The Big Goodbye to Big Chuck

 A significant slice of Northeast Ohio history passed on Monday with the death of Chuck Mitchell Schodowski, better known as the "Big Chuck" half of the Hoolihan and Big Chuck Show and the Big Chuck and Lil' John Show. The programs were mainstays on WJW-TV for fifty years, give or take. 

If you grew up in the greater Cleveland area—including my own Stark County—in the 1960s through the 1980s, largely before the rise of cable TV, you recognize the seismic impact of Big Chuck. Friday nights were must-see TV long before NBC coined the term. Once the 11 PM news was over and meteorologist Dick Goddard had warned how much lake-effect precipitation other parts of the viewing area could expect, it was time for the opening lines, seared into our collective memories: 

Now, from high atop the Television 8 building

In the best location in the nation

On the shores of beautiful Lake Erie— 

It's the Big Chuck and Lil' John Show!

Or, if you were just a few years older, it was the Hoolihan and Big Chuck Show, with top billing going to Robert "Hoolihan" Wells, who starred with Schodowski from 1966 to 1979. ("Lil' John" took over when Wells moved to Florida, and the laughs kept coming.)

Here's the opening bit, complete with charmingly cheesy stop-motion animation that relocates King Kong from the Big Apple to the North Coast: 

The show followed a predictable pattern. The two hosts would introduce a scary movie and fill the commercial breaks with ad-libbed patter and silly skits. The movies were seldom top-shelf. For every House on Haunted Hill, viewers could count on two or three turkeys like Robot Monster or The Bat. 

(It appears turkeys weren't always on the show's menu. A perusal of the Internet Archive reveals they once showed The Exorcist. During a commercial break, Big Chuck held up a copy of Hostage to the Devil by Malachi Martin and began to expound on an allegedly true-life exorcism on the east side of Cleveland, prompting Lil' John to give him a friendly shove and remind him "not to get too heavy and out of character.") 

The skits were what made the show. They were often parodies of popular TV programs, and most outlived the original shows by many years: Ben Carson became Ben Crazy, Payton Place birthed Parma Place, and Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman morphed into Mary Hartski, Mary Hartski. Classified under "you probably couldn't do that today" were the "Certain Ethnic" sketches, like the laundromat bit at the top of this page. Big Chuck, Hoolihan, Lil' John, and the occasional guest star from the WJW news team wore many hats in these productions, all of which were punctuated by the distinctive laugh track at the end (a Google search credits Jay Lawrence, a Cleveland disc jockey from the 1960s). 

The show had a significant impact on me. I invited friends over on Friday night to watch the show and then sleep over. Both iterations—Hoolihan and Lil' John—were part of Friday night Pepsi and popcorn marathons that included CBS's Wonder Woman and The Incredible Hulk. By the time Dallas rolled around at 10 PM, the second part of the night's festivities—using a cassette recorder to create our own versions of Big Chuck and Lil' John—was well underway. We wrote cue cards, conscripted available voice talents (my parents and little sister), and filmed in such exotic locales as the basement and the bathroom (where a flushing toilet was repeatedly recorded with the microphone dangling over the bowl until my mom yelled at us to stop wasting water). 

Honestly, anticipating the show was often as much fun as watching it. It started the Saturday before with the new TV Guide, purchased by my mom at Sparkle Market.  Because Big Chuck and Lil' John was a regional show, it was never listed as such in the TV Guide. Instead, readers just had to know that whatever movie was listed in the 11:30 PM Friday slot for Channel 8 was the one. Of course, this was decades before you could look up The Killer Shrews online and find out it was a disaster, so all you had to go by was a one-sentence description and then six days of waiting to see if the movie delivered on that sentence's promise. 

I've never been a night owl, so staying awake until 11:30 after a long day of school was often a challenge, even if I took a nap, and making it to the closing credits at 1:30 or 2:00 AM was almost out of the question. Because of this, many of my memories of the show are wrapped in a semi-conscious daze, waking up for some scary parts of the movie or an especially funny Ben Crazy skit. Too often, I'd wake on the floor to the test pattern and realize I'd missed the entire show. Ugh. 

