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Overview
The definitive biography of the beloved—often controversial—co-creator of many legendary superheroes, A Marvelous Life: The Amazing Story of Stan Lee presents the origin of “Stan the Man,” who spun a storytelling web of comic book heroic adventures into a pop culture phenomenon: the Marvel Universe.
"[Fingeroth's] intimate yet balanced account, highlights Lee’s humanity, humor and even humility. But it doesn’t ignore how his canny self-promotion at times shortchanged his collaborators and constrained his own choices." —Wall Street Journal
Stan Lee was the most famous American comic book creator who ever lived.
Thanks, especially, to his many cameos in Marvel movies and TV shows, Lee was—and even after his 2018 death, still is—the voice and face of comics and popular culture in general, and Marvel Comics in particular. How he got to that place is a story that has never been fully told—until now.
With creative partners including Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko—with whom he had tempestuous relationships that rivaled any superhero battle—Lee created world-famous characters including Spider-Man, Iron Man, the X–Men, the Avengers, and the Hulk!
But Lee’s career was haunted by conflict and controversy. Was he the most innovative creator to ever do comics? Was he a lucky no-talent whose only skill was taking credit for others’ work? Or was he something else altogether?
Danny Fingeroth’s A Marvelous Life: The Amazing Story of Stan Lee attempts to answer some of those questions. It is the first comprehensive biography of this powerhouse of ideas who, with his invention of Marvel Comics, changed the world’s ideas of what a hero is and how a story should be told.
With exclusive interviews with Lee himself, as well as with colleagues, relatives, friends—and detractors—Fingeroth makes a doubly remarkable case for Lee’s achievements, while not ignoring the controversies that dogged him his entire life—and even past his death. With unique access to Lee’s personal archives at the University of Wyoming, Fingeroth explores never-before-examined aspects of Lee’s life and career, and digs under the surface of what people thought they knew about him.
Fingeroth, himself a longtime writer and editor at Marvel Comics, and now a lauded pop culture critic and historian, knew and worked with Stan Lee for over four decades. With his unique insights as a comics world insider, Fingeroth is able to put Lee’s life and work in a unique context that makes events and actions come to life as no other writer could.
Despite F. Scott Fitzgerald’s famous warning that “There are no second acts in American lives,” Stan Lee created a second act for himself that changed everything for him, his family, his industry, and ultimately for all of popular culture. How he did it—and what it cost him—is a larger-than-life tale of a man who helped create the modern superhero mythology that has become a part of all our lives.
"[Fingeroth's] intimate yet balanced account, highlights Lee’s humanity, humor and even humility. But it doesn’t ignore how his canny self-promotion at times shortchanged his collaborators and constrained his own choices." —Wall Street Journal
Stan Lee was the most famous American comic book creator who ever lived.
Thanks, especially, to his many cameos in Marvel movies and TV shows, Lee was—and even after his 2018 death, still is—the voice and face of comics and popular culture in general, and Marvel Comics in particular. How he got to that place is a story that has never been fully told—until now.
With creative partners including Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko—with whom he had tempestuous relationships that rivaled any superhero battle—Lee created world-famous characters including Spider-Man, Iron Man, the X–Men, the Avengers, and the Hulk!
But Lee’s career was haunted by conflict and controversy. Was he the most innovative creator to ever do comics? Was he a lucky no-talent whose only skill was taking credit for others’ work? Or was he something else altogether?
Danny Fingeroth’s A Marvelous Life: The Amazing Story of Stan Lee attempts to answer some of those questions. It is the first comprehensive biography of this powerhouse of ideas who, with his invention of Marvel Comics, changed the world’s ideas of what a hero is and how a story should be told.
With exclusive interviews with Lee himself, as well as with colleagues, relatives, friends—and detractors—Fingeroth makes a doubly remarkable case for Lee’s achievements, while not ignoring the controversies that dogged him his entire life—and even past his death. With unique access to Lee’s personal archives at the University of Wyoming, Fingeroth explores never-before-examined aspects of Lee’s life and career, and digs under the surface of what people thought they knew about him.
Fingeroth, himself a longtime writer and editor at Marvel Comics, and now a lauded pop culture critic and historian, knew and worked with Stan Lee for over four decades. With his unique insights as a comics world insider, Fingeroth is able to put Lee’s life and work in a unique context that makes events and actions come to life as no other writer could.
Despite F. Scott Fitzgerald’s famous warning that “There are no second acts in American lives,” Stan Lee created a second act for himself that changed everything for him, his family, his industry, and ultimately for all of popular culture. How he did it—and what it cost him—is a larger-than-life tale of a man who helped create the modern superhero mythology that has become a part of all our lives.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781250766182 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | St. Martin's Publishing Group |
| Publication date: | 09/01/2020 |
| Pages: | 400 |
| Sales rank: | 404,303 |
| Product dimensions: | 5.40(w) x 8.10(h) x 1.30(d) |
About the Author
DANNY FINGEROTH was an award-winning writer and editor at Marvel Comics. A highly-regarded pop culture critic and historian, he is the author of acclaimed books including Superman on the Couch: What Superheroes Really Tell Us About Ourselves and Our Society and co-editor of The Stan Lee Universe, an annotated collection of rarities from Lee’s personal archives. Fingeroth worked with Lee on numerous projects and conducted original, in-depth interviews with him (and many others) in the course of researching A Marvelous Life. Fingeroth has spoken and taught on comics-related topics at Columbia University, the Smithsonian Institution, and at Milan’s Mimaster Institute, among many other venues.
Table of Contents
Preface 1
1 JFK, the Beatles…and Stan Lee 5
2 The Dress Cutter's Son 13
3 The Pied Piper of West Forty-second Street 25
4 The Psychopathology of Comic Books 45
5 Breaking Out and Staying In 67
6 Gathering Forces 75
7 From the Ashes 87
8 Webs Tangled and Otherwise 103
9 Creating Characters 123
10 The Ties That Bind 143
11 Boom Boom Boom 169
12 Revolution in the Air 185
13 Surfing the Waves 195
14 Tense Transitions 215
15 Power Politics 231
16 The Chaos and the King 247
17 Returns and Departures 257
18 Goodbyes and Hellos 273
19 California Dreamin' 287
20 Follow the Money 299
21 Of Love and Law 317
22 The Undiscover'd Country 331
23 Legacy 343
Afterword: Last Thoughts on Stan Lee 357
Acknowledgments 361
Notes 365
Index 383
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