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True Believer: The Rise and Fall of Stan Lee
The definitive, revelatory biography of Marvel Comics creator Stan Lee, an artist and entrepreneur who reshaped global pop culture—at a steep personal cost.
Stan Lee—born Stanley Martin Lieber in 1922—is one of the most beloved and influential entertainers to emerge from the twentieth century. He served as editor in chief of Marvel Comics for three decades and, in that time, launched more pieces of internationally recognizable intellectual property than anyone other than Walt Disney: Spider-Man, the Avengers, the X-Men, Black Panther, the Incredible Hulk, Iron Man, Thor... the list seems to never end. On top of that, his carnival-barker marketing prowess more or less single-handedly saved the comic-book industry and superhero fiction. Without him, the global entertainment industry would be wildly different—and a great deal poorer.
But Lee's unprecedented career was also pitted with spectacular failures, controversy, and bitter disputes. Lee was dogged by accusations from his long-time collaborators Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko over who really created Marvel's signature characters—icons for whom Lee had always been suspected of taking more than his due share of credit. A major business venture, Stan Lee Media, resulted in stock manipulation, bankruptcy, and criminal charges. And in his final years, after the death of his beloved wife, Joan, rumors swirled that Lee was a virtual prisoner in his own home, issuing cryptic video recordings as a battle to control his fortune and legacy ensued.
Abraham Riesman is a veteran culture reporter who has conducted extensive new interviews and research, turning up never-before-published revelations about Lee's life and work. Lee's most famous motto was: "With great power comes great responsibility." True Believer chronicles every triumph and every misstep of an extraordinary life, and leaves it to readers to decide whether Lee lived up to the responsibilities of his own talent.
Stan Lee—born Stanley Martin Lieber in 1922—is one of the most beloved and influential entertainers to emerge from the twentieth century. He served as editor in chief of Marvel Comics for three decades and, in that time, launched more pieces of internationally recognizable intellectual property than anyone other than Walt Disney: Spider-Man, the Avengers, the X-Men, Black Panther, the Incredible Hulk, Iron Man, Thor... the list seems to never end. On top of that, his carnival-barker marketing prowess more or less single-handedly saved the comic-book industry and superhero fiction. Without him, the global entertainment industry would be wildly different—and a great deal poorer.
But Lee's unprecedented career was also pitted with spectacular failures, controversy, and bitter disputes. Lee was dogged by accusations from his long-time collaborators Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko over who really created Marvel's signature characters—icons for whom Lee had always been suspected of taking more than his due share of credit. A major business venture, Stan Lee Media, resulted in stock manipulation, bankruptcy, and criminal charges. And in his final years, after the death of his beloved wife, Joan, rumors swirled that Lee was a virtual prisoner in his own home, issuing cryptic video recordings as a battle to control his fortune and legacy ensued.
Abraham Riesman is a veteran culture reporter who has conducted extensive new interviews and research, turning up never-before-published revelations about Lee's life and work. Lee's most famous motto was: "With great power comes great responsibility." True Believer chronicles every triumph and every misstep of an extraordinary life, and leaves it to readers to decide whether Lee lived up to the responsibilities of his own talent.
416 pages, Hardcover
First published February 16, 2021
214 people are currently reading
5797 people want to read
About the author
Abraham Riesman
2 books111 followersI'm a journalist and the author of the biography "True Believer: The Rise and Fall of Stan Lee" (Penguin Random House / Crown, 2021). I am working on another biography, "Ringmaster: The Life and Times of Vince McMahon" (Simon & Schuster, TBD).
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 305 reviews
August 1, 2021
"[This was] a harsh reminder of the fact that a person's true self will always be just beyond the biographer's grasp." -- the author, upon learning of some unsavory information, on page 318
Call it just a hunch, but I don't believe Abraham Riesman set out to intentionally construct a downer of a biography regarding a man who is considered a pop culture legend or icon. It just so happens that parts of said man's personality, honesty, and business dealings slid into some sketchy territory.
The Rise and Fall of Stan Lee is quite the suitable subtitle for this detailed bio. It appropriately follows Lee's early years of toiling in a much-maligned industry (the 'Golden Age' of comic books in the 40's and 50's) before finally receiving the notoriety that would define him for the rest of his life. With the introduction of Marvel Comics and their Fantastic Four series in 1961 - followed closely thereafter by the Hulk, Spider-Man, the Avengers, the X-Men, and Black Panther - it would appear to some that Lee was single-handedly responsible for creating and writing scripts / dialogue these and other signature super-heroic characters, ushering in the 'Silver Age.' But not so fast, true believers! It was sort of sad to find out that Lee - while being a good and popular 'face' and spokesman for the brand from the 60's into the 80's - seemed to ride the coattails of talented co-workers (such as Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko) and likely accepted much credit that wasn't really his to receive. It gets even more depressing when detailing some of the con artists and other questionable types - including his only child, a leeching daughter who may have some lifelong mental health or anger issues - that Lee became deeply involved with right up to the time of his death in 2018. Cruising into the final 100 pages this became one hell of a disheartening story, but - and I think this is important to note - the author chose the uncomfortable but correct direction or tone in not completely whitewashing some segments of Lee's life, but it also did not seem like it devolved into malicious smear tactics.
Call it just a hunch, but I don't believe Abraham Riesman set out to intentionally construct a downer of a biography regarding a man who is considered a pop culture legend or icon. It just so happens that parts of said man's personality, honesty, and business dealings slid into some sketchy territory.
The Rise and Fall of Stan Lee is quite the suitable subtitle for this detailed bio. It appropriately follows Lee's early years of toiling in a much-maligned industry (the 'Golden Age' of comic books in the 40's and 50's) before finally receiving the notoriety that would define him for the rest of his life. With the introduction of Marvel Comics and their Fantastic Four series in 1961 - followed closely thereafter by the Hulk, Spider-Man, the Avengers, the X-Men, and Black Panther - it would appear to some that Lee was single-handedly responsible for creating and writing scripts / dialogue these and other signature super-heroic characters, ushering in the 'Silver Age.' But not so fast, true believers! It was sort of sad to find out that Lee - while being a good and popular 'face' and spokesman for the brand from the 60's into the 80's - seemed to ride the coattails of talented co-workers (such as Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko) and likely accepted much credit that wasn't really his to receive. It gets even more depressing when detailing some of the con artists and other questionable types - including his only child, a leeching daughter who may have some lifelong mental health or anger issues - that Lee became deeply involved with right up to the time of his death in 2018. Cruising into the final 100 pages this became one hell of a disheartening story, but - and I think this is important to note - the author chose the uncomfortable but correct direction or tone in not completely whitewashing some segments of Lee's life, but it also did not seem like it devolved into malicious smear tactics.
March 18, 2021
True Believer is as the subtitle indicates: the story of the rise and fall of Stan Lee.
I've been a comic fan for about 40 years now. I originally encountered Stan Lee as the narrator of Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends. In the years since, my opinion of him has evolved into thinking of him as a huckster used car salesman and glory thief. This book did nothing to enhance his reputation in my eyes.
The book chronicles the life and death of Stan Lee, from his birth as Stanley Lieber during the Great Depression to the sad shit show his life became after the death of his wife. People criticize Abraham Riesman's take on Stan Lee but I've read other books that paint him in a similar light so I don't really see why this book is getting the attention it does. Maybe because the Marvel movies are so huge and Stan's death is fairly recent?
Anyway, Riesman puts it all out there, every shitty thing that Stan has done, every lie that he's been caught in, from the possibility of getting Simon and Kirby fired from Captain America in the 1940s to hogging all the credit for the creation of the modern Marvel universe in 1961 to being a millionaire who couldn't be bothered to help out his brother Larry Lieber at all during his lifetime.
Maybe some people are panning this book because it destroys the myth of Stan Lee being a jolly grandpa that loves comics. There are a lot of similarities between Stan Lee and Vince McMahon. Both of them achieved their greatest successes when attached to the best talents of their generation and coasted on their reputations and promotional skills the rest of the time. Both of them claim to be self made but each of them were given a leg up by their relatives. Both of them don't actually seem to like the business they're in and would rather be making movies.
In the Wizard of Oz, the Wizard is also called Professor Marvel. I find this amusing because that's who Stan Lee wound up reminding me of the most. Behind the Stan Lee public curtain, there's a hack writer named Stanley Lieber who toiled in obscurity for twenty years before he had the opportunity of a lifetime dropped into his lap. When that opportunity came, he squeezed the shit out of it for the next 50+ years.
The last section of the book was a sad grotesque shit show of manipulation, fraud, and elder abuse. Was it karma for the way he treated Kirby, Ditko, and the others? If it was, karma is a real mother fucker.
If you already dislike Stan Lee, this book adds plenty of fuel to the fire. It probably would feel like a personal attack if you think he's some kind of creative genius. I think he was a great self promoter but I don't know if he had much creative talent. I have to think if he did, he wouldn't have spent 2o years toiling for Martin Goodman writing mediocre material. If you have Jack Kirby writing and drawing six books a month and all you have to do is script them, it has to be hard to fuck up something like that. It's telling that he was never again able to catch lightning in a bottle after he no longer had Kirby and Ditko at his disposal. The fact that he avoided giving them even a little credit at times speaks volumes about his character.
I'm giving this four stars. It was a powerful, eye opening read but I can't exactly say I enjoyed reading it.