At some point, the show's softball team traveled to Alliance to play a charity game against the local firefighters. I was star-struck. It had never occurred to me, a child of rural Washington Township, how close Cleveland was, or that the larger-than-life characters I saw on TV could be real people who would show up a couple miles from my house. I'm not sure I would have been more excited—or dumbfounded—if the entire Star Wars cast had shown up to play ball. 

When the family bought its first VHS player—a big, bulky thing that doubled as a doorstop—I recorded a few episodes of Big Chuck and Lil John, but watching it in the day and fast-forwarding through the commercials wasn't the same. It was a "you hadda be there" type of show. And when grade school turned to junior high, I lost most of my interest in Big Chuck and Lil' John, which is probably pretty common, too. 

It wasn't until a few years later that I learned how many television markets around the country had their own versions of Big Chuck, Hoolihan, and Lil' John, and how the rise of cable TV and expanded network programming (late-night news programs, especially) sounded the death knell for so many of these low-budget, locally-filmed programs. 

Still later, I learned that Schodowski had ties to Ghoulardi, an early Cleveland-based horror host (real name: Ernie Anderson) who carved out his own niche in television history. Schodowski's nickname came from his hitting prowess as part of the Ghoulardi All-Stars softball team, according to the wonderful Turn Blue: The Short Life of Ghoulardi documentary, which covers Big Chuck's significant contributions to that earlier show. 

I'm sure many people of a certain age around Northeast Ohio are thinking about those days today, remembering a regional celebrity who left his mark in laughter. 

Omega the Unknown (2008)

Since Omega the Unknown was one of the seminal comic-book experiences of my childhood, I don't know why it took me seventeen years to read the character's revival mini-series, but it did. 

Written by Jonathan Lethem with Karl Rusnak, illustrated by Farel Dalrymple, and colored by Paul Hornschemeier, Omega's 2008 mini-series is collected into a gorgeous hardback that accentuates the reading experience. Cleverly designed endpapers and chapter breaks grow in meaning once the reader has finished the story. 

And what an odd story! In a nod to the original, short-lived series, written primarily by the legendary Steve Gerber with Mary Skrenes and drawn by Jim Mooney, this new iteration runs just ten issues and is jam-packed with weirdness. In a way, this is one of the most underground comix-style books Marvel has ever published, pushing the mainstream envelope in much the same way as the original Omega. That series felt like the precursor to Epic Comics of the 1980s and especially Vertigo offerings of the 1990s. Still, its impact was diluted by substitutions to the original creative team and, one suspects, editorial tampering that failed to make it more commercial. The 2008 Omega, on the other hand (pun sorta intended, as the main character fires energy blasts from his palms), was designed with a finite end in mind, and the same creators are along for each chapter. 

This "new" Omega initially follows the story beats of the original. Titus Alexander (Alex) Island, a homeschooled teenage genius, has his life upended when a traffic accident kills his parents. He then learns they are robots. Simultaneously, an alien hero—the titular Omega—makes his presence known. Omega shares a symbiotic bond with Alex, one that only strengthens as the teen is hospitalized and then released into the care of one of his nurses. He finds himself in public school, where a different facet of his education begins. 

The first issue or chapter is an homage to the original Omega. Even so, Lethem and Rusnak insert several new twists. The primary one is the introduction of the Mink, Washington Heights' own superhero, who is far more (and less) than he seems. Dressed in a purple-and-red costume, the Mink employs a small army of lookalikes and a strong PR game. Meanwhile, his headquarters houses a labyrinth where he sequesters his enemies, including a collection of robots who have traveled to Earth to infest the population with hostile nanotechnology. 

With each succeeding installment, Lethem and crew move further afield from Gerber's original premise, whatever that was. As they do, Dalrymple's illustrations become increasingly looser, moving away from mainstream superhero art to become something more akin to an R. Crumb production filtered through Dali. 

