The most influential pop-cultural icon of my lifetime died this week. I'm still coming to terms with that. I thought he'd live forever.
Much will no doubt be written about how Stan Lee did not singlehandedly create the Marvel Universe and how his collaborators - Jack Kirby, Steve Ditko et al. - deserve equal credit. This is very true. Stan Lee did not create Spider-Man, the Hulk or the Fantastic Four alone.
I would argue, however, that Stan did create Peter Parker, Bruce Banner and Reed, Sue, Ben and Johnny. Stan was undeniably the first superhero writer to realise that the characters behind the masks were more interesting than the masks themselves...and this is a huge legacy which changed comics - and all that came after them - forever. That influence is still felt today and can be seen when comparing the Marvel movies (fun, character-focused, tongue-in-cheek... even melodramatic, in a good way) with those of the Distinguished Competition (dark, humourless, putting spectacle above character, sensation over story). In this, he'll never get the credit he deserves.
Stan also understood something crucial about comic book fans. He understood that we are outsiders. Lonely, clumsy, awkward outcasts. Long before geek became chic, Stan was our champion. He made heroes we could relate to. Heroes we wanted to emulate. Heroes who made terrible mistakes but kept trying to do the right thing anyway. He made me who I am today.
Here's ten songs for Stan. Special mentions to these Stan-inspired bands...
The Mighty Avengers
Dr. Strangely Strange
Fantastic Four
10.
Razorlight - Hang By, Hang By
Let's start with some Razorlight. No, don't go - it gets better, I promise! This isn't bad for Razorlight, to be honest... and it does mention both The Silver Surfer and Tony Stark... the Invincible Iron Man. Oh, and in case you're wondering - fine song though it is -
Iron Man by Black Sabbath has nothing to do with the Marvel character, sadly.
Although Stan didn't create Captain America (he was originally created in the 40s by Joe Simon & Jack Kirby), he did revive him in the 60s and create the "man out of time" aspect which came to define the character as Stan incorporated him into the Avengers. This Scottish band from the 90s were called Captain America but soon fell foul of Marvel's lawyers and changed their name to Eugenius,
as JC explains here. They were obviously Marvel fans though as the title of their single comes from the catchphrase used by Johnny Storm, the Fantastic Four's Human Torch (another Stan & Jack creation, albeit another based on a 40s Marvel character) when he burst into flame...
8.
Joe Satriani - Surfing With The Alien
Artist Jack Kirby had completely different ideas in mind to Stan when he first drew the Silver Surfer, devising the character as a vengeful fallen angel type, taking out his anger on mankind. Stan developed a more sensitive, lonely and tragic side to the Surfer, allowing the cosmic herald of Galactus to give voice to some truly 60s hippy philosophy that hit a real chord with the Summer of Love generation... and later, guitarist Joe Satriani who used the iconic Surfer image as inspiration for his most successful album.
Revealing Paul McCartney as a secret Marvel Comics fan, this album track has three Marvel supervillains eagerly competing to persuade Macca that his girl is a criminal. Not only does the X-Men's arch nemesis Magneto try to hoodwink Sit Thumbs Aloft, but so do two armoured villains from the Iron Man comic, The Titanium Man and The Crimson Dynamo.
One final Marvel villain for you... as far as I can tell, the Green Goblin shows up in
Iceland by The Fall. It's always hard to tell with Mark E. Smith though.
5.
Luke Haines - The Spook Manifesto
Of course, Luke Haines could out-strange even Dr. Strange... although they do have very similar facial hair.
Rebecca, Rebecca, put me on the other line now
Lucy, I've got a message for Doctor Strange
This is the Angel of Death looking over your shoulder
I've been listening to spooks again
Spooked again
See also
Cymbaline by Pink Floyd, in which "Dr. Strange is always changing size".
Marc Bolan was a huge Marvel Comics fans - you can see him above, meeting Stan Lee alongside Wizzard's Roy Wood.
Bolan even interviewed Stan... who revealed that Angie Bowie was once in line to play another of Stan's creations, the Black Widow, in a 70s movie that sadly never saw the light of day.
