.

I think it's the best name
I ever came up with,

'cause I've had people
look it up on a map.

I mean, it sounds
like a real country.

Yeah, like it exists.

Nothing sounds more like
a country than Latveria.

By being a king,
when he comes to America,
you can't arrest him.

He's got diplomatic immunity.

I love that.
Oh, and another thing

that I always got
a big kick out of.

You or I could
cross the street
against the light,

and a cop might stop us
and say, "You're jaywalking,"

and he might give us
a citation.

But you or I could do
what Doctor Doom does.

We could walk up
to a cop and say,

"Officer, we want
to conquer the world."

There's no crime.
You cannot be arrested for
wanting to conquer the world.

And that's all that
Doctor Doom wants.

So, he's the world's
biggest villain,
powerful, dangerous,

but all he wants
is to conquer the world.
That's not a crime.

There's no law on
the books for that one.

And even if it were,
you couldn't arrest him.

Jack Kirby used to
kid around with it.

Every so often, he would
draw a little sketch

of Doctor Doom
with his mask off,

and of course,
he always had my face.

Right, it was
Stan underneath.

Yeah, Doom was great.
And then I figured,
"Okay, that's it.

"I'm gonna get fired,
goodbye, I got it out
of my system."

The book sold great!

Martin asked me to do another,
and I figured,
"Well, I'm on a roll."

So I figured,
now I'm gonna make
a hero out of a monster.

And that was the Hulk.

I sort of was influenced
by Frankenstein.

You know,
the Boris Karloff movie?

Because in that movie,
I always thought the monster,
Karloff, was the good guy.

He didn't wanna
hurt anybody.

Those idiots with torches
were chasing him up
and down hills.

Right.
Misunderstood.

So I thought, "Let's make
him a lovable monster."

And then I always liked
Jekyll and Hyde.

So to keep to keep it in line
with the superhero formula,

I felt, "Let's give him
a double identity."

He's a monster, and he's
also a guy like Kevin Smith.

So we did that,
and that worked.

So then Martin said,
"Let's do another one."

And then the
rest is history.

SMITH: And how did Hulk
take off when it first
came out?

Very well.

People instantly
kind of got into it?

It's funny. It's almost
like there was something
in the air at that time.

It was like we could
do nothing wrong.

All of them became popular,
and all of them
seem to have lasted.

Characters like
the Fantastic Four
and the Hulk,

characters that are born
in the atomic age,

following the first
atom bomb, years after
the first atom bomb,

but in an age
of science and wonder,

where it... Look,
we've split an atom,
and look what it can do.

So, I've always felt
the Marvel characters

are characters that
are born in science.

Conversely,
the DC characters are
characters that are...

You know, Superman
comes from another planet,

and Wonder Woman
is a Greek goddess,

and Batman
was born in tragedy,

but the Marvel characters
have always been
very scientifically bent,

very science-fiction
oriented.

Where did that
come from?

Well, I gotta tell you,
it's an anomaly.

I love science fiction,

but nobody knows less
about science than I do.

And all I did,
'cause I'm lazy,
I took the easy way out.

I figured, "Well, the guy
has to become the Hulk
in some way.

"Let him be hit
by a gamma bomb."

Now, I wouldn't know
a gamma ray from an eggplant,

but it sounded good,
"a gamma bomb."

And I don't know much
about radiation,

but with Spider-Man,
I figured he'd been bit
by a radioactive spider,

and now I can get on
with the story.

Certainly with
the Fantastic Four,

I figured out they'll
be hit by cosmic rays.

I don't know
what a cosmic ray is.

Right, right, right.

But it sounded...
See, to me, things just
have to sound good.

I guess I'm the biggest
phony in the world, really,
and, um...

Well, to give you
an example, though,

I may be selling myself short,
'cause I may have some...

Some subtle scientific
leanings that I'm not
even aware of.

You know our character
Thor, the God of Thunder?

Yes.

I wanted him to be able
to fly through the sky,

but not like Superman,
who, to me,

has no visible means
of propulsion.

He just flies.

But I wanted to be
purely scientific,

so I gave him
this big hammer,

and I had it fastened by
a leather thong to his wrist.

Now, when he wanted to fly,
he'd swing that hammer
around.

And just propel himself up.

Then let it go.
It would fly through the air,

and, being tied to his wrist,
it would drag him with it.
Purely scientific...