Dalrymple is a big part of the series' charm. His rendition of Washington Heights—the inhabitants, streets, schools, and vendors—is a delight. Readers learn that Omega is himself an artist; the hero's comic-book creations are featured prominently, necessitating a completely different style, rendered by Gary Panter. Similarly, the Mink's propaganda comics provide colorist Paul Hornschemeier with an opportunity to step briefly into the illustrator's role. 

The story gets out of control in later issues, where dialogue and captions are occasionally so thick they crowd out the artwork, and the authors' attempt to say something grandiose about marketing and franchises isn't given the space it needs to breathe. The final issue is a wordless installment, balancing the overly talky middle chapters. Here is where some exposition would be helpful to knit together some of the plot points and themes. 

But the loose ends may be the point. Just as the original Omega never offered closure —the book was canceled on a cliffhanger that was resolved unsatisfyingly by a different creative team several years later in the pages of The Defenders—this reimagining sends readers out of the book with some memorable images and lingering questions. 

It was gratifying to read comments in the back of the book by Lethem and Rusnak about how the original series impacted them when they read it as kids. Many of their comments reflect my own impressions and, I suspect, those of many who read Omega at a formative age. For me, the Hell's Kitchen setting of the original and its unflinching portrayal of student life in an urban public school scared the shit out of my eight-year-old self. Those parts of the series were much more compelling than any of the traditional superheroics; although I must admit, it was the Incredible Hulk, smashing his way across the cover of Omega #2, that initially drew me to the series. What was going on before and after that fight scene was far over my head, but it stuck with me. 

Revisiting Omega courtesy of this twenty-first-century revival was a lot of fun. The disadvantage for new readers might be the loss of recognizing how the reimagined parts mesh with the original. But the creators wisely realized they couldn't build their mythos entirely on a project that had failed thirty years earlier, so they crafted a compelling, self-contained world that offers a thoughtful meditation on friendship and collaboration, wrapped in a witty subversion of superhero tropes. It works wonderfully. I'm just sorry I waited seventeen years to find out. 

 

Blue Bride

Here's an oldie but a goodie from January 2008, reprinted on my sister and brother-in-law's anniversary.

The bride wore white trimmed in blue. Her dress was white, her skin blue.

The day last week when my sister and her fiancé were married, the thermostat at the Disney World resort — where the wedding was outside — read 37 degrees, with a wind chill in the upper teens. Somebody said it was the coldest day in Florida in five years.

If this was a fairy tale wedding, it was a Russian fairy tale – all ice princesses, helmeted heroes with frosty beards, and castles viewed through sheens of hoarfrost.

The couple stood on a hill overlooking a lake, the better to capture the vivid azure sky over the resort. It offered no protection from the wind, which tore off the bride’s veil and sent it careening toward the beach. The Disney wedding consultant, on hand for just such eventualities, caught up to it before it scuttled crablike across the sand and into the water.

At some point, the violinist took a break from playing “When You Wish upon a Star” — nobody could hear it over the howling wind, anyway — to drape his coat over my daughter’s shoulders. A caterer covered my wife and mother with white tablecloths.

“It wasn’t one of the top ten things you expect to see at your wedding,” my sister said later, speaking of the moment she turned to face the stalwart few huddled together for warmth and saw half of them bundled in linen.

At the couple’s request, the minister bypassed the Bible readings and kept his own comments brief. He asked the bride if she did, and she did. Then he asked the groom, who did too.

The weather being what it was, they cut the cake quickly outdoors but deferred sharing it until that night, at dinner inside a warm restaurant, after everybody had retreated to hotel rooms and hot showers and a strict accounting of toes and fingers. No extremities were lost.

Despite an uncooperative Mother Nature, there were no Bridezilla moments, no pre-, mid- or post-ceremony meltdowns of gargantuan — or any other — proportions.

It boded well for the future when the groom removed his jacket and used it to cover the bride’s bare arms. Later, the minister promised to be available later to give last rites to anybody who contracted pneumonia during the ceremony. To date, nobody has.

