'Nuff said.
My name is Justin Palm, and, well... I'm Spider-Man.
Wait, no, let me back up for a minute, because I genuinely just had a flashback to something I hadn't thought of in two decades...
It's the summer after fourth grade, and I'm in an art class with my friend Matt. The local news shows up, to do a standard local news puff piece. They ask me why I'm in this class, why I love to draw. And I tell them that, the moment it got serious for me, was one day when I decided to draw Spider-Man. And something just... it all clicked in my head, somehow. That's what I wanted to do, forever.
When I was a kid, I literally was on the news because I was drawing something Stan Lee helped come up with. On the list of "writers and artists who shaped my life", he is pretty close to the top. Twenty-odd years later, I was in a life drawing workshop this Tuesday. Stan Lee died on Monday. And, to be honest, I have a lot of complicated feelings about that.
To be clear, I'm not here to deify the man. His treatment of female characters in the 60's is very much... of the 60's. Like most art, not all of his work has aged well. He was no saint, he did a lot of shitty things. And I'm not talking his personal life- that's not my place to judge- I mean artistic and business ethics stuff. He was a brilliant showman, and like a lot of showmen he took more credit than he probably really deserved for a long time. It's almost unquestionable that he took credit from artists Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko, and probably many others. Ditko, of course. being the co-creator of Spidey and Doctor Strange (and Kirby basically everything else, because that man was a freaking CREATIVE MACHINE)... Wait.
Holy shit.
Both Spider-Man's creators have died this year. Shit.
One, a bombastic glory-hound. The other, a creepy recluse who wanted to be left alone forever, because no one understood him and his weird obsessions. Somehow, yeah- both for me and Spider-Man's creators- that seems about right.
Now, when I say I'm Spider-Man, I should probably be more specific. These days there are a lot of Spider-Men, and Spider-Women, and they're all great in different ways. Maybe I should instead say that I'm Peter Parker. Peter was a smart kid, with lots of people on his side that frankly, he had a hard time noticing. He made a selfish decision that inadvertently led to him losing someone he loved, and the guilt of that decision basically controlled his life from then on. Being a nerd, feeling responsible for everything, and wanting to save everyone-- that's me. And that's all from Spidey.
The person who can't see the amazing people around him. Who doubts everything about himself, except when he puts on a mask, and suddenly? He's the most carefree person around. Always with a joke, always ready to take on any bully with a smart ass quip. Because that's what works, that's what makes sense to him. His real life always seems to be falling apart to him, but when he's Spider-Man? Fighting gods and monsters? Just another Wednesday. All this pathos, and all in one character who basically is who I identify with most. I'm not sure what that says exactly, but it's not nothing.
So, you see, I'm Spider-Man, because I think everyone is kind of Spider-Man, in different ways. Everyone knows what it's like to feel isolated, to put on a mask to hide your pain, to screw up but keep trying despite your mistakes. And even though everyone knows what that feels like, it was Stan who crystallized those feelings to me, when he created my favorite superhero. Mine, and a lot of people's. Not just Peter Parker.
Stan Lee co-created literally hundreds of other characters, wrote thousands of stories, and was championing against racism as the mid 60's were just getting started. I mean, the man wrote "This Man, This Monster!" He wrote "Silver Surfer: Parable". He wrote "The Fangs of the Desert Fox!" maybe my favorite World War II story ever. He wrote "The Final Chapter", not only the greatest Spider-Man story ever told, but the single greatest superhero story ever, FULL STOP. I'm willing to fight anyone over that, and I'm gonna take a moment to explain why.
Aunt May is dying, because, well, that was kind of her de facto status in the 60's. Spidey has the medicine to save her, but hero shit keeps needing his attention. Doctor Octopus had this amazing plan that totally screwed over Spidey, and he's trapped under debris in a flooding undersea lab base that's about to be destroyed (because comics are AWESOME)- anyway, Spider-Man has LOST. His greatest enemy beat him, and his maternal figure is about to die. So is he, and nothing can stop any of it. And at first, this destroys him, he's convinced that he's a total failure. But as desperation sets in, Peter realizes the medicine to save her... it's right in front of him. All he has to do to save her is... the impossible. Lift this giant (literal) weight off himself to escape and save her.
