Stan “The Man” Lee Turns 85
This was a big weekend for birthdays. Yesterday, a close buddy of mine had his 30th birthday. The day before, my sister turned 19. And the day before that, Stan Lee turned–holy shit, that guy is 85??
Wow, Stan Lee’s getting old. Like, ooooooold. And yet he continues to take part in terrible television show year after year. I’ll give him one thing; he has a lot of energy and enthusiasm for his age. I think that it’s because of that (more so than the fact that he created some of the most influential comic book characters in history) that when he finally leaves us, he’ll be so greatly missed.
I always read stories from all sorts of comic book professionals about the day they first met Jack “King” Kirby. All of them–no matter how old the person was at the time–gave the sense of a child meeting his hero. All very inspirational. Unfortunately, I’d never met Jack Kirby before he died. Never even seen him at any of the conventions I’d attended. Unlike Stan Lee, Jack Kirby wasn’t in the spotlight much, so I never got much exposure to him other than his artwork and those stories.
Stan Lee’s different. The closest I ever got to seeing him myself was when I walked in on the last 5min of a panel he was on. I could barely see him from behind all the people standing in the back of the room. But aside from that, I think that him being in the public eye was a positive thing. Every time I see him talking on TV, I get excited! Even if it’s about comics that I’ll never read ever, I feel like a kid again!
I think one reason why we’ve been seeing Stan Lee so often lately in both film and TV is because people are realizing that he’s not going to be around to lead the way for the comic book industry for much longer. So they’re going to get as much mileage out of his notoriety as possible. Whether it be producing crappy reality shows or 3-second cameos. Sure, it might be exploitive, but I’d be lying if I said that I didn’t love seeing him.
Happy 85th, Stan Lee… Excelsior!