We spent the next two days in Florida, and the weather never warmed much. It clouded up one afternoon, then rained. The zipper on our suitcase split the morning of our flight home, forcing us to buy an overly expensive replacement from the hotel gift shop. (The people who call Disney the happiest place on Earth are the same ones who collect the tourists’ money.)

Meanwhile, the weather that last day was sunny and warm, with a high around 80 degrees. We experienced it from the airport terminal.

It was one of those vacations that everybody has sometimes, the kind we remember long after the bore of perfection blurs other travel memories.

Still, it was the week my kid sister got married, and the day we welcomed both a brother-in-law and nephew into the family, and that made up for the cold, the rain and the split zipper. It was still a fairy tale wedding with a happily-ever-after ending.

People who weren’t there will look at the photos and see only the clear skies and the wide smiles. They will see no evidence that we shivered and shuddered throughout.

Unless they notice the slightly blue tinge around the bride’s lips.

BLUE ÖYSTER CULT: 50th Anniversary Live in NYC, Third Night (2 CD + DVD)

 

The third and final release of Blue Öyster Cult's 50th-anniversary celebration is perhaps the one most keenly anticipated by fans because it includes a live rendition of Secret Treaties, arguably the band's finest album.

And 50th Anniversary Live in NYC Third Night (Frontiers) does not disappoint. From the opening chords of "Career of Evil" through the closing strains of "Astronomy," this latest iteration of BÖC rips through the Secret Treaties set with an enthusiasm that belies the individual members' age and instead demonstrates their musical assurance. 

It helps that many of the Secret Treaties songs have found a permanent home in the band's setlist for the last five decades. "Subhuman," "Dominance and Submission," "M.E. 262," "Harvester of Eyes," and "Flaming Telepaths" are all familiar, even to casual fans of the band's live performances. Sadly, most have fallen out of regular rotation on rock radio, which is less a commentary on the songs' quality than it is of the moribund state of AOR rock in 2025. 

The Secret Treaties material is followed by a smartly chosen second set, highlighting BÖC's eclectic catalog. While the obligatory tunes ("Burnin' for You," "Godzilla," and "(Don't Fear) the Reaper") are represented, so too are lesser-known gems. The band's collaboration with fantasy writer Michael Moorcock, "Black Blade," sounds terrific, as do "I Love the Night" and "Joan Crawford," from the Spectres and Fire of Unknown Origin albums, respectively. "The Alchemist," a standout track written by BÖC's latter-day jack of all trades, Richie Castellano, is also a welcome addition here, carried over (maybe for reasons of length?) from its performance on Night Two. 

Night Two's musical guests Kasim Sulton and Albert Bouchard are back for Night Three (Bouchard plays all three nights, as well he should), joined by Andy Ascolese on keyboards when Castellano is busy rocking the six-string during the aforementioned "Alchemist." Jules Radino on drums and Danny Miranda on bass provide their usual exemplary performances. 

But BÖC's two longest-tenured members, founders Eric Bloom on vocals and Donald "Buck Dharma" Roeser on lead guitar and vocals, deserve the most praise. How often has Bloom introduced "Godzilla," yet still cackles with maniacal glee? How often has Roeser played the solo from "(Don't Fear) the Reaper), yet still wrings emotion from it? At a time when many of their contemporaries are long retired, these two only talk obliquely of "winding down" at some indefinite point in the future. 

And if so, retirement will be well-deserved. Yet if they still find the inspiration to do what they do, even with less frequency, then every performance is a gift from them to the fans. Which is a long-winded way of saying that a live album and DVD are great, but they're no substitute for fans seeing Blue Öyster Cult live while they still can. 

 

Advice to Bald Teachers

Always make fun of your chrome dome before a student does. That way, you own it and they can’t belittle you. Whenever a student or colleague mentions their hairstyle, join in with “me too.” For example, when a student says, “I’m getting a haircut on November 14,” say, “Me too!” When a colleague says they hate to wear hats because it messes up their hair, say, “Me too!” It’s important not to crack a smile when you say this. Stay stone-faced; this way, they won’t know if you’re joking or not. Maybe you’re delusional. Maybe you’re nursing a grudge. It makes lunch much more interesting.