"Anyone can win a fight when the odds are easy," Spider-Man tells himself, as much as the reader. "It's when the going's tough-- when there seems to be no chance-- that's when it counts!" And through all the struggle and pain, he forces himself to lift this impossible amount of debris, to fight his way through the rest of Doc Ock's goons, to save the day. Because when everything is the darkest, that's when you need to fight to do what's right the most.
There's a reason Spider-Man: Homecoming homages this entire scene. Its probably the greatest use of superheroing ever. And Stan wrote it.
I never literally met Stan Lee, but that was a personal choice. A few years ago I was at Chicago's Comic-Con with my best friend Patrick, when Lee was there. We saw him, people were in line for a picture or an autograph, and we both kind of felt like... what are you supposed to say to Stan Lee? We could geek out, sure, but thousands of people had done that to Stan Lee for decades. Like, what do you say when you actually meet a legend that straight up helped invented you as a person? How do you even process that, when you're not even close to being on equal footing?
My biggest creative work, that I've been playing with for a decade, is a very deliberate Spider-Man riff. There's some very real talk about me co-hosting a Spider-Man podcast in the near future. I live and breathe Marvel, and even though Stan didn't create Marvel (lots of people are wrong there, it's much more complicated than that), Stan Lee did indirectly created me. It's, like, Star Trek, then Marvel Comics. That's why I believe in what I believe in. Spider-Man taught me to always try to help people. Not because you can help everyone, or that you'll always succeed in doing what's right. But that doesn't mean you can't try. He screws up, a lot sometimes. But he never stops trying.
Stan Lee taught me that with great power comes great responsibility. And I don't give a damn if that line has become cliched in the fifty years sense he first wrote it. It's an incredibly important lesson, and I wouldn't be me if he hadn't told me that. 'Nuff said.
Wait, no, let me back up for a minute, because I genuinely just had a flashback to something I hadn't thought of in two decades...
It's the summer after fourth grade, and I'm in an art class with my friend Matt. The local news shows up, to do a standard local news puff piece. They ask me why I'm in this class, why I love to draw. And I tell them that, the moment it got serious for me, was one day when I decided to draw Spider-Man. And something just... it all clicked in my head, somehow. That's what I wanted to do, forever.
When I was a kid, I literally was on the news because I was drawing something Stan Lee helped come up with. On the list of "writers and artists who shaped my life", he is pretty close to the top. Twenty-odd years later, I was in a life drawing workshop this Tuesday. Stan Lee died on Monday. And, to be honest, I have a lot of complicated feelings about that.
To be clear, I'm not here to deify the man. His treatment of female characters in the 60's is very much... of the 60's. Like most art, not all of his work has aged well. He was no saint, he did a lot of shitty things. And I'm not talking his personal life- that's not my place to judge- I mean artistic and business ethics stuff. He was a brilliant showman, and like a lot of showmen he took more credit than he probably really deserved for a long time. It's almost unquestionable that he took credit from artists Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko, and probably many others. Ditko, of course. being the co-creator of Spidey and Doctor Strange (and Kirby basically everything else, because that man was a freaking CREATIVE MACHINE)... Wait.
Holy shit.
Both Spider-Man's creators have died this year. Shit.
One, a bombastic glory-hound. The other, a creepy recluse who wanted to be left alone forever, because no one understood him and his weird obsessions. Somehow, yeah- both for me and Spider-Man's creators- that seems about right.
Now, when I say I'm Spider-Man, I should probably be more specific. These days there are a lot of Spider-Men, and Spider-Women, and they're all great in different ways. Maybe I should instead say that I'm Peter Parker. Peter was a smart kid, with lots of people on his side that frankly, he had a hard time noticing. He made a selfish decision that inadvertently led to him losing someone he loved, and the guilt of that decision basically controlled his life from then on. Being a nerd, feeling responsible for everything, and wanting to save everyone-- that's me. And that's all from Spidey.
