One year ago today, storytelling lost an icon. The passing of Stan Lee gave a lot of people a chance to recall memories of meeting him, of how his stories of costumed superheroes inspired them, and of the real impact he had not just on people's lives but on the very basics of storytelling. Comics were something meant for kids, a silly way of passing the time and of telling really simple stories with really simple morals. They were the fairy tales of the 20th century, with superheroes and super villains capturing our imaginations and our hearts. Not every comic book creation came from Stan Lee. There were numerous powerhouses behind the characters we all know and love. Jack Kirby. Jerry Siegel. Steve Ditko. And many, many more. Names that meant nothing at the time, but now are considered among the best of the best. Legends.
Everyone loves a legend.
Any storyteller worth their salt will tell you the tale of their inspiration. Sometimes it's something small, like a school trip or a chance encounter that changed things. Other times it's something huge, like a traumatic event or a meaningful death.
For me, though, it was books.
Reading stories about characters and their lives let me escape my own. Novels were great because I could read them and let my imagination run wild with how the story would play out if I'd been the one writing it. There were so many, and the stories were so varied, that I was never wanting for material. Issac Assimov, Jack Chalker, Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman, Terry Brooks... These were the authors of my childhood and they were fantastic. But even the most avid reader will hit a point where they crave something different.
My dad had been a comic collector as a kid. Not a major collector; he didn't bother putting them in protective sleeves or anything. As far as he was concerned, comics were there to be read. He had a cabinet that was packed with them. Superman, Batman, Mickey Mouse, Duck Tales, The Shadow, X-Men... And, of course, Spiderman. He had more Spiderman comics than anything else, and so that's what I read most often when I felt like something different. Being able to see the stories and not just read them helped fan the flames of my budding imagination. I wondered what it would be like to be a mutant, or how to handle having a day job and super powers. I pondered the lessons passed on through the stories; lessons of doing the right thing, of being a good person, helping others and not letting evil get away with growing in my heart.
As an emotionally vulnerable teen, a lot of times these comics were where I found solace.
I am not alone. There are thousands of people out there who were touched by Stan Lee's passing, because there are thousands of people whose lives were touched by the stories he helped shape. That is his legacy. Not the characters he helped to meld into the public consciousness, not the silly stories about a villain with a fish bowl on his head or a killer crocodile. The characters he gave us were players in morality tales against racism, bigotry, hatred, and evil in all its forms. He showed us a universe where we could be better, if only we stepped up and did something about it. Now, it's up to us to take the lessons we learned from his creations and transform ourselves, our planet, and our future. Which leaves me with just one more thing to say:
Excelsior!