Stan “The Man” Lieber was a great man and his presence, from
the boisterous levels of energy he never failed to exude to the heartwarming
and inspirational words he had to pick us up in a manner befitting a man who
spent most of his life creating heroes for a living, will be sorely missed now
more than ever in these tumultuous times that we live in.
Although it’s undeniably sad that he’s no longer with us,
let’s not forget all of the good he’s brought into our lives and the reality that
he left this world with status as a long lived legend that most of us could
only dream of even mildly achieving.
Living out some rough and uncertain days of my life in
current times and occasionally losing sight on what’s worth waking up the next
day for, it’s astonishing to see a man like Stan Lee win as hard at the brutal
game of life as he has, watching his creations entertain and inspire nearly 4
generations and becoming multi-billion dollar institutions of the modern cannon
of global pop-culture.
I’ve never been shy to raise the issue of my love for the
superhero genre; a genre that I believe to be so intricately tied to themes of human
identity and perception that it can be tailored to tell just about every type
of story that can be conceived.
While the seeds of that notion were undoubtedly planted
within my toddler psyche by a fascination with the cool and flashy iconography
of “Power Rangers” and “Batman” in the 90s, it was ultimately fostered by Lee’s
legacy.
I remember watching episodes of “Spider-Man: The Animated
Series” religiously on weekday afternoons and Saturday mornings, enraptured by
the trials of Peter Parker and his continuity driven serialized adventures,
which stacked together to weave a grand narrative of a man whose life was ever changing
in relation to his double life as a hero.
The notion of having powers was awesome but one of the
reasons why Peter Parker is my favorite character in all of fiction is because
he’s perhaps the starkest reminder that no one gift can solve all of your
problems and your worth in life is determined by how you roll with the punches,
something you really learn to appreciate growing up facing a fair share of
bullying because of who people think you are and should be.
That helped me learn a sense of optimism, bolstered by
growing up reading my uncle’s old Silver Age “Fantastic Four” comics, where a
family as dysfunctional as any other familial unit can still come together to
love each other and explore cosmic wonders while protecting the innocent when
it matters. To me, it was “Star Trek” before I even discovered “Star Trek.”
And I of course can’t ignore that watching “Spider-Man” on
the big screen back in 2002 was the beginning of a love affair that I would
carry for cinema and all of its possibilities that hasn’t disappeared to this
very day and set me on the path I walked to become a film critic.
One of my biggest regrets in life will be that I never got
to meet him, if only for just 3 minutes in person, to tell him just how much of
my life he played an unintentional architect for. As sad as it is to know that
his final few years may have been wrapped up in illness complications and legal
drama however, I only hope that he knew peace in knowing how much pride he can
take in a legacy of art that will most likely endure long after even I pass
away one day.
Stan Lee didn’t just make heroes. As far as I’m concerned,
he was a damn great one himself.
So long as his legacy thrives through his creations, his spirit will be as everlasting as the One Above All. 'Nuff Said.
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