Shave your head twice a week. Religiously. By this I don’t mean to make the sign of the cross or kneel down, but shave every Sunday and Wednesday. Or Monday and Thursday. It’s up to you. Because if you don’t, you will start to get annoying little stubbles that scrape like sandpaper when you pull shirts on or off.

Don’t get stingy with the razor. Replace it every three weeks. If you stretch it to four, the Gods of Gillette will make you sorry. The dull blade will rake across your noggin like a plow through a dry field, leaving deep, bloody divots behind your ears. Head cuts bleed like crazy, so when you stride out of the bathroom, acting like nothing is wrong, your spouse will react in horror at the sight of the scorched earth that is your brain pan. In the grand scheme of life, razors are inexpensive. Leaving crimson furrows across the virgin expanse of your head is costly.

Wear wigs with your costume every Halloween. The difference between your uncoiffed and wiggy self will be electrifying to your students, especially if the hair on the wig is shoulder-length. Always flip your wig hair back and forth like a supermodel. Halloween is all about wish-fulfillment, and this is the only time you’re going to have hair, right?

Always keep a photo from earlier in life when you had a full, luxuriant head of hair. Like the wig, it will amaze and frighten your students, in equal measure. Even if the picture looks more like a mug shot, it will remind your young charges that you were once a real human being who went to movies and concerts, ate at restaurants, and took walks in the park. This is before you became an educational ogre who sleeps under his desk on the weekends, emerging only to grade papers and assign readings before crawling back into your lair to gnaw on a protein bar and drink a V8 Pomegranate Blueberry, the only joys left to you in your twilight years.

Finally, remember to always polish your head. In much the same way that Rihanna reminds listeners to “shine bright like a diamond,” your head should be a bright beacon to all who enter your room, a sign that learning and fun—in equal measure—are about to occur. Maybe. If not, console yourself with the fact that at least you made fun of your folliclly-challenged self before the students did.

Spending time with the King

 As chance would have it, I had no sooner finished writing about the fiftieth-anniversary edition of Origins of Marvel Comics than I came across Jack Kirby: The Epic Life of the King of Comics at my local Ollie's. Priced at $6.99, it was a steal—and an appropriate counterpoint to the Stan Lee-centric history presented in the former volume. 

Writer and artist Tom Scioli has compiled information from multiple sources, including The Jack Kirby Collector, the Jack Kirby Museum & Research Center, and various books, to tell the story of Kirby's life from birth to death. Along the way, he illuminates the King's formative years on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, his time in World War II, and, of course, his pivotal role in the creation of the comic book. 

Like many other early comic artists, Kirby spent much time trying to do something else. Specifically, he wanted to draw a syndicated comic strip, seen as a more distinguished job for cartoonists. Again and again, however, his attempts were rebuffed or stymied, sometimes by financial and legal considerations. Inky, "a comic strip artist who solves crimes" was a collaboration with Joe Simon that "went nowhere" (p. 73). Sky Masters, a syndicated collaboration with Wally Wood, cost Kirby money because he paid both Wood and a writer, Dave Wood (no relation to Wally), to assist. Dave, according to the book, was late with the scripts, so Kirby wrote the strip himself but continued to pay anyway. 

Readers with some modicum of knowledge about Kirby won't find much that's new, especially in the section about the birth of Marvel Comics and Kirby's eventual switch to DC and then back to Marvel. These are oft-told stories, but what gives them emotional heft is "hearing" them in the artist's voice, as Scioli chooses to have Kirby narrate his own story. The continual disappointment, the non-adherence to contracts, and the lack of payment as Kirby's work is reconstituted for animated cartoons, toys, and even Halloween costumes are reflected visually by Scioli's visual rendition of Kirby: He gets older and less vital, even as his work continues to define the aesthetic of mainstream comics. 

