Stan Lee: A Life, Centennial Edition

by Bob Batchelor, Tom DeLonge (Foreword)

The definitive biography of Marvel legend Stan Lee, celebrating the 100 th anniversary of his birth. Stan Lee’s extraordinary life was as epic as the superheroes he co-created, from the Amazing Spider-Man to the Mighty Avengers. His ideas and voice are at the heart of global culture, loved by millions of superhero fans around the world. In Stan A Life, award-winning cultural historian Bob Batchelor offers an in-depth and complete look at this iconic visionary. Born in the Roaring Twenties, growing up in the Great Depression, living and thriving through the American Century, and dying in the twenty-first century, Stan Lee’s life is a unique representation of recent American history. Batchelor examines Lee’s fascinating American life by drawing out all its complexity, drama, heartache, and humor, revealing how Lee introduced the world to heroes that were just as fallible and complex as their creator—and just like all of us. An up-close look at a legendary figure, this centennial edition includes completely new material to give the full measure of a man whose genius continues to mesmerize audiences worldwide. Candid, authoritative, and absorbing, this is the biography of a man who dreamed of one day writing the Great American Novel, but ended up doing so much more—revolutionizing culture by creating new worlds and heroes that have entertained generations.

Genres: Nonfiction, Comics, Biography

224 pages, Hardcover

Published October 15, 2022

About the author

Bob Batchelor is a critically-acclaimed cultural historian and biographer. He is the author of Stan Lee: A Life (Rowman & Littlefield, October 2022), Stan Lee: The Man Behind Marvel, Young Adult Edition (Rowman & Littlefiled, October 2022), and Roadhouse Blues: Morrison, the Doors, and the Death Days of the Sixties (Hamilcar Publications, November 2022).

He has published books on Bob Dylan, The Great Gatsby, Mad Men, and John Updike. His latest, Rookwood: The Rediscovery and Revival of an American Icon, An Illustrated History won the 2021 Independent Publishers Book Award for Fine Art. The Bourbon King: The Life and Crimes of George Remus, Prohibition’s Evil Genius won the 2020 Independent Publishers Book Award for Historical Biography. Stan Lee: The Man Behind Marvel was a finalist for the 2018 Ohioana Book Award for Nonfiction.

Bob’s books have been translated into a dozen languages and his work has appeared in Time magazine, the New York Times, Cincinnati Enquirer, and Los Angeles Times. Bob is also the creator and host of the podcast John Updike: American Writer, American Life. He has appeared as an on-air commentator for The National Geographic Channel, PBS NewsHour, PBS, and NPR. Bob hosted “TriState True Crime” on WCPO’s Cincy Lifestyle television show.

Bob earned his doctorate in American Literature from the University of South Florida. He has taught at universities in Florida, Ohio, and Pennsylvania, as well as Vienna, Austria. Bob lives in North Carolina with his wife Suzette and their teenage daughters.

For more information, visit www.bobbatchelor.com.

Reviews

[Martin Maenza · Rating 3 out of 5]

On October 15, 2022, Stan Lee: A Life will hit stands. Rowman and Littlefield Publishers provided an early galley in exchange for this review.

As a lifelong comic book reader, I've always been interested in Stan Lee and his important place in that genre's history. I have even read a few biographies on him in the past as well as the history of Marvel Comics in general. However, I had not read Batchelor's earlier work Stan Lee: The Man Behind Marvel from 2017 of which this new one is an expansion (this one has an additional sixty pages to it).

Given what I knew already, quite a bit of Batchelor's upcoming book was fairly common knowledge for me. There were a few spots that expanded upon things for me, especially in the area of some of the projects from the 70's like the Fireside Book collections, the creation of Crazy magazine and the daily newspaper strips.

As with most nonfiction books and biographies, it is important when the author has done their research. As the references section at the end of the book shows, Batchelor indeed do his homework on his subject. As a librarian, I appreciate that as well.

If you are new to Stan Lee's life, this is certainly a volume that will cover all the general bases for you.

[Maddy · Rating 2 out of 5]

I’m a huge fan of Marvel & Stan Lee so I was really curious to read this book! But the writing seemed muchhh more dense than it needed to be for a man who had such a fun life creating incredible characters.

It was interesting to learn about his early years, but I didn’t feel like I learned a ton of new information about him. The author frequently mentions that many factors of Lee’s childhood are “unknown”, which seems odd for a biography…

Just overall a miss for me 🫡

[Kelsey Modlin · Rating 2 out of 5]

Rating more like a 2.5; I don't want it to reflect my opinion of Stan Lee or Marvel, just the directional choice of this book in particular. The title feels a little misleading to me once reaching the end because so much of the book felt like reading a history of Marvel as opposed to Stan Lee's life (which I fully get that his life was deeply entrenched in the work he did for Marvel literally up to the very end, but the constant reference to comic sales numbers and trajectory of the company even after Stan was no longer writing for them felt unnecessary to tell his story specifically). I'll never really understand the hyper fanboys who insist of shitting all over any individual who helped make Marvel what it was, and so there was a lot of focus on the Lee vs Kirby rhetoric that felt mostly like the author was trying to protect himself by not coming off as prejudiced towards one or the other.

I am glad though that this book gave a voice to the elder abuse that was faced by Stan towards the end of his life; he should have been protected so much more dearly by people within the industry than he was.

[Mike · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good bio, obvious where his viewpoint changes in the book from "Stan centered" to the "co creators standpoint" in the never ending Stan and Jack debate. Same for Ditko. Stan gets a little too much credit for the novel feel of Marvel stories, and too little credit for Marvel creativity.
I think the Fingeroth bio gives us a better feeling of Stan as himself, this is more about Stan and the publishing industry.
This book doesn't really mention Macneeley, or a number of other artists and coworkers, in attempting to stick for the Stan storyline. Of course, that keeps this under 1000 pages, which is where it would go to do justice to the enormous amount of creative talent needed.

[Beth · Rating 3 out of 5]

#netgalleyarc I really enjoyed this book. It was a quick but very informative read. I really enjoyed learning about Mr. Lee’s life and learning about how the things that happened to him shaped his characters and his life. It’s not a title I’ll purchase for my library but it is one I’d recommend that Stan Lee fans read.