I've been a comic fan for about 40 years now. I originally encountered Stan Lee as the narrator of Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends. In the years since, my opinion of him has evolved into thinking of him as a huckster used car salesman and glory thief. This book did nothing to enhance his reputation in my eyes.
The book chronicles the life and death of Stan Lee, from his birth as Stanley Lieber during the Great Depression to the sad shit show his life became after the death of his wife. People criticize Abraham Riesman's take on Stan Lee but I've read other books that paint him in a similar light so I don't really see why this book is getting the attention it does. Maybe because the Marvel movies are so huge and Stan's death is fairly recent?
Anyway, Riesman puts it all out there, every shitty thing that Stan has done, every lie that he's been caught in, from the possibility of getting Simon and Kirby fired from Captain America in the 1940s to hogging all the credit for the creation of the modern Marvel universe in 1961 to being a millionaire who couldn't be bothered to help out his brother Larry Lieber at all during his lifetime.
Maybe some people are panning this book because it destroys the myth of Stan Lee being a jolly grandpa that loves comics. There are a lot of similarities between Stan Lee and Vince McMahon. Both of them achieved their greatest successes when attached to the best talents of their generation and coasted on their reputations and promotional skills the rest of the time. Both of them claim to be self made but each of them were given a leg up by their relatives. Both of them don't actually seem to like the business they're in and would rather be making movies.
In the Wizard of Oz, the Wizard is also called Professor Marvel. I find this amusing because that's who Stan Lee wound up reminding me of the most. Behind the Stan Lee public curtain, there's a hack writer named Stanley Lieber who toiled in obscurity for twenty years before he had the opportunity of a lifetime dropped into his lap. When that opportunity came, he squeezed the shit out of it for the next 50+ years.
The last section of the book was a sad grotesque shit show of manipulation, fraud, and elder abuse. Was it karma for the way he treated Kirby, Ditko, and the others? If it was, karma is a real mother fucker.
If you already dislike Stan Lee, this book adds plenty of fuel to the fire. It probably would feel like a personal attack if you think he's some kind of creative genius. I think he was a great self promoter but I don't know if he had much creative talent. I have to think if he did, he wouldn't have spent 2o years toiling for Martin Goodman writing mediocre material. If you have Jack Kirby writing and drawing six books a month and all you have to do is script them, it has to be hard to fuck up something like that. It's telling that he was never again able to catch lightning in a bottle after he no longer had Kirby and Ditko at his disposal. The fact that he avoided giving them even a little credit at times speaks volumes about his character.
I'm giving this four stars. It was a powerful, eye opening read but I can't exactly say I enjoyed reading it.
April 19, 2021
"There is no more unreliable narrator of a person's life than that person."
I read this biography as a comic fan, and also as someone who was peripherally aware of all the controversy surrounding Lee's name much later in life. I knew some details in broad strokes, but nothing in the sort of detail presented in this book. While eye-opening (and sad, in the later chapters), it didn't surprise me much.
People are complicated, and I think Stan Lee embodied that. I think he was complicated, he was egotistical, he was ambitious to an unrealistic degree, and he always seemed to struggle to come to terms with who he was. Complicating matters of his life, he seemed to also unwittingly surround himself with people just like him, muddying the waters a bit in terms of what was truth and what was fiction in the early days of Marvel. Without going into detail here on my thoughts of the Kirby/Lee debacle, I think the truth is somewhere in the middle of what the two men each claimed.
Having said all that, a life led full of ambition, avarice, and wealth does not mean that you earn whatever comes next. Whatever wrongs Stan committed to get where he ended up do not justify his treatment at the hands of all the leeches that came out of the woodwork in his later years. He didn't deserve any of that treatment at the hands of people he initially trusted, people that were by blood or by friendship family to him.
This biography was extremely engaging, and clearly well researched by the author. The notes section in the end is extensive, and the author mentions at multiple points the sources of information used to write the different chapters. I enjoyed this book immensely, even if the subject is not the perfect person a lot of people expected him to be.
Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
I read this biography as a comic fan, and also as someone who was peripherally aware of all the controversy surrounding Lee's name much later in life. I knew some details in broad strokes, but nothing in the sort of detail presented in this book. While eye-opening (and sad, in the later chapters), it didn't surprise me much.
People are complicated, and I think Stan Lee embodied that. I think he was complicated, he was egotistical, he was ambitious to an unrealistic degree, and he always seemed to struggle to come to terms with who he was. Complicating matters of his life, he seemed to also unwittingly surround himself with people just like him, muddying the waters a bit in terms of what was truth and what was fiction in the early days of Marvel. Without going into detail here on my thoughts of the Kirby/Lee debacle, I think the truth is somewhere in the middle of what the two men each claimed.
Having said all that, a life led full of ambition, avarice, and wealth does not mean that you earn whatever comes next. Whatever wrongs Stan committed to get where he ended up do not justify his treatment at the hands of all the leeches that came out of the woodwork in his later years. He didn't deserve any of that treatment at the hands of people he initially trusted, people that were by blood or by friendship family to him.
This biography was extremely engaging, and clearly well researched by the author. The notes section in the end is extensive, and the author mentions at multiple points the sources of information used to write the different chapters. I enjoyed this book immensely, even if the subject is not the perfect person a lot of people expected him to be.
Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
May 23, 2021
This book's tone is surprisingly toxic. I get that Stan Lee has a complicated legacy and I don't have any problem with a biography of him earnestly wrestling with the fact that a lot of his claims to fame were embellished if not fully untrue. But the extent to which this book goes out of its way to paint him as a scoundrel is just baffling.
The "Stan Lee says that he is the sole creator of the Marvel Comics Golden Age but it was probably actually Jack Kirby" debate would obviously be relevant in a chapter about the Marvel Comics Golden Age - but Riesman doesn't want to limit it to that chapter. No, he has to repeatedly wedge it into every chapter, including his chapter about Stan Lee's time in World War Two (when he wasn't writing any comics) and his chapter on Stan's time in the post-war pre Golden age era (back when Stan wasn't taking credit for anything because the comics didn't list any credits at all.)
Why would you write something along the lines of "he wasn't doing anything malicious at this period in time, but just you wait, in a few decades he's gonna pull some really scummy BS"? That's just bad prose - it is heavy handed, it makes the narrator sound so biased as to make them seem unreliable, and worst of all it's badly organized; a biography shouldn't conflate distinctly different periods of its subjects life for no good reason.
This book's obvious delight in Stan's many problems is just dispiriting. Whenever Stan starts a new venture Riesman goes out of his way to telegraph that it will end badly - which is not just judgmental, it is actively anti-climactic. Why should we read a thirty page chapter about Stan's attempted dot-com company if the introductory paragraphs repeatedly emphasize that the company will come to naught? Why can't Riesman just let the events unfold without prejudicing the audience with a lot of angry prose right at the outset?
Even worse: this book doesn't just do Stan dirty by overly emphasizing his problems - it does him dirty by shortselling his strengths. I agree that he might not have been the creative powerhouse that he claimed to be... But he clearly was very talented in a lot of ways, almost none of which get discussed in this book.
Yes, Stan might not have created the characters he took credit for - but it is undeniable that he was a good editor. If you look at the people who were working for Marvel in the mid-60s / early 70s it becomes clear that Stan had an eye for talent, and if you look at the stories that talent produced it becomes clear that he had good instincts about what to publish and what to veto. It is easy to give all the credit to the people who were actually writing and drawing the stories - but that does a disservice to Stan who was obviously good at putting those talents in a place where they could succeed.
After all, Stan must have been doing something right, because Marvel was knocking out classic story after classic story under his tenure... Meanwhile his rivals at DC were stuck making kitschy trash about Krypto the wonder dog, and the people that followed after him at Marvel had similarly underwhelming runs. I don't think it is fair to deny him any credit whatsoever for Marvel's success when they were much more successful under him than they were at any time before or since.
This book baffled and frustrated me. I don't really understood why Riesman wrote it; he clearly holds Jack Kirby in high esteem and disdains Stan Lee - so why not write a book about Kirby? Is he only writing about Lee because he was excited by the tabloid ending of the man's life? If so, that's gross - I don't enjoy rubbernecking at the sad end of a 90 something year old man who was being taken advantage of by a bunch of shady characters.
I don't think a biographer needs to hold his subject in high esteem to write a book about them - but I do think that they need to understand why their subject is important, and I don't think that Riesman really understands the appeal of Stan Lee. At the very least I don't think he understood why *I* like Stan Lee - which is because he was the last monumental figurehead in comics who didn't take them too seriously. His "throw it at the wall and hope that something sticks" approach was undeniably fruitful - but it was also a lot of fun, especially compared to the next big wavemakers in comic history like Watchmen and the Dark Knight Rises, both of which were very grimdark and pushed the industry in bad directions.
I liked Stan because he was involved in some epic mythmaking - but also because he seemed to understand that superhero comics were, at their core, goofy escapist entertainments for children. I liked him because he was a cheesy man who made cheesy work... So I was never going to like a sneering biography that takes smug satisfaction in watching him fail. In fact, that's the opposite of what I want from a book about a guy I liked.