SMITH:
So, it kinda makes sense.
There's a logic to it.

Sure. So I may have
sold myself short

when I said I'm not
scientifically inclined.

The hammer is...
A lot of people can never
pronounce the hammer.

Mjolnir?

But the people who can't
pronounce it correctly

don't have to be
concerned about it,

'cause I think my brother
Larry made that up,

and it's just a made-up word,
so feel free to pronounce it
any way you want.

Your brother wrote
for comics as well?

Oh, yeah.
Yeah, he was quite good.

In the beginning,
if I came up with the
idea for some things

like I did for Thor,

I didn't have time
to write the actual scripts.

I would tell Larry
what I want,
and he wrote the scripts.

They worked out fine.

Now, that... Some people
refer to that or it's been

referred to
as the Marvel method
for many, many years

where somebody will
come up with a story,

and basically tell the artist
what's gonna happen,

an artist
will go draw it,

and then the dialogue
man comes in later on,

and adds the story,
the text.

That's what you guys
created and did for
many years.

That is probably
my proudest creation,

and it happened
purely through need.

What happened was,
in the beginning,

I was writing almost all
the stories for Marvel,

and I couldn't keep up.

And the artists
were freelance,

which meant they only
got paid per page.

If they drew a page,
they got paid.
They weren't on salary.

So, let's say Jack Kirby
was drawing a script,

and I was writing a script
for Steve Ditko,

and then John Buscema
would come in and say,
"Stan, I need a script."

I couldn't stop
what I was doing for Ditko,

but I had to give
Buscema a script,

'cause if he didn't have one,
he's not making money.

So I would say, "Look,
Steve, I don't have time
to write your script,

"but here's
the story I want."

And I would tell him
generally what I wanted.

He would go home and draw it
any way he wanted,

bring the illustrations
back to me,

and then I would put in
the dialogue and the captions.

Now, it started
as an emergency measure.

It was the only way
to keep these guys busy.

But I realized you
get better stories
that way, because...

Very collaborative.

I was so lucky.
I had the best artists
you could ever imagine.

Jack Kirby, Steve Ditko,
John Romita,

John Buscema, Gene Colan,
and on and on. Gil Kane.

These guys thought
like movie directors,

and they were really
visual storytellers.

They were writers
in their own way.

So when I would
give them a plot,

they knew how
to break it down.

They knew how to begin it,
how to end it,

where to put
the interesting parts in.

If they didn't,

I could help in my
writing in this way.

If I found that
there was a page

or some panels that
looked a little dull,

I'd add a lot of dialogue
and sound effects,

and whatever I could
to jazz up the page.

If the artwork was incredibly
absorbing and exciting,

I put as little dialogue
as possible.

So, in a way, I tried
to make the dialogue balloons

part of the artwork,
you know, to give it
the look I wanted.

I loved making up
sound effects.

One of my favorites
was "kbooom" or something.

K-b-o-o-o-m.

And I had a little asterisk
at the end of it
with a caption that said,

"Obviously,
the third 'o' is silent."

I used to love
putting in little,

important scholarly
notes like that.

Our company isn't
what it used to be.
We now have fans.

It's a whole new thing,
and I felt we ought
to change the name,

and change it to Marvel
because the first book
that Martin ever published

when I came to work there
was called Marvel Comics.

So, just out of sentiment,
I called it Marvel.

Now, did you become
Editor in Chief while Martin
was still around, still alive?

Oh, I had always been.
When Joe Simon
and Jack Kirby left,

when I was about
17-years-old,

Martin needed somebody
to replace them.

It was a small company.
It was really Joe and Jack.

So, he said to me,
"Can you handle
being the Editor

"while I look
for a real person?"

And when you're 17,
what do you know?
I said, "Sure! I can do it."

He must've forgotten
all about it,

'cause I stayed
there ever since.

So, I functioned as Editor,
Art Director, and Head Writer.

Now, when you
become Publisher

and kind of turn over
the writing reigns,

how involved do you
stay at that point?

Are you still looking
over scripts

or looking over
the artwork still?

I have a theory.

When you work
with artists and writers,

any kind of creative people,

you get their best work

if you let them do it
the way they want to do it.

Now, they have
to be talented.

If they're not
talented, forget it.

But you get a guy with talent,
you can't tell him too much.

