“If I had superhuman powers, would I still have to worry about making a living, or having my dates like me?” This portion of a quote from Stan Lee that opens the documentary of the same name asks a simple question, but nudges at what made him such a visionary in the comic book world. In the late 1950s, Lee—then a writer at Timely, soon to become Marvel, Comics—was tasked by his publisher to create a new team of superheroes in response to the success of DC Comics’ Justice League of America. Lee had, in recent years, been growing tired of writing the same shallow characters. Superheroes were perfect people, with no real problems, who always got the bad guy. With the encouragement of his wife Joan, Lee took advantage of the new prompt to create, alongside artist Jack Kirby, the Fantastic Four. The characters may have possessed superhuman qualities—Sue Storm was the Invisible Woman, the Thing was huge and strong and didn’t resemble a human at all—but they had very human problems (as the documentary indicates, one storyline saw the team getting kicked out of their headquarters because they couldn’t pay the rent).
These complex, naturalistic traits proved to be popular with readers and fast carried over to other Lee creations, from the Hulk to Spider-Man (co-created with artist Steve Ditko). And Lee, who essentially became the face of Marvel from the 1970s all the way up to his death in 2018, had his fair share of trials and tribulations too. Like many documentaries about figures who led such full lives, Stan Lee can’t encompass the entire scope of its subject’s life and career (especially clocking in at a meager 86 minutes). But it doesn’t really try to, and that’s part of what makes it an engaging watch. That, and the fact that almost all of the story is told in Lee’s own voice, accompanying personal photos, footage (Lee is virtually unrecognizable without his signature mustache he began sporting in the 70s), and cute action figure reenactments with his own recorded recollections.
Hearing Lee’s own voice, brimming with warmth and humor, narrate his own story makes all the difference in Stan Lee, a film that otherwise treads over material that die-hard comics fans are probably already familiar with. Born Stanley Lieber in 1922 Manhattan to Romanian Jewish immigrant parents, he nearly followed in the footsteps of his father, a dress cutter. But when he was laid off from his job working in pants, he pursued his interest in writing, eventually being hired as an assistant at Timely Comics in 1939 with the help of his uncle. He soon began writing, his later successes resulting in him being made publisher in 1972. Even after he stepped back from Marvel in the professional sense (he didn’t enjoy the financial burdens that being president required, as opposed to a more creative role), Lee’s frequent appearances at conventions made him a recognizable figure in the public consciousness—so much so that, when Marvel Studios began making live-action film adaptations of their most famous comic book heroes, many of whom Lee helped create, his cameo appearances in those movies became a highlight for passionate and casual fans alike.
Under the direction of David Gelb (who helmed the acclaimed 2011 documentary Jiro Dreams of Sushi), Stan Lee is imaginably assembled and breezy to watch. While elements of his life—such as his upbringing and how he met and fell in love with his wife—and later career troubles—such as the fight over creator credits between Lee and artists like Jack Kirby, illustrated through the inclusion of audio from a radio interview in the 1980s in which the pair’s initially amicable interactions fast devolves into an argument—are incorporated into the film, they aren’t the focal point (the latter especially; like many documentaries about beloved, famous figures, Stan Lee prefers to err on the safe side, acknowledging controversy briefly but neglecting to find any faults with its subject; the film was made for Disney Plus, so, grain of salt). The bulk of Stan Lee, rather, is devoted to Lee’s creative process. He describes his frustrations with the one-note characters who only spoke in two-syllable words he had to write in the beginning stages of his career, and his inspirations for the more complex characters he created later. He describes the working method he formed with artists like Kirby, Lee sending him a brief plot outline, Kirby expanding on that through his illustrations, and Lee filling in the speech bubbles. He (and his former assistant Flo Steinberg, whose voice we also hear in the film) discusses his desire to form a fan club once readers start sending in fan mail, and the importance of using comics as a form of social commentary, particularly on issues of race and bigotry. But it’s the little anecdotes thrown in that really stand out: how Lee, while looking for writing work, walked around New York City with a little briefcase because he thought it made him look like a writer, or that, while serving in the Army writing training manuals during World War II, he rewrote some of them in the form of comics, making them easier and quicker to digest and prompting the jobs to be completed more efficiently as a result.
Perhaps Stan Lee’s biggest accomplishment has less to do with its overview of Lee’s life, and more with how it frames the new superhero characters he created beginning with the Fantastic Four as something fresh and exciting. It’s nearly the antithesis of the stale quality that permeates so many of the Marvel movies that are a lot of peoples’ gateway into the comics. Regardless of your opinions on the MCU or the current state of Marvel Comics, there’s no doubt that Stan Lee’s work revolutionized the comic art form. Stan Lee the film doesn’t come close to revolutionizing the documentary art form, but it’s a sweet tribute to the work of the man who—by making superheroes ordinary—created something extraordinary.
Stan Lee had its world premiere at the 2023 Tribeca Film Festival on June 10, and it will be available to stream on Disney Plus on June 16. Runtime: 86 minutes.
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