Kevin Siers is the Pulitzer-Prize winning political cartoonist at the Charlotte Observer. For years, the paper featured a cartoon caption contest. The winner would receive the original black-and-white Siers cartoon with the winner’s submission and name penned in.

Siers picked my submission only three times out of a couple dozen attempts. However, it would be several months after winning that the cartoon would arrive in the mail. So I wasn’t all that motivated to enter very often.

However, when the contest featured the above cartoon of Kirk and Spock, I knew I had to take a stab at it. A week later, the paper published the winning caption — mine! — but I knew better than to hold my breath waiting for the cartoon. Weeks later, the paper announced it was ending the contests, and not long after that, the Observer sold its palatial headquarters and downsized into a rented office building. I figured I’d never see my prize.

So imagine my surprise when, out of the blue, I opened my mailbox almost two years later to discover the original color version with my caption and name added. I emailed my thanks to Mr. Siers, and framed the cartoon. Kirk and Spock now look down over my desk, inspiring and challenging me.

Spock’s words pretty much sum up the fate of print journalism.

The best superhero movie of all time? Easy. That’s the 2002 Spiderman with Tobey Maguire in the title role. The best line? That came from Aunt May, who cautioned her nephew about pushing himself too hard: “You’re not Superman, you know.”

Big laughs from the audience. But I didn’t laugh. To me, that line summarized what made the classic Marvel brand of the 60’s and 70’s better than all the other comics. No, Spiderman was not Superman — he was way cooler. Superman and Batman bored me. Too goody-goody. Too full of their supposed goodness. The bad guys they fought were just — bad. Bad for the hell of it.

Marvel, on the other hand, offered flawed heroes, men and women racked with self-doubt who often got mad at each other. Sometimes the good guys fought with other good guys. Reading Marvel comics as a kid and teen, I thought, wow, these superheroes are like my family. They have faults. They bicker.

And Marvel’s bad guys were more realistic, too, with understandable motivations for their actions, just like other famous bad guys, such as Shylock and Macbeth. In fact, young Stanley Martin Lieber changed his pen name to “Stan Lee” because he had dreams of becoming a famous novelist, and didn’t want potential publishers to associate him with comic books, which many regarded as pedestrian trash.

Guess he showed them, huh?

So it is with great sorrow we say goodbye to Stan Lee, the man who made it all happen. Stan Lee has passed away at the tender age of 95. Thanks for the memories — and the inspiration.

photo by Alan Light

Photo by Luigi Novi

Sci-fi/fantasy writer Damien Walter makes his case in The Guardian:

Before Lee, heroes were all supermen, or strutting John Waynes, who triumphed through strength or ruthlessness. Lee’s heroes triumph through brains, invention, innovation and most of all, SCIENCE. It’s all oddly prescient of what geek culture would become 50 years later, with hackers and tech giants wielding enormous power for good and ill. Given the vast popularity of Marvel among geeks, it’s not inconceivable that Lee helped inspire a lot of those people who are reshaping our world today.

But Stan Lee’s stories are all just weird fantasy and make-believe! They’re not real. Yes, but as we move from what physicist Michio Kaku calls “the age of scientific discovery to the age of scientific mastery”, Lee’s super-science fantasies seem less preposterous and more prophetic. Like all great mythical worlds, the Marvel universe speaks to us in metaphors, symbols and other non-literal truths. And as the dreamer who brought these modern myths into reality, Stan Lee may well be remembered as one of literature’s greatest heroes.

Lee’s other radical innovation was to give his characters depth. Marvel super-heroes had to fight self-doubt before they could fight the bad guys. Some, such as Benjamin J. Grimm, felt their powers were a curse. And most startling of all, Marvel super-heroes sometimes fought each other, and even changed sides. When I discovered Marvel comics as a pre-teen, I felt like I’d found an illustrated guide to many of life’s mysteries.

And Marvel stories were intelligent, insightful, and full of delicious twists. Fantastic Four 51 is a prime example. The story, titled “This Man, This Monster,” was not just an exciting tale but emotionally compelling. Such a plot and character arc could only come from an authentic and serious talent. The reason Stanley Lieber changed his name to Stan Lee was because, as Lee himself put it, “I felt someday I’d write ‘The Great American Novel’ and I didn’t want to use my real name on these silly little comics.”

Those who turn their noses at comics (or pulp fiction or sci-fi and fantasy) are missing some great, worthwhile stories. As the recently departed Umberto Eco observed, “Mickey Mouse can be perfect in the sense that a Japanese haiku is.” A well-crafted story is to be appreciated for what it is, no matter the genre.