You can't say,
"You don't do it this way.
Do it that way."

You gotta let him
do it his way.

Now, maybe that was
an excuse for me being lazy,

but I pretty much tried
to keep hands-off

'cause, again,
as I say, I was lucky.

I had built up
the greatest staff

of artists and writers
you could find anywhere.

And that was traditionally
referred to as the
Silver Age,

but really was
a golden age of comics.

It was for me.

And this was the period
before TV kind of takes over

as much as it
eventually does,

and long before
the video game,
long before the internet.

So, kids are still
reading comics like mad,

and you are the ambassador
of comics at that point

even to this day, of course,
but at that point,

I'm a kid in the '70s,

you know Stan Lee.

Because if you go
to a comic book show

or if you read
the Marvel Bullpen,
Stan's Soapbox,

you were everywhere.
You're the face of comics.

It's fair to say
that you're the most
well-known person

in comics to people
in the comics audience

and people well outside
the comics audience.

Well, you know, it's funny,
at one point,

I guess they didn't know
what else to do with me.

But I was made
the President of Marvel.

And I thought,
"Oh, wow, President!

"Now I'll really be
able to do things
the way I want to do them."

Didn't work out that way.
I found that
all that I was doing

was going
to financial meetings,

and I had to come up
with what they call
"3 year plans,"

5 year plans
for the business.

I'm a guy who doesn't know
what I'm gonna have
for lunch the same day,

and I had to have
a 3 year plan.

And I suddenly realized
I am doing something

that millions of people
can do better than I can do,
which is financial stuff,

and the thing
I enjoyed doing,

the creative stuff,
I'm not doing anymore.

So, as you can well imagine,
I didn't stay President
very long.

I gave that up
pretty fast, yeah.

One other thing
that I think Marvel did,

and did very well,

I tried to make the readers
feel they're more
than just casual readers,

but we're all part
of a family,

we're all part
of an inner group,

we're having fun,
and the outside world
isn't aware of it.

And I tried doing that
with the Soapbox
column I wrote,

with the Bullpen page.

Very much so.
You kind of
lifted the curtain

between audience
and the creators

and said, "This is
what it's like here.
Check it out."

It invites the audience in,
and it does kind of create
a familial feeling about it.

And they'll follow you
to the ends of the earth.

I did that
very consciously.

You know, before Marvel,
as far as I know,

no other comic company
played up who wrote the story,

who drew it,
who lettered it,
who edited it.

Maybe this is why I'm
so impressed with you.

I mean, there are
a lot of reasons.
I love movies.

You are such a fantastic
movie-maker.

Thank you.

I wanted to make
the comics seem

to be like movies
as much as possible.

And I thought why not
have screen credits?

So, I started listing
"Written by Stan Lee,
drawn by Jack Kirby."

Then I thought why not
make it even warmer
and more friendly?

So it was suddenly
written by "Smilin' Stan,"

by "Jolly Jack,"
by "Sturdy Steve Ditko."

I think he probably
always hated that.

(SMITH LAUGHING)

John Romita, I called
him "Jazzy Johnny Romita,"

and then sometimes
"Johnny Ring-a-Ding Romita."

I'm sure he hated it,
but, well, I was the Editor,
I did it.

So, by giving
everybody nicknames
and putting their names there,

and by writing the Soapbox
and the Bullpen Bulletins

and even with the mail,
we were the first, I believe,
to have letters pages.

The other companies
did it, too.

But when, for example,
DC would get a fan letter,

the letter would be printed,
and it would say something
like, "Dear Editor,

"I didn't like this story,"

or, "I did like this story,"
Blah, blah, blah.
"Signed, Charles Brown."

And the answer would be,
"Dear Charles,
thank you for your letter.

"Sincerely, the Editor."
Something like that.

If I got the same letter,

I would cross out
the word editor

and I'd print it,
it would say "Dear Stan,"

and for the signature
if it was Charlie Brown,

I'd cross out Charles Brown,
I'd write Charlie,

and in my answer, I'd make
some sort of a gag, you know?

"Hey, glad you wrote.
We thought we didn't
have any readers.

"Now we know we have one."
Anything that was a gag.

So, it was a little thing,

but it was trying to give
a feeling of warmth,
a feeling of friendliness.

Don't call me Editor.
Call me Stan.

And I don't want
to call you Joe.