The "Stan Lee says that he is the sole creator of the Marvel Comics Golden Age but it was probably actually Jack Kirby" debate would obviously be relevant in a chapter about the Marvel Comics Golden Age - but Riesman doesn't want to limit it to that chapter. No, he has to repeatedly wedge it into every chapter, including his chapter about Stan Lee's time in World War Two (when he wasn't writing any comics) and his chapter on Stan's time in the post-war pre Golden age era (back when Stan wasn't taking credit for anything because the comics didn't list any credits at all.)
Why would you write something along the lines of "he wasn't doing anything malicious at this period in time, but just you wait, in a few decades he's gonna pull some really scummy BS"? That's just bad prose - it is heavy handed, it makes the narrator sound so biased as to make them seem unreliable, and worst of all it's badly organized; a biography shouldn't conflate distinctly different periods of its subjects life for no good reason.
This book's obvious delight in Stan's many problems is just dispiriting. Whenever Stan starts a new venture Riesman goes out of his way to telegraph that it will end badly - which is not just judgmental, it is actively anti-climactic. Why should we read a thirty page chapter about Stan's attempted dot-com company if the introductory paragraphs repeatedly emphasize that the company will come to naught? Why can't Riesman just let the events unfold without prejudicing the audience with a lot of angry prose right at the outset?
Even worse: this book doesn't just do Stan dirty by overly emphasizing his problems - it does him dirty by shortselling his strengths. I agree that he might not have been the creative powerhouse that he claimed to be... But he clearly was very talented in a lot of ways, almost none of which get discussed in this book.
Yes, Stan might not have created the characters he took credit for - but it is undeniable that he was a good editor. If you look at the people who were working for Marvel in the mid-60s / early 70s it becomes clear that Stan had an eye for talent, and if you look at the stories that talent produced it becomes clear that he had good instincts about what to publish and what to veto. It is easy to give all the credit to the people who were actually writing and drawing the stories - but that does a disservice to Stan who was obviously good at putting those talents in a place where they could succeed.
After all, Stan must have been doing something right, because Marvel was knocking out classic story after classic story under his tenure... Meanwhile his rivals at DC were stuck making kitschy trash about Krypto the wonder dog, and the people that followed after him at Marvel had similarly underwhelming runs. I don't think it is fair to deny him any credit whatsoever for Marvel's success when they were much more successful under him than they were at any time before or since.
This book baffled and frustrated me. I don't really understood why Riesman wrote it; he clearly holds Jack Kirby in high esteem and disdains Stan Lee - so why not write a book about Kirby? Is he only writing about Lee because he was excited by the tabloid ending of the man's life? If so, that's gross - I don't enjoy rubbernecking at the sad end of a 90 something year old man who was being taken advantage of by a bunch of shady characters.
I don't think a biographer needs to hold his subject in high esteem to write a book about them - but I do think that they need to understand why their subject is important, and I don't think that Riesman really understands the appeal of Stan Lee. At the very least I don't think he understood why *I* like Stan Lee - which is because he was the last monumental figurehead in comics who didn't take them too seriously. His "throw it at the wall and hope that something sticks" approach was undeniably fruitful - but it was also a lot of fun, especially compared to the next big wavemakers in comic history like Watchmen and the Dark Knight Rises, both of which were very grimdark and pushed the industry in bad directions.
I liked Stan because he was involved in some epic mythmaking - but also because he seemed to understand that superhero comics were, at their core, goofy escapist entertainments for children. I liked him because he was a cheesy man who made cheesy work... So I was never going to like a sneering biography that takes smug satisfaction in watching him fail. In fact, that's the opposite of what I want from a book about a guy I liked.
October 25, 2021
“With great power comes great responsibility.”
While this was informative, I feel like I can’t trust half of what is said. Most of the arguments sound more like a he-said / she-said scenario and can’t be count as facts.
I feel the facts died with the artists, so in truth I’ll never be satisfied with any answers from anyone.
While this was informative, I feel like I can’t trust half of what is said. Most of the arguments sound more like a he-said / she-said scenario and can’t be count as facts.
I feel the facts died with the artists, so in truth I’ll never be satisfied with any answers from anyone.
January 28, 2022
Who was Stan Lee?
- An avuncular promoter of comic heroes?
- A creator of comic heroes?
- A man oblivious to the legal ramifications of his actions?
- A fraud and/or a crook?
The answer could be all of the above.
Abraham Riesman has sorted through this 95 year long life through interviews, film clips, court cases and comic art to tell the story. He frequently uses the word “charisma” to describe Lee, and others do too. Lee frequently uses “Coming Soon” announcements for books, films and events, most of which never occur.
The teenaged Lee went to work at one of his uncle’s publishing companies. Starting at the bottom it did not take him long to work his way up in the division that became Marvel Comics. He oversaw writers who generated ideas that became stories in magazines (and a few strips) upon Stan’s approval. Sometimes he contributed to or initiated ideas, sometimes he wrote the dialog and all the time he took the credit.
Who owns the superheros and other IP that resulted from this creative process? The free lance writers and artists? Lee? Marvel?
Riesman shows the IP ownership issue through sorting through the web of corporate policies, statements of the artists and writers, court documents and records of the changes in Marvel’s ownership. In its bankruptcy, Lee, already the public face of Marvel's superheroes was let go. Using his celebrity he formed new companies claiming the superheroes as part of their intellectual property. Once Marvel reorganized he landed a 6 and maybe 7 figure (annual) contract to continue to promote its super hero properties. This, of course, is in conflict with the interest of the shareholders of the companies he formed. It may be something like hush money from Marvel, to keep Lee from developing the properties on his own.
If it were fiction, the new companies would be an entertaining story. They were built on the dubious IP ownership claims and failed, with big losses for investors and shareholders. Some (of the very colorful) partners and associates went to jail (some had been there before). Lee was never charged with any crime.
Sixty years after the fact, when Marvel was finally owned by deep pocketed Disney, the family of one artist, Jack Kirby finally got recognition through the justice system. Others gave up, died, or await adjudication.
While the book is primarily about Lee's career, it begins with Lee's parents who left Romania prior to WWI, when anti-Semitism became life threatening. (Interesting that another notable cartoonist, Saul Steinberg fled Romania for the same reason after WWII.) Riesman describes Lee’s non-relationship with his brother and his love for his wife and daughter, for whom Lee’s million dollar/year salary was not enough.
Business partners have colorful grifting backgrounds (Peter Paul really takes the cake!). Somehow deals are done before their criminal pasts are discovered.
Lee never wanted a career in comics and on various occasions, this slips out in interviews. He doesn’t read comics, he wanted to write novels, he wished he took a different route.
Riesman never develops the title. I’m not sure what he thinks Lee is a “true believer” of.
In the end, who did I think Stan Lee was? A very sad man for sure, most likely a criminal too.
If you are interested in Stan Lee and/or the history of comics, this is a must read for you.
- An avuncular promoter of comic heroes?
- A creator of comic heroes?
- A man oblivious to the legal ramifications of his actions?
- A fraud and/or a crook?
The answer could be all of the above.
Abraham Riesman has sorted through this 95 year long life through interviews, film clips, court cases and comic art to tell the story. He frequently uses the word “charisma” to describe Lee, and others do too. Lee frequently uses “Coming Soon” announcements for books, films and events, most of which never occur.
The teenaged Lee went to work at one of his uncle’s publishing companies. Starting at the bottom it did not take him long to work his way up in the division that became Marvel Comics. He oversaw writers who generated ideas that became stories in magazines (and a few strips) upon Stan’s approval. Sometimes he contributed to or initiated ideas, sometimes he wrote the dialog and all the time he took the credit.
Who owns the superheros and other IP that resulted from this creative process? The free lance writers and artists? Lee? Marvel?
Riesman shows the IP ownership issue through sorting through the web of corporate policies, statements of the artists and writers, court documents and records of the changes in Marvel’s ownership. In its bankruptcy, Lee, already the public face of Marvel's superheroes was let go. Using his celebrity he formed new companies claiming the superheroes as part of their intellectual property. Once Marvel reorganized he landed a 6 and maybe 7 figure (annual) contract to continue to promote its super hero properties. This, of course, is in conflict with the interest of the shareholders of the companies he formed. It may be something like hush money from Marvel, to keep Lee from developing the properties on his own.
If it were fiction, the new companies would be an entertaining story. They were built on the dubious IP ownership claims and failed, with big losses for investors and shareholders. Some (of the very colorful) partners and associates went to jail (some had been there before). Lee was never charged with any crime.
Sixty years after the fact, when Marvel was finally owned by deep pocketed Disney, the family of one artist, Jack Kirby finally got recognition through the justice system. Others gave up, died, or await adjudication.
While the book is primarily about Lee's career, it begins with Lee's parents who left Romania prior to WWI, when anti-Semitism became life threatening. (Interesting that another notable cartoonist, Saul Steinberg fled Romania for the same reason after WWII.) Riesman describes Lee’s non-relationship with his brother and his love for his wife and daughter, for whom Lee’s million dollar/year salary was not enough.
Business partners have colorful grifting backgrounds (Peter Paul really takes the cake!). Somehow deals are done before their criminal pasts are discovered.
Lee never wanted a career in comics and on various occasions, this slips out in interviews. He doesn’t read comics, he wanted to write novels, he wished he took a different route.
Riesman never develops the title. I’m not sure what he thinks Lee is a “true believer” of.
In the end, who did I think Stan Lee was? A very sad man for sure, most likely a criminal too.
If you are interested in Stan Lee and/or the history of comics, this is a must read for you.
