You really have to question Marvel Enterprises’ labor practices. While most large companies would be celebrating an employee’s 65th Anniversary with them with a fancy dinner and gold watch, Marvel is putting their Chairman Emeritus back to work…
In September Stan Lee is writing the main feature for five brand new self-contained one-shots. Entitled Stan Lee Meets, the specials’ main stories will feature five of Stan the Man’s greatest creations – Spider-Man (drawn by Olivier Coipel), The Thing (Lee Weeks), Dr. Doom (Salvador Larroca), Dr. Strange (Alan Davis), and Silver Surfer (Mike Wieringo), respectively, each actually meeting their maker…literally, not figuratively.
As the titles suggest, each character actually meets Stan Lee himself, in a story written by Lee himself.
"2006 represents Stan's 65h year as an employee of Marvel, so rather than putting him in for mandatory retirement, we're choosing to honor him and his work in this way," the project’s editor Tom Brevoort told Newsarama.
Brevoort described the creative conceit behind the specials and the stories as "deliberately a little bit bent"…
"Did you see Stan water the lawn in X-Men: The Last Stand"? asked the editor, tongue planted firmly in cheek. "How could we ever possibly compete with that kind of searing drama on the printed page? No, we had to play to our strengths…"
Leaving no stone unturned, we asked Brevoort how these stories fit into the Marvel tapestry? Does Stan crossover from the "real" universe to the Marvel Universe to meet his creations? Vice versa?
"Wow, I feel like I'm on the Internet or something," the editor astutely responded. "I think you're giving these stories a bit too much thought in terms of trying to figure out how they fit into the overall superstructure of the Marvel Universe.
"These tales are pretty much Stan having fun, bouncing off of the characters he created, and having them bounce off of him. So Spidey will seek out Stan for advice about the sorry state of his personal life, Doctor Doom will call Stan on the carpet for slandering him in the books all these years, and Galactus will summon Stan to try to put a sock in the depressing lamentations of the Silver Surfer."
And as to how these five characters were chosen? "Stan chose 'em, simple as that," explained Brevoort. "I said, ‘five stories, Stan, five characters - who do you want?’ And three minutes later, we had a list."
But the celebration of Stan does not end there. In addition to the main Stan-written “Meets” feature, each one-shot will also include two additional features (and in some cases even more than that), including a reprint of a classic Stan-written story featuring the main character of each respective special, and a “back-up” story featuring some of today’s top creators paying tribute to the living Marvel legend.
Those creative teams up-to-the-moment include Joss Whedon and Michael Gaydos in the Stan Lee Meets Spider-Man special; Brian Bendis and Mark Bagley (Dr. Strange); veteran Roy Thomas and Scott Kolins (The Thing); Jeph Loeb and an artist-to-be-named (Dr. Doom); and Paul Jenkins and an artist-to-be-named in Stan Lee Meets Silver Surfer.