I want to call you Joey.
You know, whatever it is.

And it seemed to work.
Then we had a club.

I decided we had
so many fans,

'cause we were now getting
a lot of fan mail.

Let's form a club.

So, again, I didn't want
to do it an ordinary way,

so I started it out
as a contest.

I wrote that
we're having a club,

and that the name,
the initials
of the club's name

would be M.M.M.S.

And I would keep this up
in the Bullpen Bulletin page,

and I said we'll give a prize
for whoever guesses the name.

And I ran this thing
for months giving clues,

finally we announced
it was the Merry Marvel
Marching Society.

We didn't know
where we were marching to,
but we were on the way.

And it's fresh on my mind
'cause a fan sent me

a CD yesterday
that I listened to,
of a record that we did.

Those who joined the club...

In those days, for a penny
or less than a penny each,

you could make
a little plastic record.

I marched the whole bullpen
to a recording studio,

and we tried to be funny
for a few minutes.

The corniest thing
you ever heard,

and I'm talking to
Jack Kirby and Artie Simek

and Sol Brodsky
and all the guys.

We were all trying
to upstage each other.

It was ridiculous,
but the fans loved it.

They were listening
to the voices

of the people whose stuff
they had been reading.

It's like a forerunner
of the DVD commentaries

and behind-the-scenes
stuff, yeah.

And then, this fellow
on the record,

he sent me something I forgot.
We had a song.

¶ March along
March along

¶ March along
March along

¶ With The Merry Marvel
Marching Society

¶ You'll belong
You'll belong ¶

On and on.

¶ And stand
A little straighter

¶ Walk a little prouder

¶ Be a something,
Be an innovator

¶ Talk a little louder

¶ And where will
you be then?

¶ You'll belong
You'll belong ¶

It went on and on.

You missed
your calling.

I mean, clearly.

Another thing that set
Marvel apart from,

you know, our distinguished
competition if you will,

was continuity.

That's something that you
guys firmly established
before DC did.

Some stories in comics,
iprior to your tenure
at Marvee

and the next story wouldn't
necessarily have anything

to do with the story
that happened before,

a story that happened
the year before.

You guys got densely
into continuity.

Well, most of our characters,
if not all of them,

most of our stories
took place in New York.

SMITH: Right, and that was
an important aspect of it.

Whereas DC had
Metropolis and Gotham,

you guys were firmly
rooted in the real world,
in Manhattan.

That was part
of what I mentioned,

trying to make
fantasy realistic.

So, instead of Johnny Storm,
the Human Torch,

driving a whiz-bang V8,
he drove a Chevy Corvette.

Right.

And instead of them going
to the Bijou Theater,

they went to the Radio City
Music Hall and so forth.

Even their address,
I had them living...

The Fantastic Four had
their headquarters

on the east side
of Manhattan.

Spider-Man lived
in Forest Hills

just across the river,
and so forth.

Now, the reason
I did that,

because I was
from New York,
and I knew New York.

So, it made it easier
to write the stories.

I knew the landmarks
and the settings.

And then it occurred
to me after a while,

if they're all
in the same city,
why don't they meet?

You know, comics often
had guest stars,
but for no reason.

One character would be
with another character.

In our books,
when they guested
in a story,

it was 'cause
for some reason they met

during the course
of the story.

We used to have things,
if for example,

Reed Richards,
the Fantastic Four,

if he needed a lawyer,
I'd have him go to...

SMITH: Matt Murdock.

Thank you for
helping me with that.

To Matt Murdock,
who was Daredevil.

And again, in trying
to think, "What can I do
that's different?"

We never had a blind hero,

and I thought
it would be such fun

to let him be able
to do anything

that a sighted person
could do, but do it better.

And you could explain it
by the fact that his other
senses were super-heightened.

So, he could read
by running his finger
over any page,

he'd feel the ink
on the page.

As incrementally
as it's raised on
the page.

Exactly. He could tell
if you were lying

'cause he had
a built-in lie detector.

He could hear your pulse,
your heartbeat speeding up.

And all sorts
of things like that.

The reason
I mention Daredevil,
I was very concerned.

I said to myself,
"What if blind people
are offended by this?"

Suddenly, we're taking
a blind man and showing
that he can do anything.

Some poor person
who is blind is thinking,

"What's he doing,
joking about this?"

Or, you know.