And if you're wondering how Marc Bolan ended up getting the job of interviewing Stan... well, it was given to him by an editor at Marvel UK back then... a chap called Neil Tennant (yes,
that Neil Tennant).
See also
Mambo Sun in which Marc sings "I'm Doctor Strange for you" and
Teenage Dream's "What ever happened to the teenage dream, Silver Surfer?"
3.
David Bowie - Oh, You Pretty Things!
Speaking of all things Bowie, one of the Dame's earliest hits always makes me think of Stan Lee's X-Men. Oh, You Pretty Things! includes the warning, "Better make way for the homo-superior" which was a phrase Stan had adopted from Olaf Stapledon's 1953 novel Odd John and then applied to his X-Men. It's hard to believe Bowie wasn't into the freaky outsider glam of comics like X-Men, teenage mutants who were "feared and hated by the world they have sworn to protect". He certainly inspired plenty of comic book characters in his time, including this 80s X-Men baddie, Callisto. Marvel Studios even had Bowie pegged for a cameo in a Guardians of the Galaxy movie before his own sad departure in 2016.
2.
The Wedding Present - Hulk Loves Betty
One musical David who definitely was a comic book fan in his youth is Mr. Gedge, as demonstrated in this Hulktacular b-side...
...and that's not the last we'll hear from the Weddoes on this subject.
1. Spider-Man
Stan's greatest moment, and my favourite super-hero, is without doubt Peter Parker, the Amazing Spider-Man. And Peter crops up in all kinds of pop songs, not least in
Spider-Man On Hollywood by The Wedding Present... which may suggest David Gedge preferred the comics to the movies.
But that's not all from The Wedding Present... because Gedge also drops a big reference to Peter Parker's longtime girlfriend (one-time wife: don't go there!), Mary Jane Watson. The song is
Santa Ana Winds...
I must look anxious because she fixes me with this gaze
"Face it Tiger, you just hit the jackpot!" she says
We laugh together but I'm trying hard to ignore
The fact I've won the jackpot means I've lost a whole lot more
Ad here's the scene it references, from Mary Jane's first appearance...
Oh, and if you're wondering about Peter's other famous love interest, the tragic Gwen Stacy, I can only direct you
here... don't say you weren't warned.
Says maybe she'll be my Gwen Stacy, to spite her man
(To be fair, Eminem is a big comics fan too. And it's probably not his fault his record company made him do a song with Ed Sheeran.)
The greatest superhero of all also enjoyed his own recording history, with both
Reflections Of A Superhero and the
Amazing Spider-Man Rockomic, both from the 70s (which you can tell the moment you start listening to them). I own both of those, of course.
The less said about
Bryan May's MC Spidey Mastermix, the better. Still, I'm sure it sounds like Beethoven's 5th when compared to the unspeakable travesty that was the Broadway Spider-Man musical, written by Bono and the Edge. (I never have and I never will.) That was the Peter Parker luck at its absolute worst!
Maybe it's because I'm such a big fan, but I've noticed more Spidey references in pop songs than for any other superhero. From
Lullaby by The Cure ("the Spider-Man is having you for dinner tonight") to
Sex Talk by T'Pau ("Like Spider-Man I'm climbing the wall, I want my prize")... from Veal's criminally hyphenless
Spiderman ("I'm feelin suspect, just like Spiderman - you know how he gets a little nervous too") to the typically overblown pomposity of
The Supreme Being Teaches Spider-Man How To Be In Love by The Flaming Lips. Cliff Richard even had a Spider-Man song...
oh yes, he did! (Actually, there's loads more of those... perhaps I'll do a Top Ten one day.)
The most famous Spider-Man song though is definitely this one, written by Paul Francis Webster and Robert 'Bob' Harris (no relation to the DJ). It's been covered by everybody from
Aerosmith to
Moxy Früvous to
Michael Bublé, but the best version is clearly this one by The Ramones.
RIP, Stan. You were my hero...
