Fun with Stan Lee

I got to spend some time with the man behind the Marvel Comics brand (and co-creator of Spider-Man, the Hulk, etc.) - and as you might imagine, he's thrilled that Marvel has been snapped up by Disney. Excerpts from our conversation appear in the November issue of Inc. magazine. Actually, Lee has had a checkered relationship with Marvel in recent years - lots of litigation over money and such. But he's still chairman emeritus. Even at 86, he's coming up with deas, but at a new company, POW! Entertainment. Among the many fascinating things about Lee is how he got started. Some clips:

My cousin's husband, Martin Goodman, had a company called Timely Publications, and they were looking for an assistant. I figured, Why not? When I got there, I found out that the opening was in the comic book department. Apparently, I was the only guy who had applied for the job. I figured it might be fun. So I became a gofer -- there were only two guys, Joe Simon, the editor, and Jack Kirby, the artist. They were the creators of Captain America, and that's what they were working on at the time. I would fill the inkwells, go down and buy lunch, and erase pages and proofread. Then they were fired for some reason. Martin had no one to run the department. He said to me, "Can you do it?" I was 17. When you're 17, what do you know? I said, "Sure, I can do it."

[CUT]

By the time I got the job, Superman had been created. We had the Human Torch, the Sub-Mariner, Father Time, Hurricane. The most important thing in those days was the cover. All these books were on the newsstand, and you had to hope your cover would compel somebody to buy the book. And everything depended on the name. A character like Hurricane was a guy who ran very fast. Later on, when I was looking for new superheroes, it occurred to me that somebody crawling on walls would be interesting. I thought, Mosquito Man? It didn't sound very glamorous. Fly Man? I went down the list and came to Spider-Man. That was it.

[CUT]

In the late '60s, Martin sold the company to an outfit called Perfect Film and Chemical. Everything changed. Martin had hoped that his son Chip would become publisher; instead, the new owners made me publisher. Later, they made me the president and even chairman. But I was never a businessman. I remember when the board asked me to come up with a three-year plan for the company. I said, "Guys, I don't know how to predict where we'll be in three years. I don't even know what I'm going to have for breakfast tomorrow." I resigned as president after about a year. I mean, I can add and subtract, but I hate to read sheets of numbers. I like to write stories.