What happened was
we got more mail

from places like
the Lighthouse for the Blind
in New York,

from blind people,
all of them saying how
great they thought it was

that we were featuring
a blind person as a hero.

And that's one of the reasons
that he's one
of my favorite characters.

I felt so good
when I heard that.

And that connects with
people for some reason,
um, Daredevil.

It's 'cause
he's the unsung
of the Marvel creations.

He's a character
that does connect
with people

because he's
the blind superhero.

Howard Stern,
whenever Howard Stern

talks about superheroes
or comic books...

He's a huge
Marvel fanboy.

On the radio,
he always comes
back to Daredevil,

and is always happy
to point out how much
he knows about him.

Particularly, he's like,
"Oh, he's the blind lawyer.
He's the blind lawyer."

You know, it's a big
bragging point.

And I liked him
being a lawyer, too.

It made him easy
to get into stories.

One of the only times
that a lawyer has ever
been painted heroic.

(LAUGHING)
That's right.

Even the name
Matt Murdock, I...

You can tell I have
the worst memory
in the world.

Yeah, right.

And I had trouble
remembering the names
of the characters.

So, that's the reason
that they usually had
the first name

had the same letter
as the last letter.

Very alliterative
names, yeah.

Matt Murdock, Reed Richards,
Peter Parker, on and on.

Because if I could
remember one name,

I had a clue how
the other name began.

And that was the only
reason I did that.

In terms
of the comic stories,

when I was
working at Marvel,

when I did the Daredevil
run that I did,

Joe Quesada,
who was the Editor

of the Marvel Knights
line then,

and is now
the Editor over all
of Marvel right now.

Yeah, and doing a great job.

Doing a very great job.

He took a huge page
out of your book,

and instructed me
in writing each issue

to somehow recap
what went on
in the last issue,

and recap overall
who the character is.

And I said,
"Well, that's a little
redundant, isn't it?

"Because the people
reading these comics,
they know."

And he said,
"But it's like
Stan said for years.

"Every comic book
is somebody's
first comic book."

And it's true.
It's a really
important lesson

that they still
kind of stick to today.

It's so important
because you can't
grow a line

unless you get
new readers.

And you wanna get
the transient reader

who hasn't read
the book before.

And one of the complaints that
have been made about comics
over the past few years,

unless you've been following
the stories for years,

you don't know
what you're looking at.

So, it's a great idea,
and you can do it subtly.

It doesn't have to be done
in a dull, long, pedantic way.

You can just in the course
of the beginning of the story

have the characters
make a few comments

that brings the reader
up to date.
That's important.

It's a cliffhanger
medium.

It's a serial,
so every month...

Incidentally, I got to mention
what a great job you did

on those Daredevil stories.

And I'm glad
you're still doing it.

We're not here
to polish my helmet.
We're here to polish yours.

No, no,
but I gotta tell you,

I mentioned before,
this is so frustrating to me,

'cause I am such
a fan of yours,

and I'm doing
all the talking,

and you gotta promise
that we can do another
one where I interview you.

If I'm ever worthy of it,
we'll do it.

Your relationship with Jack
is the stuff of legend
in this field.

Do you want to talk
about him a little bit?

Well, Jack was
the greatest guy
to work with.

He never did less
than his best.

You would never get
a job from Jack

where you'd say, "Oh, gee,
this isn't that good."

Everything about him
was great.

Towards the end,
the last few years,

something happened.
I'm not sure what it was.

One of the things was
they had a policy

to give original artwork
back to the artists.

Now, I was out of it by now.
I was the publisher,
and I was traveling.

But for some reason,
Jack felt he didn't
get his artwork back,

and he got mad
at the company.

People in the company
told me the reason...

Again, this is all hearsay.
Told me the reason

he didn't get the artwork back
was they just wanted him
to sign a form

saying he would never
use it to republish it

and compete with Marvel,
or something of this sort.

And they told me
Jack wouldn't sign the form,

and for that reason,
they were at loggerheads.

Eventually, I think,
they worked it out
after a long time.

But during that period,
the fans learned
about what was happening,

and the fans
got mad at Marvel,

thinking we're not
treating Jack well.

And I think somehow
it rubbed off on me.

I think Jack may
have felt in some
way I was responsible.

Or had something
to do with it.

Hell, as far as
I was concerned,

he could have
had everything back.
It didn't matter to me.

