Even if you’re not a hardcore comic book fan, you probably at least know of Stan Lee. You almost certainly know of Marvel, which has been dominating the film landscape for over a decade and the comics industry for the past several. But fewer people know Stanley Lieber — the more personal stories and history of the man who would change pop culture forever.

Director David Gelb seeks to change that with this documentary, pulling back the curtain on the comics titan to see how the superpowered sausage started to get made and how his humble upbringing in New York shaped the kinds of stories he wanted to tell — and the kinds of stories the world would still be consuming over 60 years later.
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‘Stan Lee’s Style Is Snappy and Engaging
Gelb’s storytelling is visually charming and well-paced. There are interview clips from various TV and radio shows spanning from as early as the 1970s to as late as the 2000s and much of what we know about Lee we get to hear directly from him in his own words. It’s moving to hear him speak about his past growing up as a relatively poor kid in 1920s New York, how getting a bicycle for his birthday made him feel like he could do anything, and why he wanted to integrate relatable problems plus the real city into the comics, both of which were revolutionary at a time when superheroes had perfect lives in made-up places.

It’s also fascinating to track how so many things that may seem like crucial, intentional career steps happened almost by accident. It wasn’t always Lee’s dream to work in comics, even starting at a trouser factory before being fired — something he sees as a gift considering it made him get a new job as a gofer in a comics department at age 17. He rose to the rank of editor simply because he was in the right place at the right time, but it’s clear that it was his destiny. He had such a talent he was even assigned to help rewrite and streamline the training process when he joined the army, using his creative communication skills to get down one such training time down from six months to six weeks, all due to his experience with comics.

Image via Disney+

This efficiency and unique way of problem-solving can be seen elsewhere in the film, too. In addition to more traditional archival footage, Gelb employs clay models, which not only makes the documentary feel more playful but also helps the audience visualize more abstract concepts and the workflow the Marvel office had at the time. The clay figures are especially useful in how they help us understand what Lee called “the Marvel method,” where he, as the writer, would give the artists a broad outline for the story, after which they would have some creative freedom to draw what they liked. Only after the panels were complete would Lee go back and flesh out the action lines and dialogue.

There are also comic book covers and panels generously threaded throughout the film, which adds a helpful specificity when we hear Lee talking about key characters or important moments in his writing career. His passion for characterization above all else shines through, and his reasoning for creating heroes like Spider-Man and Black Panther to help more kids feel represented is beautiful. Hearing him use comics to influence the youth — even forgoing the Comics Code Authority seal of approval to talk about serious topics like drug addiction — showcases how Lee took a job that people turned their noses up at to create real change in addition to entertainment.

Other people close to Lee chime in as well throughout the documentary, and his wife Joan’s comments about their relationship are particularly delightful. It’s clear she played a large role in Lee’s success, with her advice to start writing stories that interested him leading to some of the most iconic characters not just in his career but in all of pop culture. Learning about Lee’s career is endlessly interesting, but the film is at its strongest when it goes beyond focusing on Lee’s brain to give us a peek inside his heart: what he loved about his job, his creations, and his family.

‘Stan Lee’ Could Afford to Dig a Little Deeper

Image via Disney+

Lee reiterates time and time again that the secret to a great superhero is making the audience empathize with them — to allow them to see them as fallible and show that they make mistakes. The documentary briefly does this in the form of bringing up the feud between Lee and his artistic collaborators Jack Kirby and Steve Sitko over arguments about what qualifies as “creating” a character, but it glosses over it quickly. For all his achievements and good qualities, we get the sense that Lee could often be a stubborn, selfish man that might not always have given due credit to others. Exploring this more deeply could have shown us more shades and sides to Lee, fleshing him out on a deeper level and humanizing a brilliant figure.

Lee had a long, storied career, and the documentary does seem to focus on the right parts — the portion of his life that had the biggest impact on the comics industry as a whole. However, it would have been intriguing to take a closer look at the modern-day Marvel boom with the development of the first Iron Man movie and his role in the subsequent dominance of the MCU in film and television. The last 10 or 15 minutes are allotted to showing some of Lee’s famous cameos, but it barely scratches the surface of the behind-the-scenes.

Still, there’s only so much that can be covered in the film’s brisk, 86-minute runtime, and Gelb makes smart choices in what he decides to focus on. The film is lovingly put together and expertly crafted, making for a gorgeous tribute to Lee. I would happily watch a limited series from Gelb going even deeper into Lee’s life and contribution to comics and pop culture as a whole — Stan Lee Documentary Cinematic Universe, anyone?

Rating: B+

Stan Lee is now streaming on Disney+.