September 1, 2020
This well written and extensively researched biography of Stan Lee stands apart from most other books on the topic by not being a thinly veiled hagiography of Saint Stan. The book casts doubt on many of the long held "truths" about the history (mythology?) of the founding or Marvel Comics. Riesman builds on extensive interviews to paint a story of an ambitious Stan Lee who never truly felt comfortable working in the comics industry. Stan the Man in parts appears as a highly effective manager but also as a person who was always ready to take all of the credit for himself. He is shown as a brilliant self-publicist and a person who was bullied early on by the financial desires of his wife and daughter and later by the business partners he looked to to finally get him what he felt was his due. By the end of his life the reader feels sorry for all that has happened to Stan but in many ways cannot help but think that some of it is justice for his treatment of fellow creators, most notably the Great Jack Kirby.
This book was provided to me as an eArc by NetGalley in exchange for a fair review.
This book was provided to me as an eArc by NetGalley in exchange for a fair review.
February 20, 2021
Much more than a fan's, or a former fan's, notes — a thorough examination of one of the oddest American success stories of the 20th century, about how a guy with the soul of Willie Loman inadvertently became a pop culture revolution and then spent the rest of his sad life not quite knowing what to do with/about it. Terrifying.
April 9, 2021
I always thought myself in the minority regarding the opinion that Stan Lee's creativity ended when he became Marvel's publisher in 1970. Thankfully, I have learned I am not alone with no biography addressing this as pointedly as Abraham Riesman does in this fascinating biography.
There is no question Riesman has an agenda, which seems to be debunking the Stan Lee Myth. We may argue he goes too far in stripping Stan of his creative contributions to the Marvel Universe, but it may be a result of trying to balance the scales in a debate that will never end since most of the primary sources are no longer with us.
Riesman does a nice job on the early years, right up to Lee going into World War II. But the post-war period, through FF #1 needed more. First of all, many co-workers always said he was an excellent art director and developed a good commercial sense. Al Jaffe recounted on time he attended a cover meeting, expecting it to last all day, but Stan generated a few dozen cover ideas in a matter of hours. There were reports of him dictating full scripts during this period to secretaries so he seemed adept at the plot-first and full-script styles.
We have anecdotal evidence that Stan and Jack did kick ideas around, both in the office and in the car rides back to Long Island (courtesy of driver John Romita). So, it wasn't as cut and dried as Riesman makes it out to be.
I think Roy's role of mentee and creative contributor during the latter '60s got short shrift.
But, the complete and utter failure of Stan to create original works on his own in new media (film, television, webisodes) is sad to contemplate. Because we also know that in the right environment, he still could make valuable contributions. As Mark Waid recently noted on Facebook, Stan read work with his name on it and would make editorial and art comments that seemed more often than not to be spot on.
Not mentioned here is the series of How to books bearing Stan's name, packaged by Dynamite and published by Watson-Guptil. I co-wrote the How to Write Comics volume and was handed an outline that Stan clearly had a hand in creating. He answered emails from me about things he wanted to be covered or addressed so he was not always an absentee landlord of his name.
The book is a must-read bio, but possibly the best critical analysis of Stan's written work probably remains the volume from Tom Spurgeon and Jordan Raphael.
There is no question Riesman has an agenda, which seems to be debunking the Stan Lee Myth. We may argue he goes too far in stripping Stan of his creative contributions to the Marvel Universe, but it may be a result of trying to balance the scales in a debate that will never end since most of the primary sources are no longer with us.
Riesman does a nice job on the early years, right up to Lee going into World War II. But the post-war period, through FF #1 needed more. First of all, many co-workers always said he was an excellent art director and developed a good commercial sense. Al Jaffe recounted on time he attended a cover meeting, expecting it to last all day, but Stan generated a few dozen cover ideas in a matter of hours. There were reports of him dictating full scripts during this period to secretaries so he seemed adept at the plot-first and full-script styles.
We have anecdotal evidence that Stan and Jack did kick ideas around, both in the office and in the car rides back to Long Island (courtesy of driver John Romita). So, it wasn't as cut and dried as Riesman makes it out to be.
I think Roy's role of mentee and creative contributor during the latter '60s got short shrift.
But, the complete and utter failure of Stan to create original works on his own in new media (film, television, webisodes) is sad to contemplate. Because we also know that in the right environment, he still could make valuable contributions. As Mark Waid recently noted on Facebook, Stan read work with his name on it and would make editorial and art comments that seemed more often than not to be spot on.
Not mentioned here is the series of How to books bearing Stan's name, packaged by Dynamite and published by Watson-Guptil. I co-wrote the How to Write Comics volume and was handed an outline that Stan clearly had a hand in creating. He answered emails from me about things he wanted to be covered or addressed so he was not always an absentee landlord of his name.
The book is a must-read bio, but possibly the best critical analysis of Stan's written work probably remains the volume from Tom Spurgeon and Jordan Raphael.
August 14, 2023
I skipped over the other Stan Lee biographies waiting for one like this; one that pulls the pedestal out from under Lee and gives a more realistic portrayal of the man. I believe Stan Lee was, at best, a very confused low talent busininess man and, at worst, a scumbag and compulsive liar who would cut his own mother's throat in order to get a scrap of money and fame. Riesman, however, also goes into a few things that I didn't know about Lee (and much from Lee's own mouth in recordings that Lee and others made): He didn't like comic books or comic book movies (it was just a way to make a buck) and he was a bit of a racist. He may also have been a criminal depending on how much you buy into his "I'm just a too trusting old guy who people take advantage of and don't have anything to do with my businesses" schtick whenever any of his companies were busted doing illegal things. He always managed to wiggled his way out of trouble like a greased up rat while everyone around him headed to prison.
To Lee's credit, however, Riesman also goes into the fact that more than a few of the comic heavy hitters back in the day seemed awfully confused about the hows and whys of characters that they claimed to have created. Lee wasn't the only one giving multiple (sometimes incoherent or contradictory) accounts about who created a certain character.
It's not all Lee bashing, though. Toward the end of his life Lee (and in some cases his wife as well) was abused--physically, emotionally, and monetarily--by a variety of people, including his daughter J.C., and you can't help but feel sorry for him. Riesman had access to recordings of J.C. viciously berating Lee (with Lee many times giving back as good as he was given), with J.C. complaining that Lee didn't support her enough even though she had two houses and an apartment bought and paid for with Marvel megabucks.
So, if you adore Stan Lee and think that he created every Marvel comic character ever, then take a hard pass on this book. I don't care for Lee (although his movie cameos were always fun) but he was generally harmless enough that it doesn't make me crazy that people worship him nowadays. If, on the other hand, you want an honest and unflattering account of Stan Lee's life, I recommend this book without hesitation.
To Lee's credit, however, Riesman also goes into the fact that more than a few of the comic heavy hitters back in the day seemed awfully confused about the hows and whys of characters that they claimed to have created. Lee wasn't the only one giving multiple (sometimes incoherent or contradictory) accounts about who created a certain character.
It's not all Lee bashing, though. Toward the end of his life Lee (and in some cases his wife as well) was abused--physically, emotionally, and monetarily--by a variety of people, including his daughter J.C., and you can't help but feel sorry for him. Riesman had access to recordings of J.C. viciously berating Lee (with Lee many times giving back as good as he was given), with J.C. complaining that Lee didn't support her enough even though she had two houses and an apartment bought and paid for with Marvel megabucks.
So, if you adore Stan Lee and think that he created every Marvel comic character ever, then take a hard pass on this book. I don't care for Lee (although his movie cameos were always fun) but he was generally harmless enough that it doesn't make me crazy that people worship him nowadays. If, on the other hand, you want an honest and unflattering account of Stan Lee's life, I recommend this book without hesitation.
February 26, 2021
In the unlikely event that the author ever gains a fraction of Stan Lee’s fame, I hope someone publishes a hatchet job shortly after his demise. Unnecessary bitchery and character assassination permeate the book, taking in not just Lee, but Steve Ditko, Jack Kirby and many others. Yes, we already knew that the genesis/claims of ideas and authorship etc was open to speculation, argument and dismissal. Yes, we already knew that accounts changed from decade to decade, and that allegedly, the working conditions and dues paid to the artists involved were not perfect and, in some cases, resentments lasted lifetimes. But, if you’ve already read Sean Howe’s Marvel Comics: The Inside Story and Stan’s own Excelsior! then there’s really no need to read this.
All this really adds to those two books is occasionally flowery prose and a heartbreakingly sad and sordid end to the legend of Stan Lee; something that would be difficult to read about of anyone in the later part of their life.
So, if you’ve loved Marvel - the characters, comics, writers, artists, and yes, Stan’s showmanship and bombast - for most of your lifetime then ‘face front’ True Believer, there’s nothing to see here.
August 5, 2022
Quien venga a este libro buscando una respuesta clara a la pregunta ¿quién creó los personajes icónicos de Marvel? seguramente salga escaldado. Riesman no sólo expone facetas de su vida privada (muy duras las de sus últimos años) y creativa (risibles en muchos casos) en su mayor parte desconocidas para la mayoría del público. Sobre todo realiza una indagación que expone cómo era la persona detrás del personaje público. El retrato que queda al final es tan polifacético y complejo como sólo puede serlo un ser humano.