I had asked Jack to come
on staff and stop being
a freelancer,

and I had said,
"You know, Jack,

"I would be happy
to let you
be the Art Director."

"I'll just be the Editor.
What a team we would make.

"The two of us,
we'll run the whole thing."

He didn't want to do it.

Why do you think?

SMITH: He just didn't want
to commit the time,
just liked being freelance?

Your guess is
as good as mine.

Maybe he just enjoyed
doing his own strips.

But there isn't a bad
thing that I can say
about that man.

He was a joy to work with.
He was a genius.

He should've been
a movie director,

because this man knew
how to tell a story.

SMITH: Very visual, yes.

In fact, most of the guys did.

Steve did, Romita did,
Buscema did, Colan did.

I mean, I can't believe
how lucky I was

to work with people like that,
because it's very possible

that these great ideas
that I had

might not have been
as successful if they
weren't drawn as well.

Right.

So, I'm grateful
to all of them.

While you were doing
what you were doing
at Marvel,

DC is doing
what they're doing
across the street.

And for years,
I think,

the fan base enjoyed
the fact that there
was a friendly rivalry

which you guys
juiced up

for entertainment
value as much
as possible.

But there was
no true rivalry
at all.

I mean, in fact,
as you pointed
out earlier,

DC whatever they were doing
over at National at the time,

Martin would say,
"Let's do that over here."

I mean, it's a very
symbiotic relationship.

Actually,
we were all friends.

I was friends
with most of the writers
and artists at DC.

At that time,
there was an editor,

I think he was the Publisher
or the President,
named Carmine Infantino.

Carmine and I would meet
about once a week.

There was a little
bar and grill

on Third Avenue
called Friar Tuck.

We'd meet there
about once a week
and just kid around and talk.

A lot of the artists
from both companies
would join us.

Again, because I'm always
trying to think
what'll appeal to the fans,

I thought it fun
to build up a rivalry
between the 2 companies.

The first thing I did was
I started referring to them

instead of brand X,
I called them "Brand Echh."

It was either echh or eh,
I don't know, brand echh.

And echh
meaning yech.

And the fans liked that.
That went over pretty big.

One funny thing
I must say,

when we started
outselling them,

I had heard that they,

'cause I knew people
at the company,

that they used to have
meetings and wonder why
is Marvel outselling us?

And some genius would
get up and say,

"I think it's 'cause Stan uses
a lot of dialogue balloons
on the covers."

So, the minute
I would hear that,

for the next few months,
I'd take all the dialogue
balloons off the covers.

Or they'd say, 'cause we use
a lot of red on our covers.

So for the next few months,
no red on the covers.

It must have
driven 'em crazy.

And I never could understand
why it didn't occur to them

that we were trying
to talk to the readers

instead of just doing
stories, you know?

And I think that was
the main thing.

You involved the readers
in a way that DC comics
didn't particularly back then.

But things change.
I mean, DC, now
they're doing great stuff.

I even did some
books for them.

SMITH: And you've done
some stuff for DC as well.

LEE: And they're great guys.
All the comics are
getting so much better.

The books
that you're writing,

the new Editor, Joe Quesada,
he has managed to...

You know, like I mentioned,
the most important thing is
to have the right talent.

Joe Quesada has hired
such terrific artists

and writers who had never
been with Marvel before.

It's a real competition now
between the companies,

and the only one
who profits is the reader.

Yeah. Too true.

And there was a period
in the '90s,
where it was a very

art-driven medium,
where artists
were the stars.

And now I would imagine
something that must
kind of please you is

that it's come back
to the writers.

Writers kind of drive
the sales of comic books
at this point

because people are
more interested in the
story than anything else.

Suddenly,
for some reason.

You know,
it's like anything else.
It's a collaboration.

If you have great stories
and weak artwork,

the stories don't
seem that great
and vice versa.

I sometimes think the
artwork is still a little
more important

because it's the artwork,
I think, that makes you
buy the book.

If you see
the average reader,

he goes into a store,
he thumbs through
a lot of books,

something will
catch his eye,
and he'll buy that one.

Very rarely is it
the story itself,

because he doesn't
have time to read it.

But if the story doesn't
live up to the artwork,
you're nowhere.

I think it's 50-50.

Now, you came up
in a time

where it was newsstand,
the business was
all newsstand.

