Lessons from Stan Lee: How Empathy Created the Marvel Universe

Today, I learned that Stan Lee had passed. At the the age of 95, Stan’s name had become synonymous with modern comics and his creations were the basis for the ever expanding Marvel Universe.

As a long time comics fan, I had admired his work since I got hooked on Spiderman cartoons in the late 60’s. The catchy theme song rang like the bell of an ice cream truck calling all kids to the ready for another amazing adventure. As the years progressed, I was also drawn to the adventures of the Hulk, Doctor Strange, the Fantastic Four, the X-Men, Iron Man, and Thor.

As a creative, I also admired his work. Not for the commercial success (most of it came later in his career), but for the personal connection he created in his characters that resonated so strongly with his audience. Stan had empathy, and it showed.

He knew what it was like to be the little guy at school, to be invisible to the girl you admired, and to be afraid of something that you couldn’t control. In an interview I had with him at the New York Comic Con, Stan told me the secret in creating some of the most memorable super heroes we know today.

“I didn’t know I was doing anything that was different, I just wanted to do characters that were realistic and it seemed to me that even if somebody had a superpower he’d still be a human being. He’d still fall in love, he’d still feel frustrated. Maybe he’d still have to go to the dentist, or have dandruff or an ingrown toenail - or the girl he loves doesn’t really care for him, or he has a relative that’s sick that he has to take care of."

“Just because you have a super power doesn’t mean that everything else in your life has to be good, so I thought it would be more interesting to get people who seemed like real people who had super powers, and that’s all that I was thinking of.”

Stan called it “being human.” Fans would call it genius.

Other comics followed suit, bringing human tragedy into origin stories. Millionaire Bruce Wayne, aka Batman, watched his parents die at the hands of a street thug as they were exiting the opera. Clark Kent, aka Superman, was the child of a government scientist adopted by farmers after his home planet was destroyed. Diana Prince, aka Wonder Woman, defied her mother and left home to help the American war effort.

But they never engaged fans in the same way because they (DC Comics, Marvel’s arch nemesis) never developed an emotional understanding of the masses. Most kids were not the children of millionaires, scientists or royalty. Most kids were poor, got bullied and were misunderstood - just like me.

As we reflect on the career of one man, we can also look at our own for opportunities to apply these lessons learned. We can all look for opportunities to be empathetic, to be more human than we have been, and to better connect on an emotional level with the people in our own universe, just like Stan Lee.

Excelsior.