May 14, 2021
Before going into this I was more than aware that Stan Lee took more than his fair share of credit for those early golden creative years at Marvel. However I wasn’t quite aware the dislike between him and other creators went back that early and was quite as bad as it was. I’ve always been of the mind that for the majority of the characters Stan and Jack Kirby were behind, co-creator credit between the two is fair. But this made me think that maybe Stan doesn’t even deserve that
Along with his very dysfunctional relationship with his daughter and his questionable business choices (especially in his later years), this book does make you wonder what Stan Lee was actually like
For those of us who grew up with marvel, either from cartoons or the comics or modern audiences with the films, he is the face of Marvel
But this book is pretty eye opening, and makes you question the hero you’ve had since being 12. And it’s going to have to sit with me a while I think. And maybe I’ll have to revisit it after processing it
Along with his very dysfunctional relationship with his daughter and his questionable business choices (especially in his later years), this book does make you wonder what Stan Lee was actually like
For those of us who grew up with marvel, either from cartoons or the comics or modern audiences with the films, he is the face of Marvel
But this book is pretty eye opening, and makes you question the hero you’ve had since being 12. And it’s going to have to sit with me a while I think. And maybe I’ll have to revisit it after processing it
December 22, 2022
This book is really hard on Stan. The thesis is clear: “Stan was a liar and not a good person.” Makes for clear lively writing but I didn’t buy the thesis. I was not convinced to dislike Stan. I WAS disillusioned by all of Stan’s peers. Every single person seems to say “I invented everything myself with no valuable help from anyone.” If Stan was so lousy and unreliable —- then why did so many do their best work under his editorship? Kirby and Ditko hated him —- but almost every other comics creator who worked with him loved him! Anyway. This book is engaging and well researched but also it sure as heck seems mad at Stan Lee.
March 6, 2021
I made my peace with Stan Lee--or at least the well-cultivated image of Stan Lee--in 2010 at the San Diego Comic-Con. And the reason was that he was entertaining; he motivated me, and made me feel good. Stan could do that, and he probably earned more than a few second chances with people that way.
___
You can read my account of that Comic-Con appearance here: https://www.salon.com/2010/07/26/comi...
_____
Now you see, Jack Kirby was my idol in my teens and into my twenties--maybe even way sooner than that. This adulation probably went back to mind-blowing splash pages in Devil Dinosaur or Kamandi in the 70s. Kirby was the far-less heralded co-creator (at least) of The Fantastic Four, The Incredibly Hulk, the X-Men, Iron Man, the comic book version of Thor, and so many others--the very foundations of the Marvel Universe itself. Two other essential pillars--Spider-Man and Doctor Strange--were created or at least co-created by the warped genius of Steve Ditko, another artist with a penchant for mind-blowing imagery. I was convinced that Jack and Ditko were the real geniuses behind those characters and all of their supporting super villains, and that Stan just put word bubbles filled alliterative phrases into Spidey or Ben Grimm's mouths at most while taking all the credit for those artists' labors.
But my harsh assessment started to change while listening to Stan at the 2010 Comic-Con tell the origin story about his transformation from Stanley Martin Lieber into the beloved media figure called Stan Lee and the travails of a middle-aged man writing romance comics aimed at 12-year-old girls. Stan just had the gift of gab, I thought. He was the one that reporters wanted to talk and so they assigned him all the credit for collaborative works. As a reporter myself I knew how this could happen. It's so much easier to write that Stan was the creator of Marvel Comics instead of explaining the more complex collaborative process. This happens to me all the time where I struggle to explain something to the reader concisely but with accuracy. You can twist yourself into knots trying to do that on tight deadlines, and to writers who didn't care or understand, they just didn't bother, leaving Stan with a moral quandary that he was never up to dealing with.
This reassessment of mine was bolstered by the book Stan Lee Conversations, a 2007 collection of transcribed convention and media interviews with Stan. In several of them, he pushes the interviewers to include Kirby in the retelling of the Marvel creation myth, often to no avail. "Maybe we've all been too harsh on Smilin' Stan," I thought. But now, Abraham Riesman's True Believer: The Rise and Fall of Stan Lee is here to tell us that we probably weren't.
Riesman is one of the best journalists covering comics today and his biographic reassessment of the Stan and his oversized image details how hogging all the credit wasn't an accident of history, blockbuster movie cameos or sloppy journalism. It was all by design, but the truly sad part--and this is a very sad book--is it wasn't so much due to avarice at first, but because of Stan's senses-shattering insecurities. The pattern, once established, is later (but not too much later) motivated by the expensive tastes of his wife Joan, a woman with 50s fashion model good looks that Stan truly adored but only exacerbated his sense of inferiority. Eventually, Stan gets to the point where Marvel is paying him a million dollars a year to do nothing and that's still not enough.
True Believer depicts Stan as a man who always looked down on the comics field he was relegated too but never put in the work to break into more literary or journalistic fields. As Riesman details his own journeys through the Stan Lee archives with descriptions of decades of terrible and half-baked ideas, we are left wondering if Stan was even a good enough idea man for the four-color industry he found himself stuck in, the one he privately denigrated. We are returned to Kirby and Ditko's version of events that they were the creative force behind what's now part of Disney's inescapable media leviathan.
Riesman also shows unflinchingly how Stan's jokes at his artists' expense may have seemed like gentle ribbing to me reading them in Marvel Comics letters pages and credit lines, but were terrible slights to the overworked, underpaid and under appreciated men on the receiving end of them. It's easy enough for me, a mere fanboy, to make peace with Stan, but not Kirby, Ditko and even "Dashing" Dick Ayers while they were going blind, and risking carpal tunnel to draw all those panels and, yes, plot all those stories, only to receive no royalties due to the comics industry's exploitative work for hire standards of the time. These guys didn't even get their artwork back. Riesman makes you feel this pain and anger.
At best, Stan was the producer of these comics to use cinema terms and Kirby et al were the directors. And while the producer is the one who takes home to Best Picture Oscar, the directors are generally the ones credited with the work (much to screenwriters' dismay, but that's a different industry).
True Believer becomes an out-and-out Shakespearean tragedy by the time you get to the 1990s and the 21st Century where Stan becomes the figurehead of new media companies that are little more than stock manipulation schemes financed by check kiting. Like a gripping film noir, you see plenty of opportunities for Stan to right the ship and go legit, but he never does. He could have mentored young talent to create a new generation of heroes and worlds, but he had spent too much time selling himself to anyone who would listen as the great idea man that the Kurt Busieks of the world are relegated to struggling to make Stan's terrible ideas work--a truly Sisyphean task if ever there was one. Things go from bad to worse and worse from there as Stan is plagued by ruthless hangers on and his own abusive daughter until he's propped up at the head of autograph lines until nearly his dying day.
In the subtext of True Believer is Riesman's own shattered image of Stan, a figure he has admired for most of his life but could no longer do so after being confronted by so much evidence of malfeasance and cell-phone videos of Stan "The Man" as a waning figure spouting racial slurs. The latter is a little easier for me to look the other way at as those videos were taken by the people who tormented and exploited him during the painful last months of his life. Stan wasn't at his best, but I didn't see the videos either. I just read transcriptions of them in cold text.
I bought True Believer last Sunday and finished it on Thursday. That has to count for something, so I'm giving this book a rare (for me) five stars. It is also a tremendous work of research that I can only admire and envy. But be warned, this is a sad, sad book where the highs of Stan's rise never feel all that fun or meteoric as the author never turns away from making us painfully aware of the rotten foundations of Stan's success. Sean Howe's Marvel Comics: The Untold Story (2013) is a much more fun version of these events, but Howe wasn't stuck wading through Stan Lee's secret self-loathing. Howe gets to focus on Chris Claremont or Marv Wolfman for a while, making it easier to for him to portray the bright side of Marvel's pulpy publishing empire.
Through his research for this book, Riesman's view of Stan would never be the same, and for this, he couldn't help but make sure that ours won't be either.
Marvel Comics: The Untold Story
___
You can read my account of that Comic-Con appearance here: https://www.salon.com/2010/07/26/comi...
_____
Now you see, Jack Kirby was my idol in my teens and into my twenties--maybe even way sooner than that. This adulation probably went back to mind-blowing splash pages in Devil Dinosaur or Kamandi in the 70s. Kirby was the far-less heralded co-creator (at least) of The Fantastic Four, The Incredibly Hulk, the X-Men, Iron Man, the comic book version of Thor, and so many others--the very foundations of the Marvel Universe itself. Two other essential pillars--Spider-Man and Doctor Strange--were created or at least co-created by the warped genius of Steve Ditko, another artist with a penchant for mind-blowing imagery. I was convinced that Jack and Ditko were the real geniuses behind those characters and all of their supporting super villains, and that Stan just put word bubbles filled alliterative phrases into Spidey or Ben Grimm's mouths at most while taking all the credit for those artists' labors.
But my harsh assessment started to change while listening to Stan at the 2010 Comic-Con tell the origin story about his transformation from Stanley Martin Lieber into the beloved media figure called Stan Lee and the travails of a middle-aged man writing romance comics aimed at 12-year-old girls. Stan just had the gift of gab, I thought. He was the one that reporters wanted to talk and so they assigned him all the credit for collaborative works. As a reporter myself I knew how this could happen. It's so much easier to write that Stan was the creator of Marvel Comics instead of explaining the more complex collaborative process. This happens to me all the time where I struggle to explain something to the reader concisely but with accuracy. You can twist yourself into knots trying to do that on tight deadlines, and to writers who didn't care or understand, they just didn't bother, leaving Stan with a moral quandary that he was never up to dealing with.