So, then you saw

the evolution of
the direct market.
What was that like?

Watching suddenly
comic book stores,

stores like this store,
Hi De Ho
in Santa Monica,

dedicated to selling
comic books come about?

It was the
greatest thing.

Well, it all started
when we had fans.

All of a sudden
with the Fantastic Four,

Hulk, Spider-man,
Daredevil,

we started getting
real fan letters.

And as I mentioned,
we answered 'em,

and tried
to encourage the fans,
and that was a new thing.

And then everything seemed
to happen at once.

Suddenly,
fan conventions started.

Suddenly, stores like
Hi De Ho opened up
that specialized in comics.

Suddenly comics
became a thing.

Like Star Trek, there were
comic book conventions.

Its own medium.

And it's been
growing ever since,
that excitement.

Right now,
Wizard in Chicago

and the San Diego
Comic Convention.
It's a very big thing.

The evolution of The X-Men

from what was
a second-tier title

to probably Marvel's
best-known property

after Spider-Man,
at this point.

Now, you created
the X-Men,

and then later on,
people like Claremont,

Chris Claremont,
defined them

and kind of turned
them into like what
people know today.

Len Wein came up
with Wolverine,
stuff like that.

Wolverine.
Len Wein did that, yeah.

That to me,
I would imagine,
was kind of a...

A point of pride
watching somebody take
something that you did,

and spinning it
and creating something
a little more popular even.

I love the X-Men,
and I love the way
Kirby did them.

You know, the idea...
I don't know if you remember

the first issue
in the Danger Room,
that was Jack's idea.

And what a great way
of beginning a series,

to show them
in the Danger Room.

We didn't mean for it
to be a second-tier
book at all.

And it did well
the first few issues.

And, in fact, I don't know
if I told you the story
about the name, The X-Men.

I wanted to call it
The Mutants.

Went to my publisher.
He said you cannot
call it The Mutants.

Nobody knows
what a mutant is.

Okay, he was the boss.

So I realized
they had extra power.

I was gonna call
their leader
Professor Xavier, "X."

So I figured I'll
call them the X-Men.

So I said that
to the publisher.
He said that's fine.

And I thought to myself,
"I'll never understand
top-level thinking."

If nobody is gonna
know what a mutant is,

how will anybody know
what an X-Man is?

But I had a title,
and I wasn't gonna, um...

Rock the boat
at that point?

Yeah. I loved the series,

but after Jack and I
did the first few,

I don't remember how many,
4, 5, 10, I don't know,

we both got busy
with other things,

and I had to drop something,

and the reason
I dropped the X-Men
and Jack went off it,

not because we thought
it was less of a strip,

but there were
so many characters,

it took a little
longer to write.

So I just gave it up

because it was
the toughest one to do
of all of them,

and then other people
took it over.

In the beginning,
the sales dropped
when we left the book,

but then, as you said,

when Chris Claremont
and John Byrne

and all the people
who took it on later
took it over...

Because basically
it was a solid strip.

Sales started
to really rise.

So, you are the father
of mutants
in the Marvel universe.

Yeah.
And that was done
out of laziness.

Again, as I mentioned,
when you do superheroes,

you have to say how
they get their power.

Well, I was bored
with cosmic rays
and gamma rays

and radioactivity,
and I was
running out of things,

and I figured, "What if
they're just mutants?"

I don't have
to explain anything.

We know there are
mutants in the world.

There are mutant vegetables,
mutant trees, frogs.

Okay, they're born mutants.
That gets me off the hook.

I can then do
whatever I want.

So, it was done...
Really, it was a cop-out.

It's so funny and it
gives birth to years
of continuity

and legend
and mythos and...

But look how easy it is.

This comes from a guy
who's just, like,
"I don't know.

"The guy could have
red coming out
of his eyes, who knows?"

That's right,
but look how easy it is.

You want somebody who
can walk through walls?

He was born that way.
He's a mutant.

Nice.

I guess
a Fantastic Four movie
now in the works,

like, a big budget,
huge effort.

Kinda like
the X-Men as well.

It'll be a big one,
and the same with
the Silver Surfer.

As I understand,
he's one of your
favorite creations.

Oh, yeah.

Well, you can tell
by talking to me.

I'm very deep
and very philosophical.

Yes, yes.