The person who can't see the amazing people around him. Who doubts everything about himself, except when he puts on a mask, and suddenly? He's the most carefree person around. Always with a joke, always ready to take on any bully with a smart ass quip. Because that's what works, that's what makes sense to him. His real life always seems to be falling apart to him, but when he's Spider-Man? Fighting gods and monsters? Just another Wednesday. All this pathos, and all in one character who basically is who I identify with most. I'm not sure what that says exactly, but it's not nothing.
So, you see, I'm Spider-Man, because I think everyone is kind of Spider-Man, in different ways. Everyone knows what it's like to feel isolated, to put on a mask to hide your pain, to screw up but keep trying despite your mistakes. And even though everyone knows what that feels like, it was Stan who crystallized those feelings to me, when he created my favorite superhero. Mine, and a lot of people's. Not just Peter Parker.
Stan Lee co-created literally hundreds of other characters, wrote thousands of stories, and was championing against racism as the mid 60's were just getting started. I mean, the man wrote "This Man, This Monster!" He wrote "Silver Surfer: Parable". He wrote "The Fangs of the Desert Fox!" maybe my favorite World War II story ever. He wrote "The Final Chapter", not only the greatest Spider-Man story ever told, but the single greatest superhero story ever, FULL STOP. I'm willing to fight anyone over that, and I'm gonna take a moment to explain why.
Aunt May is dying, because, well, that was kind of her de facto status in the 60's. Spidey has the medicine to save her, but hero shit keeps needing his attention. Doctor Octopus had this amazing plan that totally screwed over Spidey, and he's trapped under debris in a flooding undersea lab base that's about to be destroyed (because comics are AWESOME)- anyway, Spider-Man has LOST. His greatest enemy beat him, and his maternal figure is about to die. So is he, and nothing can stop any of it. And at first, this destroys him, he's convinced that he's a total failure. But as desperation sets in, Peter realizes the medicine to save her... it's right in front of him. All he has to do to save her is... the impossible. Lift this giant (literal) weight off himself to escape and save her.
"Anyone can win a fight when the odds are easy," Spider-Man tells himself, as much as the reader. "It's when the going's tough-- when there seems to be no chance-- that's when it counts!" And through all the struggle and pain, he forces himself to lift this impossible amount of debris, to fight his way through the rest of Doc Ock's goons, to save the day. Because when everything is the darkest, that's when you need to fight to do what's right the most.
There's a reason Spider-Man: Homecoming homages this entire scene. Its probably the greatest use of superheroing ever. And Stan wrote it.
I never literally met Stan Lee, but that was a personal choice. A few years ago I was at Chicago's Comic-Con with my best friend Patrick, when Lee was there. We saw him, people were in line for a picture or an autograph, and we both kind of felt like... what are you supposed to say to Stan Lee? We could geek out, sure, but thousands of people had done that to Stan Lee for decades. Like, what do you say when you actually meet a legend that straight up helped invented you as a person? How do you even process that, when you're not even close to being on equal footing?
My biggest creative work, that I've been playing with for a decade, is a very deliberate Spider-Man riff. There's some very real talk about me co-hosting a Spider-Man podcast in the near future. I live and breathe Marvel, and even though Stan didn't create Marvel (lots of people are wrong there, it's much more complicated than that), Stan Lee did indirectly created me. It's, like, Star Trek, then Marvel Comics. That's why I believe in what I believe in. Spider-Man taught me to always try to help people. Not because you can help everyone, or that you'll always succeed in doing what's right. But that doesn't mean you can't try. He screws up, a lot sometimes. But he never stops trying.
Stan Lee taught me that with great power comes great responsibility. And I don't give a damn if that line has become cliched in the fifty years sense he first wrote it. It's an incredibly important lesson, and I wouldn't be me if he hadn't told me that. 'Nuff said.
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