This reassessment of mine was bolstered by the book Stan Lee Conversations, a 2007 collection of transcribed convention and media interviews with Stan. In several of them, he pushes the interviewers to include Kirby in the retelling of the Marvel creation myth, often to no avail. "Maybe we've all been too harsh on Smilin' Stan," I thought. But now, Abraham Riesman's True Believer: The Rise and Fall of Stan Lee is here to tell us that we probably weren't.
Riesman is one of the best journalists covering comics today and his biographic reassessment of the Stan and his oversized image details how hogging all the credit wasn't an accident of history, blockbuster movie cameos or sloppy journalism. It was all by design, but the truly sad part--and this is a very sad book--is it wasn't so much due to avarice at first, but because of Stan's senses-shattering insecurities. The pattern, once established, is later (but not too much later) motivated by the expensive tastes of his wife Joan, a woman with 50s fashion model good looks that Stan truly adored but only exacerbated his sense of inferiority. Eventually, Stan gets to the point where Marvel is paying him a million dollars a year to do nothing and that's still not enough.
True Believer depicts Stan as a man who always looked down on the comics field he was relegated too but never put in the work to break into more literary or journalistic fields. As Riesman details his own journeys through the Stan Lee archives with descriptions of decades of terrible and half-baked ideas, we are left wondering if Stan was even a good enough idea man for the four-color industry he found himself stuck in, the one he privately denigrated. We are returned to Kirby and Ditko's version of events that they were the creative force behind what's now part of Disney's inescapable media leviathan.
Riesman also shows unflinchingly how Stan's jokes at his artists' expense may have seemed like gentle ribbing to me reading them in Marvel Comics letters pages and credit lines, but were terrible slights to the overworked, underpaid and under appreciated men on the receiving end of them. It's easy enough for me, a mere fanboy, to make peace with Stan, but not Kirby, Ditko and even "Dashing" Dick Ayers while they were going blind, and risking carpal tunnel to draw all those panels and, yes, plot all those stories, only to receive no royalties due to the comics industry's exploitative work for hire standards of the time. These guys didn't even get their artwork back. Riesman makes you feel this pain and anger.
At best, Stan was the producer of these comics to use cinema terms and Kirby et al were the directors. And while the producer is the one who takes home to Best Picture Oscar, the directors are generally the ones credited with the work (much to screenwriters' dismay, but that's a different industry).
True Believer becomes an out-and-out Shakespearean tragedy by the time you get to the 1990s and the 21st Century where Stan becomes the figurehead of new media companies that are little more than stock manipulation schemes financed by check kiting. Like a gripping film noir, you see plenty of opportunities for Stan to right the ship and go legit, but he never does. He could have mentored young talent to create a new generation of heroes and worlds, but he had spent too much time selling himself to anyone who would listen as the great idea man that the Kurt Busieks of the world are relegated to struggling to make Stan's terrible ideas work--a truly Sisyphean task if ever there was one. Things go from bad to worse and worse from there as Stan is plagued by ruthless hangers on and his own abusive daughter until he's propped up at the head of autograph lines until nearly his dying day.
In the subtext of True Believer is Riesman's own shattered image of Stan, a figure he has admired for most of his life but could no longer do so after being confronted by so much evidence of malfeasance and cell-phone videos of Stan "The Man" as a waning figure spouting racial slurs. The latter is a little easier for me to look the other way at as those videos were taken by the people who tormented and exploited him during the painful last months of his life. Stan wasn't at his best, but I didn't see the videos either. I just read transcriptions of them in cold text.
I bought True Believer last Sunday and finished it on Thursday. That has to count for something, so I'm giving this book a rare (for me) five stars. It is also a tremendous work of research that I can only admire and envy. But be warned, this is a sad, sad book where the highs of Stan's rise never feel all that fun or meteoric as the author never turns away from making us painfully aware of the rotten foundations of Stan's success. Sean Howe's Marvel Comics: The Untold Story (2013) is a much more fun version of these events, but Howe wasn't stuck wading through Stan Lee's secret self-loathing. Howe gets to focus on Chris Claremont or Marv Wolfman for a while, making it easier to for him to portray the bright side of Marvel's pulpy publishing empire.
Through his research for this book, Riesman's view of Stan would never be the same, and for this, he couldn't help but make sure that ours won't be either.
Marvel Comics: The Untold Story
February 7, 2024
3.5 stars rounded down. Just didn’t love it.
February 19, 2021
DNF the audiobook, and to be honest I barely started it. The flamboyantly dramatic narrator starts out by calling Lee a liar and his friends, family and associates thieves, then detours through a genealogy deep dive on Lee's ancestors, including breathlessly informing us that the birthplace of his paternal grandmother (or maybe a different relative; I don't recall because this is not information that is meant to be remembered) is unknown. We then get an excruciating history lecture on 19th-century Romanian anti-Semitism (Lee, as you may recall, was born in the 20th century in New York City). At this point I gave up, feeling like Bruce Banner when one too many frustrations pile up.
Who is this book for? Not me.
Who is this book for? Not me.
September 14, 2020
Read if you: Want a fair investigation into Stan Lee's life.
Even casual pop culture followers know that Stan Lee was the creator of iconic Marvel characters. But what was the real truth behind that, and are claims that his influence/work are overstated true? This is a thorough, sympathetic, but not idolizing look at Lee's work, his inconsistencies with telling the truth, his difficult relationships, and more.
Librarians/booksellers: Purchase if biographies on pop culture icons are popular.
Many thanks to Crown and Edelweiss for a digital review copy in exchange for an honest review.
Even casual pop culture followers know that Stan Lee was the creator of iconic Marvel characters. But what was the real truth behind that, and are claims that his influence/work are overstated true? This is a thorough, sympathetic, but not idolizing look at Lee's work, his inconsistencies with telling the truth, his difficult relationships, and more.
Librarians/booksellers: Purchase if biographies on pop culture icons are popular.
Many thanks to Crown and Edelweiss for a digital review copy in exchange for an honest review.
January 29, 2022
For one thing, just a dozen pages into the book, Reisman informs us that Stan “lied about little things, he lied about big things, he lied about strange things,” adding that Stan quite likely lied about “one massive, very consequential thing” that, if so, “completely changes his legacy.”
The Hollywood Reporter
---
"Some people found him delightful to work with, while others deeply resented him. He promoted the black-and-white morality of the superhero world, but his own relationships were a tangle of ethical uncertainties."
"It was Lee’s family that helped him land his first job in comics, although he didn’t publicly admit it for years."
"As the ’60s progressed, Lee expanded the Marvel brand via spin-off products that boosted the company’s profile and profits—as well as his own career. The writers and artists, who were often freelancers, didn’t receive any royalties for the use of their work. Larry tells Riesman that as he watched his older brother get rich and famous, he was struggling to pay rent. Fed up, Ditko left the company in 1965. Kirby did the same five years later. Meanwhile, Lee’s ascent continued, and in 1972, he became Marvel’s president and publisher."
"Lee and three others he’d worked with at SLM then formed POW Entertainment, which was, according to Riesman, “a largely criminal enterprise,” accused of an array of misconduct. It remains unclear how much Lee knew about or participated in the illegal activities of the two companies, but both were meant, at least putatively, to serve as platforms for the dissemination of his genius."
"Lee’s late-in-life projects came to varying degrees of fruition, but many were only ever announcements that generated hype, which may have helped fuel the fraud. Few, if any, were critical or commercial successes. Lee became even more recognizable during the aughts, but it wasn’t due to his own creativity. It was because his presence had become an exciting Easter egg in Marvel’s superhero movies, which, Riesman points out, took off “only after he had handed the reins to others.” The box-office boom started with Blade in 1998, the same year that Lee lost his company contract. His run of cameos began with the next movie, X-Men, in 2000."
"The man hailed as brilliant had a lot of bad ideas, not simply in terms of marketing, but in content and execution."
"In light of this, it’s only natural to ask: Could Lee really have invented all those Marvel characters on his own? Riesman doesn’t make a judgment either way, but I get the sense that he’s doubtful, as am I after reading his book. “Stan was a man whose success came more from ambition than talent,” he writes. Lee’s ambition was to reach the top, which he did thanks in large part to his skill at self-promotion and his charm. You can see those qualities at work in interviews, where he comes across as genial, funny, and assured, speaking with a thick New York accent. In one from 2000 on CNN, Larry King introduces him as “the most famous name in American comic-book history” and goes on to ask, “What constitutes a hero?” Lee’s response harks back to the Marvel breakthrough of the ’60s: “Basically, to me, a hero is somebody who will sacrifice or will take great chances to help others but still have human traits, still not be perfect. When they become perfect, they become dull.” The irony is that Lee could never adhere to his own definition. He rarely went out of his way to help others—whether they were his own workers vying for better conditions or Kirby trying to reclaim original art from Marvel in the 1980s—and he spent his whole life hiding and running from his own imperfections."
"By contrast, Lee’s 2002 memoir Excelsior! is, Riesman finds, “largely self-serving,” studded with lies that “reinforced Stan’s legend, and elided anything for which he might be found to be at fault,” including the fraud at SLM. The 2015 graphic novel adaptation of it is much the same, with a primary quality of tedious flatness. Poring through Lee’s archives, Riesman can’t find much in the way of genuine self-reflection, let alone suggestions of remorse."