At one point—jarringly, in this reader's estimation—the point of view shifts to Stan Lee for several pages, demonstrating the famed editor/writer's perspective of the birth of Marvel. These pages cover Lee's time in the service, the death of artist Joe Maneely, and his reunion with Kirby (with whom he worked at Timely before the war) in the 1960s. Why Scioli thought a book about Kirby's life needed Lee's perspective is unknown. 

The book does a great job demonstrating how Kirby's view of writing is unique enough that both his and Lee's view of "who did what" during Marvel's formative years can be correct. Kirby equated writing with plotting (which it is, in part) and insisted that the notes he left in the margins of his pages were proof that he shaped much of what Lee took credit for. 

However, comparing this marginalia to the finished product indicates that Lee (or somebody else) expanded on these notes to create the finished dialogue and captions. Indeed, much of the charm of these early Marvel stories comes from the interplay among the characters—the playful banter, the differences in dialects, and the ruminating in thought balloons that gave the Kirby and Lee heroes feet of clay compared to DC's perfect deities. This takes nothing away from Kirby (or Steve Ditko, also mentioned in these pages), who undoubtedly choreographed the action, designed the visuals, and fleshed out the plots. Yet the finished work appears to owe something to Lee. 

Part of Scioli's brilliance here is that he makes us understand how Kirby could believe he was treated poorly by Lee and the various owners of Marvel (which he was) even as we recognize that Kirby's conclusions may not be entirely accurate. Few creative endeavors between two people are entirely fifty-fifty; one collaborator undoubtedly does more than the other. In Kirby's case, he was doing more, yet more shouldn't remove Lee entirely from the equation. 

Kirby was ahead of his time, and therein lies his genius and his tragedy. The genius is evident in his role in creating the visual language of comics. His tragedy is that he didn't live long enough to see his contributions honored fully. At least he experienced some of the recognition he so richly deserved via the return of his original art, convention appearances, and awards. Yet the full flowering of this appreciation would come after his passing in 1994, which Scioli effectively illustrates in the biography's final pages by having Kirby's voice go silent while the encomiums continue — media tributes, movie credits, and an out-of-court settlement between Marvel and Kirby's heirs. 

This panel encapsulates the advantages of comics over video games and movies. It's so appropriate that it comes from Kirby.

Fans of the Golden, Silver, and Bronze ages of comics will enjoy this book because it name-drops so many creators from these periods. Hardcore and even casual Kirby fans will love it, too. I paid a pittance for it, but it's worth much more. Scioli has made a significant contribution to comics scholarship. 

Who Did What? Marvel’s Attempt to Contextualize Stan Lee

Movie fans know Stan Lee as the old man with cameos in many Marvel films. A few may know him as a comics creator, and fewer still may be able to rattle off some of the characters he worked on. Longtime comic book fans, however, recognize Lee as one of the primary architects of contemporary pop culture. He is lionized not only because he helped to create dozens of well-known characters — the Fantastic Four, X-Men, Incredible Hulk, and Black Panther among them — but also because he promoted Marvel Comics through TV appearances, magazine interviews, and nonstop tours of college campuses. His hype-man persona turned the company into a cultural force. It also made him very rich.

In recent years, however, Lee’s credibility has taken a hit. Comics fans and not a few artists and writers have started to speak up about what they see as Lee’s attempts to claim all the creative credit for himself. They point out Lee’s famously fallible memory, citing instances where his version of events in the evolution of Marvel changed notably from one telling to the next. They mention the significant involvement of various artists who created not only the visual look of the characters but often contributed essential plot elements. Chief among these artists is Jack Kirby, a creative dynamo who worked in the comics industry from its inception in the 1930s until his death in 1994. His decades of work at Marvel was shadowed by disillusionment. He watched Lee grow wealthy from their shared creations while he toiled in obscurity, earning only a modest rate per page. For years after his passing, Kirby’s children fought for legal recognition and financial remuneration. Finally, in 2014, Disney, the new owner of Marvel, capitulated, offering the Kirby heirs a settlement estimated as low as $40-50 million or as high as $100 million.

