20181112 Stan Lee 1922-2018
11/13 '18
It's a sad day for me. I don't normally care much for talk of celebrities and I often feel there's a 'falseness' to people discussing the deaths of those same celebrities. Maybe that's too harsh. I believe that those people are sad, but I'm always struck by the thought "It's not like you knew them or anything."
And it's true to say that I didn't know Stan. Never had the chance to meet him. But the things he created and the characters and worlds he developed were, in a word, significant in my life.
I've always been a Marvel guy when it came to the Marvel / DC divide. You could fairly easilly argue that Stan was the reason for that. Back at the dawn of the comic book era, people created characters that were like gods. Powers well beyond those of us mere mortals. And then, along came Stan.
When he (and Jack Kirby) created a character named Peter Parker, he made a bridge between we mortals and those gods. Peter had problems that we normal folks face. School work had to be done. He couldn't talk to girls. He was bullied. He was like... me.
Peter faced those challenges. Often, it required making realistic and terrible decisions. He suffered like the rest of us, and often worse than most of us.
But he fought on, and would rise above.
Stan created a new form of mythology. One that we saw ourselves in.
He gave us Hope.
I never met you Stan, but I feel I owe you something I can't even really put into words. So I thank you - as deeply as I can - and I hope I can one day help even one person a fraction of the way you helped me.
Excelsior!
Modern media is created with a considerable knowledge of myth and how archetypes work... it is intentional magic, it is Bene Gesserit stuff. So I try never to look down on people for feeling personally connected to characters that were always intended to inspire that. I do sympathize when celebrities want to carve out some privacy, of course.