November 13, 2018: Excelsior, Stan

I can't imagine that anyone reading this blog hasn't already heard, but we lost Stan Lee yesterday, at the age of 95.

His legacy is complex, and includes mistakes early in his career that have been discussed at length. It is our position that those mistakes should not be forgotten but should also not be allowed to define a long, full life. As the news of Lee's death spread throughout the world, the common feature in the memories I saw from people who had the pleasure of meeting him was how kind and gentle he was. Even fleeting contacts got his full attention, and hosts of people said how they left his presence in a better place than they entered it.

I was never fortunate enough to meet Stan myself, alas, and I've never been a huge comic reader, but I have enjoyed many of his creations as they have appeared on small screens and large over the years . . . and if his ubiquitous cameos in those movies and TV shows say anything, he clearly enjoyed them as well. There are worse legacies than having created something that entertains generation after generation, as he said himself:

"Entertainment is one of the most important things in people's lives. Without it they might go off the deep end. I feel that if you're able to entertain people, you're doing a good thing."