---
best snippets from a review from The New Republic
The Hollywood Reporter
---
"Some people found him delightful to work with, while others deeply resented him. He promoted the black-and-white morality of the superhero world, but his own relationships were a tangle of ethical uncertainties."
"It was Lee’s family that helped him land his first job in comics, although he didn’t publicly admit it for years."
"As the ’60s progressed, Lee expanded the Marvel brand via spin-off products that boosted the company’s profile and profits—as well as his own career. The writers and artists, who were often freelancers, didn’t receive any royalties for the use of their work. Larry tells Riesman that as he watched his older brother get rich and famous, he was struggling to pay rent. Fed up, Ditko left the company in 1965. Kirby did the same five years later. Meanwhile, Lee’s ascent continued, and in 1972, he became Marvel’s president and publisher."
"Lee and three others he’d worked with at SLM then formed POW Entertainment, which was, according to Riesman, “a largely criminal enterprise,” accused of an array of misconduct. It remains unclear how much Lee knew about or participated in the illegal activities of the two companies, but both were meant, at least putatively, to serve as platforms for the dissemination of his genius."
"Lee’s late-in-life projects came to varying degrees of fruition, but many were only ever announcements that generated hype, which may have helped fuel the fraud. Few, if any, were critical or commercial successes. Lee became even more recognizable during the aughts, but it wasn’t due to his own creativity. It was because his presence had become an exciting Easter egg in Marvel’s superhero movies, which, Riesman points out, took off “only after he had handed the reins to others.” The box-office boom started with Blade in 1998, the same year that Lee lost his company contract. His run of cameos began with the next movie, X-Men, in 2000."
"The man hailed as brilliant had a lot of bad ideas, not simply in terms of marketing, but in content and execution."
"In light of this, it’s only natural to ask: Could Lee really have invented all those Marvel characters on his own? Riesman doesn’t make a judgment either way, but I get the sense that he’s doubtful, as am I after reading his book. “Stan was a man whose success came more from ambition than talent,” he writes. Lee’s ambition was to reach the top, which he did thanks in large part to his skill at self-promotion and his charm. You can see those qualities at work in interviews, where he comes across as genial, funny, and assured, speaking with a thick New York accent. In one from 2000 on CNN, Larry King introduces him as “the most famous name in American comic-book history” and goes on to ask, “What constitutes a hero?” Lee’s response harks back to the Marvel breakthrough of the ’60s: “Basically, to me, a hero is somebody who will sacrifice or will take great chances to help others but still have human traits, still not be perfect. When they become perfect, they become dull.” The irony is that Lee could never adhere to his own definition. He rarely went out of his way to help others—whether they were his own workers vying for better conditions or Kirby trying to reclaim original art from Marvel in the 1980s—and he spent his whole life hiding and running from his own imperfections."
"By contrast, Lee’s 2002 memoir Excelsior! is, Riesman finds, “largely self-serving,” studded with lies that “reinforced Stan’s legend, and elided anything for which he might be found to be at fault,” including the fraud at SLM. The 2015 graphic novel adaptation of it is much the same, with a primary quality of tedious flatness. Poring through Lee’s archives, Riesman can’t find much in the way of genuine self-reflection, let alone suggestions of remorse."
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best snippets from a review from The New Republic
January 24, 2022
When I was growing up and reading/collecting comics, I was not interested in what was going on behind the scenes with companies nor the creative teams producing the titles I was reading. At least anything beyond the statements or announcements that were given in the comics themselves. There were things that I couldn't avoid, like the Steve Gerber fracas over the creation of Howard the Duck, but I didn't really want to spoil my enjoyment of the stories by knowing who was mad at who or who felt they were being mistreated by someone else.
Now that I'm (much) older, I am more interested in what happened back then. I've already read Comic Wars: How Two Tycoons Battled Over the Marvel Comics Empire--And Both Lost, Marvel Comics: The Untold Story, and the Kirby: King of Comics biography. Thus, I'm pretty well versed in the history of Stan Lee and his years at the start of Marvel Comics. This biography of Stan is well researched and often brings forth several viewpoints of the same events, like the creation credits for the early Marvel heroes. This book didn't change my mind about those events, but it was good to see the different stories, even coming from Stan himself, over the years.
What most interested me about this book was the third section, which chronicles Stan's life after Marvel. Namely his ventures with Stan Lee Media and POW Entertainment. I had heard about these entities over the course of these last 2o years, but never got into the details. Firstly, see first paragraph above, and secondly, after seeing all kinds of announcements that never materialized, I just wasn't interested in hearing more puffery and bluster that was nothing more than vaporware.
Then, after his death, there was all the hubbub about the final years of his life that I had seen or read about that looked more like rumors, innuendo, or a lot of "Who shot John". Riesman again presents several different perspectives from people that were there and part of (or claimed to be part of) Stan's inner circle in the last few years of his life.
Ultimately it's a sad story and a story driven by avarice. I feel bad for Stan and his family and wish it had ended better; not only for his friends and collaborators through the years, but for the fans that enjoyed his bombastic and infectious excitement in those early days of Marvel Comics that I remember from my teens and beyond.
Now that I'm (much) older, I am more interested in what happened back then. I've already read Comic Wars: How Two Tycoons Battled Over the Marvel Comics Empire--And Both Lost, Marvel Comics: The Untold Story, and the Kirby: King of Comics biography. Thus, I'm pretty well versed in the history of Stan Lee and his years at the start of Marvel Comics. This biography of Stan is well researched and often brings forth several viewpoints of the same events, like the creation credits for the early Marvel heroes. This book didn't change my mind about those events, but it was good to see the different stories, even coming from Stan himself, over the years.
What most interested me about this book was the third section, which chronicles Stan's life after Marvel. Namely his ventures with Stan Lee Media and POW Entertainment. I had heard about these entities over the course of these last 2o years, but never got into the details. Firstly, see first paragraph above, and secondly, after seeing all kinds of announcements that never materialized, I just wasn't interested in hearing more puffery and bluster that was nothing more than vaporware.
Then, after his death, there was all the hubbub about the final years of his life that I had seen or read about that looked more like rumors, innuendo, or a lot of "Who shot John". Riesman again presents several different perspectives from people that were there and part of (or claimed to be part of) Stan's inner circle in the last few years of his life.
Ultimately it's a sad story and a story driven by avarice. I feel bad for Stan and his family and wish it had ended better; not only for his friends and collaborators through the years, but for the fans that enjoyed his bombastic and infectious excitement in those early days of Marvel Comics that I remember from my teens and beyond.
March 23, 2021
Stan Lee led a very interesting life but it’s hard to be interested in this book. I found the writing to be clunky and distracting, and didn’t pull me in to be interested. It was a chore to read this biography and not fun. I hope there will be another biography that’s more interesting.
November 24, 2024
Óptima biografia, surpreendente e com muitos pontos a reter por desmascarar o mito de Stan Lee. Na altura entrevistei a autora, podem ler aqui: https://antena1.rtp.pt/programas-ante...
July 6, 2021
It is baffling why someone would spend so much time and effort writing a biography about a man he accuses of being a liar at the outset. Any pretense of objectivity was discarded very early on in this book. The story itself is written in a maddeningly passive way with a lack of decisiveness on the part of the biographer. So many statements are qualified by words like "claimed", "alleged", "apparently" or "possibly apocryphal" (if it's possibly apocryphal, it's possibly true too) or made by unnamed sources. Gill Champion "according to him" worked as a co-producer on a Paul Newman movie. Why so indecisive when he his listed in the movie's credits? The book reads significantly better in the passages where the biographer takes a more active stance and stops qualifying every statement he makes, leading the reader to doubt the veracity of many of his claims. This is never more obvious than during the dispute over character creation between Stan Lee and Jack Kirby. Every statement that Stan Lee makes is treated with subtle skepticism, while Jack Kirby's claims are given far more credence, despite the biographer acknowledging the fallibility of both men's memories. There are some genuinely interesting facts sprinkled through the biography but these are mostly lost within the largely irrelevant minutiae that dominate the latter part of the book. The detail included in the final chapter of the apparent elder abuse which allegedly occurred is excruciating to read and unnecessary. Even more disappointing is the fact that the book ends without so much as a paragraph summing up the man's life and legacy. The notes section at the back lists assorted references used to substantiate claims made in the biography but also includes emails and interviews claimed to have been conducted by the biographer, which may be possibly apocryphal. Unfortunately none of the references are cited in the text, making it difficult to verify the biographer's claims, should the reader wish to do so. I was very much looking forward to reading this book, unaware of the storm of controversy it had generated. Alas, disappointment at the subjective, and predominantly negative, treatment of its main character lurked on every page. I began to wonder if this was prompted by some kind of personal link between the biographer and the Jack Kirby clan. A quick Google search failed to bring anything to light. However, it did uncover an interesting and inciteful rebuttal from Roy Thomas, former editor-in-chief at Marvel, that is certainly worth a look (more so than this biography). It can be found at https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/mov....
February 20, 2021
If you grew up loving comics, you probably grew up loving Stan Lee. And, to this point, to the extent Lee's life has been probed at all, it's been done by friends or fans. Even though the controversy around whether Lee or Jack Kirby can claim the most credit for Marvel's creations has been out in the open for a while, Stan's still been "Stan the Man," beloved cameo artist and figurehead.
