When I saw this on a new book shelf, I had to grab it. Would we finally have a definitive Stan Lee biography? One that could cut through all the opposing viewpoints?
Batchelor does a pretty good job of presenting incompatible versions of famous stories without bias -- like the famous firing of Joe Simon and Jack Kirby by Timely Comics back in 1941 -- you get Joe's version and Jack's version, as well as Stan's version of events.
The book seems to be well-researched, which is why it is so odd when Batchelor misses the obvious. At one point, still talking about the 1940s, he seems to suggest that Stan invented the superhero anti-hero, when everyone knows Bill Everett struck that ground with the Sub-Mariner and Amazing Man.
Perhaps wanting to make his subject matter seem as relevant as possible, Batchelor oversells Stan's creativity. Yes, Stan did write up the initial proposal for the Fantastic Four, but he did not create those characters from scratch. Batchelor makes no mention of Kirby's Challengers of the Unknown, a template that Stan overlaid with superpowers. Nor did Stan invent the idea of sharing superheroes' innermost thoughts in word balloons; what Stan did was combine the introspective dialog of the romance genre with the superhero genre. It was in combining elements invented by others where Stan's genius laid, as well as his gifts for dialog and narrative voice (which Batchelor does give full props to Stan for).
So do we have a definitive biography? Perhaps not yet, but this is a worthy read while we wait for one.
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