But the Silver Surfer

allowed me to get
a lot of my corny,
philosophical points

across through
his dialogue.

I always could have him
saying things like...

Now you remember,
he's from another planet,

and he comes along
and soars over earth,
looking down,

and, "What's wrong
with these earthlings?

"They have a planet
that should be paradise.

"It's the Garden of Eden.
It has everything.

"Clean air, good food,
oceans, land,
whatever you could want.

"And yet they fight
and have crimes.

"They hate each other,
and they...

"What's wrong?
Are they insane?"

All the things
that I think about

and, I think,
most people think about.

I was able to let him
voice those things.

And there's another thing.
Because he's from
another planet,

I was able to write
his dialogue differently.

His English wasn't...
It was perfect,

but it wasn't perfect
the way you or I would speak.

And I loved that
about Doctor Doom.

I had him speaking in a more
highfalutin kind of way.

And I love writing
different kind of dialogue.

Like with Thor,
I tried to combine him
with the Bible

and Shakespeare
when he talked.

And Dr. Strange
with his incantations.

To me, dialogue is
so interesting
and so much fun to write.

Iron Man was a character
who, later on,

in comics,
had a drinking problem.

We made him a drunkard,
an alcoholic.

We thought that was
a good thing to do.

And, um, I didn't write
those stories,

but I loved the fact
that we did it,
and I was all for it.

And it was done
very well, too.

But you created
Iron Man?

Oh, yeah.

Where's that
come from?

Being a little bit
of a rebel.

In those days,

young people were
very much against war,
against the establishment,

so I said, just for fun,
I'm gonna get a character
who's a multimillionaire

and who manufactures
war material,
you know, armaments,

and I'm gonna make him
likeable somehow.

And I kind of based him
on Howard Hughes, in a way.

Came up with Tony Stark.

Now, again, in order to make
the character empathetic...

And they all have to have
a weakness of some sort.

I gave him a weak heart.
He never knows when
his heart'll conk out on him,

so he's afraid to have
a serious relationship

with a girl, which made it
easy to write stories
with different girls.

Would have made
a great TV series.

There could be
a different girl
in every episode.

So, um, and then he
had his iron armor.

Now, because
he was so rich, I had...

And again, in trying
to make all our characters

somehow come together,
mingle,

when we had the Avengers,
I had them use his mansion
on fifth Avenue

as their headquarters.

I like Tony Stark.

He was one
of the few characters,

his name didn't begin
with the same first letter
and last letter.

And I don't know
how I blew it there.

I must have
been careless.

But a character
whose name did begin with
first letter and last letter,

Bruce Banner.

Now, during the run
of the very successful
TV show,

during the
mid-to-late '70s,

they called him
David Banner
on the show,

as opposed
to Bruce Banner
in the comics. Why?

I hate to say it.
It's so stupid.

It's a great story.

It is so stupid!

And it's also perfect
network thinking.

His name was Bruce Banner.

And when they start
doing the show,

I see in the script
they have him called
David Banner.

So, I called whoever it is
you call at the network,

and I said, "Hey, you guys,
there's a typo there.
You wrote the wrong name."

"No, no. It's intentional."

"Well, why did you
change his name
from Bruce to David?"

"Well, Bruce sounds
too homosexual."

I mean, there you go.

The Hulk was gay,
essentially.

Astounding.

So, there's no pull
to just be like,

"Look, call him
what he was."

Well, what we did...
I had them, as a sop
to my feelings,

they called him
David Bruce Banner,

but they referred to him
as David all the time.

But Bruce
was his middle name.

And now they're
going to turn that

into a big-screen
franchise as well,
with Ang Lee.

That'll be wonderful.
With Ang Lee. Yeah.

SMITH: And now, it's also...
You're talking about
when they did the show,

they threw the makeup
on Lou Ferrigno,

and now they can create
the Hulk as he should
be realized,

as a huge monster,
with CG.

I mean,
it's got to be great
for you to sit back

and watch movies now
where they can
actually realize

all the things you
created so long ago.

Visually realize them.

It's a funny thing, though.
When I watch them,

I forget that I was
involved in them.

I just watch them
and enjoy them,
you know?

"Wow, it's clever
the way they did that!

"Wow, that's terrific!"
You know?

I'm just one
of the fans, really.

But, as I told you,
I'm a big fan of me.

Yeah, exactly.