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    Stan Lee

    Person » credited in 21 games

    Stan "The Man" Lee was one of the most prolific writers of the superhero genre. The characters Stan co-created with artists like Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko include the Fantastic Four, Spider-Man, X-Men and the Incredible Hulk. Stan even narrated a few video games.

    Short summary describing this person.

    Stan Lee last edited by Galamoth on 01/18/24 03:51PM View full history

    Overview

    The reason the Marvel empire is as big as it is today is due to the efforts of Stan to expand the company beyond mere comic books. In the early 70s he moved to the west coast of the US to supervise the quality of Marvel characters being adapted into animated television shows. During this time he also pushed for live-action shows based on Spider-Man and the Hulk, all the while helping to further solidify Marvel characters in the public consciousness. Stan himself had such a distinct, charismatic persona that he became an ambassador of the superhero genre and the comic book industry in general.

    Stan sets his sights on Hollywood Blockbusters

    Stan fought for years to get a big budget Spider-Man movie greenlit. At one point Cannon films signed a deal to produce a Spider-Man movie and teaser poster was released. In the 90s James Cameron signed on to develop a big-budget Spider-Man movie for Carolco Pictues. Cameron worked closely with Stan to get his blessing on changing certain things from the mythology, like Organic Web-Shooters and having Uncle Ben die in a street carjacking rather than a home invasion. The movie languished in development hell and Carolco eventually went bankrupt. During this time Stan was helping numerous other Marvel properties get greenlit, including a X-Men movie from 20th Century Fox. Visionary young director Bryan Singer showcased Marvel's Mutants as a more serious science-fiction film, with their costumes depicted as black leather armored uniforms. The smashing success of Singer's X-Men helped fast-track the Spider-Man movie into production and Stan's savior came in the form of director Sam Raimi. The Raimi films used key elements from Cameron's drafts, like organic web-shooters and the fateful carjacking. The tone of the film was much more traditional and lighthearted than X-Men, with direct references to the comics of the 60s, like the look of the J. Jonah Jameson character played by J.K. Simmons. Stan went on record many times before his death that the Raimi Spider-Man films were his favorite adaptations of his own characters, and was happy to later see Marvel Studios complete domination of the industry and cultural zeitgeist before his passing.

    Video Games

    A big part of building hype for the Spider-Man brand during the making of the film was Neversoft's Spider-Man game for the PlayStation and Dreamcast. Released in the year 2000, Stan was featured as the Narrator of the entire story. The proposed black costume for the movie designed by Alex Ross was featured as an unlockable costume. Stan returned to narrate the sequel, Enter Electro the following year. Green Goblin is noticeably absent from the games due to no-compete agreement as to the character being featured in Columbia's upcoming movie. This was Stan's first major involvement in Marvel games and lead to similar appearances in the coming years.

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