Pressure to recognize the diverse hands involved in Marvel’s creation has left the company in a difficult position. On the one hand, Lee is still the much-beloved mascot of the company, even six years after his death. On the other, his single-author stumping is increasingly seen as a liability, especially when it obscures the involvement of Kirby and others, including Steve Ditko, Marie Severin, Joe Sinnott, and Dick Ayers. One hint as to how the company will move forward in managing Lee’s legacy can be found in the fiftieth-anniversary reissue of Origins of Marvel Comics, one of the first full-length books to reprint mainstream comics and one originally credited solely to Lee, despite reprinting work by all of the creative people mentioned above.

A deluxe edition of Origins offers 39 pages of introductory material, much devoted to a more equitable retelling of Marvel’s early years. In one piece, editor Chris Ryall bluntly states, “Within the pages of Origins, Stan’s text pieces offer both his mindset and his self-mythologizing during this time” (p. 6). This is followed by a lengthy essay from long-time Marvel editor Tom Brevoort, who exhaustively identifies the creators responsible for each reprinted story. He also offers an apology of sorts, noting that “nobody who was working on these stories in the 1960s thought that their efforts would continue to be scrutinized into the coming decades” (hence the lack of precise creator documentation at the time) and that a major goal of Origins was not to provide a historical document, but rather “to present these early efforts by Marvel as being significant stories worthy of being revisited and documented” (p. 26).

A third contributor, artist Alex Ross discusses the “Marvel Method” of comic creation, where the writer provides only a rough plot summary for the artist, who then expands it into the required number of pages and panels. The writer then returns to insert the captions and dialogue. Ross diplomatically terms the title of “writer” in this situation as “an incomplete representation of duties” (p. 30), pointing out the many narrative choices left to the artist. Complicating the issue, Lee, who was also busy serving as Marvel’s editor at the time, often shared his plot summaries through informal conversations, with no actual “writing” taking place.

Perhaps recognizing that the previous three contributors had pushed the debate too far against Lee, the book’s editor gives the last word to Larry Lieber, Stan’s brother and an early Marvel scripter, who says the “anecdotes in Stan’s books are comical exaggerations,” and readers who use them to make a case against Lee “are just plain wrong” (p. 38).

One vital aspect of Lee’s collaborations with Marvel artists is how much the dialogue enhances the enjoyment of the finished work. Origins of Marvel Comics reprints eleven early Marvel stories starring seminal characters—the Fantastic Four, the Hulk, Spider-Man, Thor, and Doctor Strange— and, in each, the writing adds a layer of sophistication that the art, as dynamic and powerful as it is, cannot. Much of the joy of Fantastic Four #55, for example, comes from the interplay between the characters. The Thing’s insecurity about his looks (he is a craggy, walking desert, after all) leads to some comic exchanges between him and his teammates and provides the primary reason for him to engage in fisticuffs with the Silver Surfer. Much of the audience’s enjoyment of that battle comes from the interplay between the Thing, who talks like a Bowery Boys’ reject, and the shiny spaceman of the stars, whose speech patterns are pseudo-Shakespearean. None of this is indicated by the art alone but is a consequence of Lee’s dialogue.

Lee, in an attempt to cement his legacy and immortalize Marvel Comics, overstated his involvement and contributions on multiple occasions, including in the pages of Origins of Marvel Comics. The decision by long-ago editors to include only his name on the cover, alongside a pair of typing hands that insinuate he was the sole creator, furthered this misconception. In recent years, the pendulum has swung more toward Lee’s various collaborators, especially the under-appreciated Jack Kirby. However, it would be a mistake to overcompensate for Lee’s bluster by minimizing the man’s legitimate contributions. 

Some sixty years after the birth of Marvel Comics, the origins of the various characters and the universe they live in are more complex than originally reported, and the only people who know who did what with any certainty have long since passed on. Marvel’s attempts to set the record straight are laudable. Yet the truth may be as sticky as Spider-Man’s webs, as ephemeral as the smoke from Dr. Strange’s magic, and as unknowable as the cosmic power crackling from the Silver Surfer’s fingertips.