Happy 95th birthday, Stan Lee

Stan Lee on a 1971 episode of To Tell The Truth

Dec. 28 is the 95th birthday for Stan Lee, the long-time editor and writer at Marvel Comics. More recently, he has been part of the marketing of Marvel Studios movies.

Stan (born Stanley Martin Lieber) has outlived many of his collaborators, including Jack Kirby, Wally Wood, Gene Colan, Don Heck and John Buscema. Others, including Steve Ditko and John Romita Sr. are hanging in there. Also, Stan’s wife Joan passed away earlier this year.

As the blog has remarked before, Stan’s legacy is a complicated one. He has been depicted as the creator of the Marvel Universe while Kirby, Ditko, et al. did considerable work in devising those stories.

That legacy remains complicated today. There’s plenty of time to analyze that again later. Today? The blog wishes Stan a happy birthday.

With that in mind, here’s one of Stan’s many comic book cameos (along with Joan) in an issue of Daredevil from 1971:

Stan Lee (and his wife Joan) make a cameo in Daredevil No. 79, written by Gerry Conway, drawn by Gene Colan and inked by Tom Palmer

Spider-Man Homecoming goes for the Romita look

John Romita Sr.’s cover to Amazing Spider-Man No. 52 in 1967

The publicity machine is gearing up for Spider-Man: Homecoming. There are stories about how this third movie version of the character came about, how Marvel Studios is collaborating with Sony Pictures, etc.

Less attention is being paid to something more basic. Namely, how, with Marvel actually producing the movie for Sony, the cinematic Spider-Man looks more like Spider-Man in the comics. Specifically, how he looks more like the version drawn by John Romita Sr. starting in 1966.

Romita, now 87, assumed the assignment after Spider-Man co-creator Steve Ditko quit Marvel that year. Romita essentially got a try out when he drew a two-part Daredevil story featuring Spider-Man as the guest star.

The change didn’t hurt Spider-Man’s popularity. Romita had a long run on the title. At times, other artists such as Gil Kane were brought in, with Romita doing the inks to maintain the basic look.

Romita also helped launch a Spider-Man newspaper comic strip in the 1970s. Eventually, Romita became Marvel’s art director before retiring.

Sony eventually got the film rights to Spider-Man as the result of a 1999 deal with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.  Prior to Spider-Man: Homecoming, Sony made five Spidey films from 2002 to 2014.

In all five, the costume crew put its own spin on the Spidey suit. For example, the one worn by Andrew Garfield in two of the movies had a spider design more elaborate than the one in the comics. You can view previous the Sony versions in this video:

Now, with Marvel and Sony collaborating (Sony is financing and distributing, Marvel is handling the production), there’s yet another new movie look for the character.

Spider-Man: Homecoming poster

This version, with Tom Holland as the character, made its debut in last year’s Captain America: Civil War.

Spidey in full costume looks almost like a Romita drawing come to life. There were a few changes, including some blue stripes not in the original. The web shooters are visible outside the gloves.

Still, the resemblance to the Romita version is there.

It is perhaps strongest on the poster for the new movie, where the largest image is Spider-Man in costume.

All of this may be overthinking the topic. It’s natural that Marvel Studios would want its Spidey to look different than the five previous Sony films. Still, consider this post a kind of shoutout to one of the stalwarts of the Marvel bullpen.

Wally Wood’s influence on Daredevil extends to 21st century

Excerpt from Wally Wood’s definitive 1965 Daredevil story, In Mortal Combat With Sub-Mariner

One of the most acclaimed comic book adaptations on television has been the Netflix series Daredevil.

The show, which has run 26 episodes over two seasons, is violent. If it were a movie, some episodes would definitely receive an R rating.

But one person who doesn’t get mentioned much in connection with the series is comic book artist Wally Wood (1927-1981).

Wood worked as an artist on seven issues of the original comic book and did uncredited story work. He did not work on the first issue, which was done by Stan Lee and Bill Everett. However, Wood designed Daredevil’s distinctive red costume (which debuted in issue 7), which has mostly continued on to this day.

But Wood’s primary contribution goes beyond that. In a 1965 story, Wood’s Daredevil tackles a much more powerful foe, Namor, the Sub-Mariner (created in 1939 by none other than Bill Everett), the half-human ruler of Atlantis. Namor had super strength and wings on his ankles.

Marvel (via The Fantastic Four title by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby) revived the Namor character in the early 1960s and established that he wanted to conquer the surface world.

Wood’s take on Daredevil was how the hero (who was blind, but had whose other senses were heightened following an accident) never, ever gave up. In Mortal Combat With Sub-Mariner was issue 7, the first issue with Wood’s red costume.

Wally Wood’s cover to Daredevil No. 7 in 1965

Over the course of the 1965 comic book story, Daredevil absorbed a beating at the hands of Namor. But DD always kept coming back for more until he finally fell exhaustion. But DD was more heroic in defeat than Namor was in victory.

The Netflix Daredevil series relies on those who followed Wood, especially artist-writer Frank Miller, who worked on the title in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

Oddly, Wood is not included among the writers and artists who receive a “special thanks” credit in the end titles of the Netfilx series

Those who do receive recognition (among them Miller, artists Gene Colan, John Romita Sr. and John Romita Jr.) do deserve the credit they receive. But it’s strange that Marvel’s television arm doesn’t note Wood’s contribution. The Facebook page Wally Wood’s Daredevil has called for Marvel to recognize Wood.

Regardless, aging comic book fans who remember Wood’s short, but influential, run on the title are aware of his contributions to Daredevil that have extended into the 21st century.

Our scorecard on comic book creators and ’14 movies

John Romita Sr.’s cover to Amazing Spider-Man No. 121, written by Gerry Conway

Sorry, Gerry Conway.

Last month, we carried a A POST wondering if comic book creators would get their due with 2014’s bumper crop of comic book-based films.

So far, the creators are 1-for-2. Captain America: The Winter Soldier carried a creator credit for Cap (Joe Simon and Jack Kirby) and included a “special thanks” credit for a number of comic book writers and artists, including scribe Ed Brubaker who devised the Winter Soldier storyline that’s the spine of the movie.

This weekend, saw the release of Amazing Spider-Man 2. Stan Lee and Steve Ditko got a “based on the comic book by” credit, as they have with past Spider-Man films. But others, mainly Gerry Conway, who authored an early 1970s story whose outcome is incorporated into the movie, didn’t get a mention. The closest reference in Amazing Spier-Man 2 is how there’s a “Principal Conway” character.

Also going unmentioned is John Romita Sr., co-creator of the Rhino; a much different version of the character appears in Amazing Spider-Man 2.

This isn’t that surprising. Movies produced by Marvel, now a Walt Disney Co. unit, have for the most part provided some kind of recognition for those who created characters and stories used by film writers and directors. Studios that license Marvel characters, such as Sony with Spider-Man, haven’t been as diligent.

Later this month, Fox will release another X-Men movie. Much of that film is based on a Chris Claremont-John Byrne story. The X-Men were originally created in 1963 by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, and a 1975 reboot with a number of new characters was started by Len Wein and Dave Cockrum. It remains to be seen whether any of them will get a mention in the 2014 film.