Riesman (who, full disclosure, I'll be interviewing shortly after this review runs) takes a more neutral stance, focused entirely on Stanley Lieber as he works his way into a publishing job and, by degrees, becomes Stan Lee, glib and delightful public speaker and character. It's not entirely shocking that Lee's self-presentation as a doggerel-spouting cheerleader is something of a front; the man would have to have been painfully simple-minded for that to be his actual personality.
Still, what Riesman brings out is a far more complex and sometimes unpleasant person than Stan allowed fans to see, and curiously what often emerges is that Stan's everything-sunny-always behavior covered not just Stan himself but many of the people around him, including those he wronged. Kirby, for example, is often treated as a martyr to creator's rights in the industry, but while Stan doesn't come off well when Riesman discusses it, Kirby's less-than-tasteful treatment of those in Stan's orbit, Roy Thomas in particular, doesn't exactly cover him in glory. There are even some discussions of Martin Goodman here, hardly somebody held in esteem by comics nerds, that make it clear Stan covered for his boss and relative long after he really shouldn't have.
Interestingly, perhaps Riesman's best point is that Stan was never a particularly great writer (and even the most generous fan in touch with reality will admit this), but he was a great editor and manager, and the great tragedy of Stan's life is that he could never accept this skill as enough. There's a funny moment where Stan, late in life, takes apart the plot structure of a comic he's being pitched and has a great point.
All that said, the final section will be a tough read. Just how much Stan exploited others versus how much he was exploited or used to exploit others we'll probably never know for sure, but it makes for tragic, ugly reading, pocked with some fairly bizarre characters.
In the end, what comes out of this book is that Stan Lee was a character, being played all the time, and the man behind the character was not the saint we comic fans might prefer. If you're a fan of the comics, or just curious about the man, it's a must-read.
Riesman (who, full disclosure, I'll be interviewing shortly after this review runs) takes a more neutral stance, focused entirely on Stanley Lieber as he works his way into a publishing job and, by degrees, becomes Stan Lee, glib and delightful public speaker and character. It's not entirely shocking that Lee's self-presentation as a doggerel-spouting cheerleader is something of a front; the man would have to have been painfully simple-minded for that to be his actual personality.
Still, what Riesman brings out is a far more complex and sometimes unpleasant person than Stan allowed fans to see, and curiously what often emerges is that Stan's everything-sunny-always behavior covered not just Stan himself but many of the people around him, including those he wronged. Kirby, for example, is often treated as a martyr to creator's rights in the industry, but while Stan doesn't come off well when Riesman discusses it, Kirby's less-than-tasteful treatment of those in Stan's orbit, Roy Thomas in particular, doesn't exactly cover him in glory. There are even some discussions of Martin Goodman here, hardly somebody held in esteem by comics nerds, that make it clear Stan covered for his boss and relative long after he really shouldn't have.
Interestingly, perhaps Riesman's best point is that Stan was never a particularly great writer (and even the most generous fan in touch with reality will admit this), but he was a great editor and manager, and the great tragedy of Stan's life is that he could never accept this skill as enough. There's a funny moment where Stan, late in life, takes apart the plot structure of a comic he's being pitched and has a great point.
All that said, the final section will be a tough read. Just how much Stan exploited others versus how much he was exploited or used to exploit others we'll probably never know for sure, but it makes for tragic, ugly reading, pocked with some fairly bizarre characters.
In the end, what comes out of this book is that Stan Lee was a character, being played all the time, and the man behind the character was not the saint we comic fans might prefer. If you're a fan of the comics, or just curious about the man, it's a must-read.
May 2, 2021
If ever there was a figurehead in comics Stan Lee would have to be on top of that totem pole. Riesman's bio on Stan "The Man" Lee was eye opening and quite the tale.
The major scrutiny and the answer to the question as to whether he had a real hand in creating such super heroes as Spider-man, The Fantastic Four, Dr. Strange, The Hulk, etc... is debatable. Lee himself became a character serving as Marvel Editor for three decades plus in his quest to become larger than life in all forms of media and the last years of his life are ones of sadness, loneliness, and despair if what I read is all true and fact which it most likely is.
Reisman does a solid job compiling his information culled from interviews from those who worked with Lee or knew Lee as well as countless hours of video footage, notes, and Lee's own auto-biography itself.
A compelling read to say the least. The jury remains out as to what Lee's contributions were to the comics overall. My opinion which no one asked for to begin with is that he had something to do with the writing. I don't think the books were 100% created without some of Lee's verbiage in place.
The major scrutiny and the answer to the question as to whether he had a real hand in creating such super heroes as Spider-man, The Fantastic Four, Dr. Strange, The Hulk, etc... is debatable. Lee himself became a character serving as Marvel Editor for three decades plus in his quest to become larger than life in all forms of media and the last years of his life are ones of sadness, loneliness, and despair if what I read is all true and fact which it most likely is.
Reisman does a solid job compiling his information culled from interviews from those who worked with Lee or knew Lee as well as countless hours of video footage, notes, and Lee's own auto-biography itself.
A compelling read to say the least. The jury remains out as to what Lee's contributions were to the comics overall. My opinion which no one asked for to begin with is that he had something to do with the writing. I don't think the books were 100% created without some of Lee's verbiage in place.
February 26, 2021
A simultaneously infuriating and heartbreaking story. Most of the Marvel years are well documented, but his post Marvel years have always been glossed over. In the end, it’s frustrating to see that Stan surrounded himself, whether knowingly or not, with grifters and con men. It’s sad to know that he just couldn’t share the spotlight with his fellow creators and enjoy the adoration. He seems like he was a man who could never be happy and was always running from the industry that gave him his fame. As we know, he was a master spokesperson, a helluva editor and a jubilant dialogue writer. Rest In Peace, Mr. Lee.
April 23, 2023
It’s hard not to see Stan Lee’s life as a kind of tragedy, in the original sense of a character who is visited by disasters stemming from own their personal flaws.
Lee was able to capitalize on his collaborations with Jack Kirby (and at times it seems less like a collaboration than Lee signing his name to Kirby’s work) to become famous—famous enough where he thought he could finally leave low-brow comic books behind and be a legitimate artist/celebrity. Post-Kirby he would spend the next 40 years desperately trying to make a creative splash only to be met by failure after failure. Even his famous MCU cameos were bittersweet since he’d been unsuccessfully trying to get Marvel properties turned into movies for decades but had no input in (and got no royalties from) the blockbuster franchise.
He spent the last decade surrounded by parasitic hangers on in the care of a daughter who despised him. Who says this isn’t the Marvel Age of happy endings?
Lee was able to capitalize on his collaborations with Jack Kirby (and at times it seems less like a collaboration than Lee signing his name to Kirby’s work) to become famous—famous enough where he thought he could finally leave low-brow comic books behind and be a legitimate artist/celebrity. Post-Kirby he would spend the next 40 years desperately trying to make a creative splash only to be met by failure after failure. Even his famous MCU cameos were bittersweet since he’d been unsuccessfully trying to get Marvel properties turned into movies for decades but had no input in (and got no royalties from) the blockbuster franchise.
He spent the last decade surrounded by parasitic hangers on in the care of a daughter who despised him. Who says this isn’t the Marvel Age of happy endings?
February 24, 2021
A candid tale of the creation of Stan Lee, as he often referred to himself, the Man, the Myth, the Legend. This unvarnished look at a Giant name in the pop-culture world may shock some, but its deeply humanizing tale, more than anything, makes you hurt for the sufferings he went thru time and again in his life.
A decent story, but with some unfortunate editorializing that colors the work. Fans of Stan and Marvel, though, will be quick to point out the man thrust of the work: without Stan Lee, the world would be a much different looking place. One with less hope, wonder and the one thing that typified Stan, a drive for excellence. EXCELSIOR, Stan!
A decent story, but with some unfortunate editorializing that colors the work. Fans of Stan and Marvel, though, will be quick to point out the man thrust of the work: without Stan Lee, the world would be a much different looking place. One with less hope, wonder and the one thing that typified Stan, a drive for excellence. EXCELSIOR, Stan!
December 20, 2021
The author does an excellent job of balancing sources and suppositions.
His conclusions are all the more powerful bc of this restraint:
Jack Kirby created most of the marvel universe.
Lee was a great promoter and did have the notion for marvel’s shared world.
Lee never liked comics. Wrote them for money and didn’t follow them after he left the trenches at marvel.
The 70s and onward were a slowly tightening spiral of hanger-ons grifting Lee’s increasing fame.
And his daughter seemed to be handfuls of Hulk sized trouble.
His conclusions are all the more powerful bc of this restraint:
Jack Kirby created most of the marvel universe.
Lee was a great promoter and did have the notion for marvel’s shared world.
Lee never liked comics. Wrote them for money and didn’t follow them after he left the trenches at marvel.
The 70s and onward were a slowly tightening spiral of hanger-ons grifting Lee’s increasing fame.
And his daughter seemed to be handfuls of Hulk sized trouble.
Read
April 18, 2023The last few chapters of this are pretty harrowing. All the while you are sort of rooting for Lee, even though he seems to have been a slimy and callous bastard. The crushing sense of failure, and unrealized potential, and the unreachable fantasy of genius -- all dragon-chasing nightmares not too far beyond familiarity.
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