Stan Lee is a 2023 documentary about the man most influential in the world of comic books and heroes.
“There are so many bad things in the world. If you can entertain someone for a while, it’s a good thing.” That is a quote from the one and only Stan Lee, the man the most synonymous with superheroes and now, shared universes. But at one point, Stan Lee was not how the world knew him. Stanley Lieber was a 17-year old in New York working as a gofer for Timely Comics. Consistent work, which was important for a kid who didn’t grow up with a lot, yet not work he was enthused with.
Still, he puts his natural talents and full efforts into helping people edit and create stories that were timely, if kind of corny, for the time period. In two years, he’d become editor of Timely Comics, and would continue to progress in the industry even after a short stint in the military. However, Lee was becoming bored with the stories he was helping create. Seeing some success with DC Comics’ reimagining encouraged Lee to create stories about characters he believed would better resonate with the collective. It started with the Fantastic Four, and would continue with The Hulk, Thor, Iron Man, and eventually, Spider-Man. Marvel was soon born, and the rest is history…
This isn’t the first documentary focused on Marvel’s most well-known figurehead. Thirteen years ago, With Great Power: The Stan Lee Story released, but it was a different time and a different movie business. The Marvel Cinematic Universe hadn’t even released the game changing The Avengers, much less have five completed movies in its catalog. Thirteen years ago, no one really knew how a cinematic shared universe would work, and now, so many studios want one. Thirteen years ago, the MCU was far from its peak. Now? It’s looking to come out of an extended valley. The 2023 Stan Lee documentary is not about the movies Lee was unknowingly laying the foundation for beginning back in the 60’s, but that reality is lightly sketched throughout the film.
Director David Gelb walks (wallcrawls, perhaps?) viewers across a fairly linear telling of Lee’s life, starting right in 1922 and focusing for a bit on a period from 1939-mid 1940’s and then the transformative 50’s and 60’s of his career. Through a combination of archival footage, comic strips, Lee’s narration, and figurine claymation, Gelb puts the focus on Lee with small assists occasionally from Lee’s wife and his comic partners. Yet the focus is not necessarily on Lee’s contributions, but (broadly) what drove them and compelled him to break away from the basic mold and copy comics were on for a long time from a presentation and character perspective. Lee has a voice that one would never get tired of hearing speak; equal parts weighty and warm.
Stan Lee gives viewers a general idea of what type of individual Stan Lee was. Hardworking, an optimist, and a believer in humanity. But viewers shouldn’t expect any new revelations or even darker probes into the less pristine sides and stories that rarely followed him—this is a Disney production through and through. The biggest missed opportunity though happens during the midpoint of the documentary when Lee is talking about the personal and/or societal impetuses of what led him to create heroes like Iron Man, X-Men, Black Panther, and the like. We get small snippets, but the backstory appears to be there—whether from Lee or still surviving contributors—to go into more detail and the documentary just doesn’t.
In an ideal scenario, the Stan Lee documentary would be about five or so parts at around 45 minutes to one hour each, allowing for even the most knowledgeable of true believers to learn a new thing or two about the legendary creator. As currently constructed, Stan Lee is an adequate sketch missing the vivid detail that his comics possessed.