John Gray (boxer)

Stan Lee is an American writer, editor, and memoirist, who — with several artist co-creators, especially Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko — introduced complex, naturalistic characters and a thoroughly shared universe into superhero comic books.

Sourced

• WITH GREAT POWER THERE MUST ALSO COME - - GREAT RESPONSIBILITY!
  • Amazing Fantasy #15 (August 1962) - The first Spider-Man story.
  • In later stories and adaptations, including the 2002 movie, this has appeared as "With great power comes great responsibility."

• Excelsior!
  • Closing signature line on "Stan Lee's Soapbox" editorial pages.
  • See, for example, Web of Spider-Man 84 (January 1992)

• Face front, true believer!
  • Often-used line on "Stan Lee's Soapbox" editorial pages.

• In the early days, I was writing scripts for virtually all the books, and it was very hard to keep all the artists busy; poor little frail me, doing story after story. So I'd be writing a story for Kirby, and Steve Ditko would walk in and say, 'Hey, I need some work now.' And I'd say, 'I can't give it to you now, Steve, I'm finishing Kirby's.' But we couldn't afford to keep Steve waiting, because time is money, so I'd have to say, 'Look Steve, I can't write a script for you now, but here's the plot for the next Spider-Man. Go home and draw anything you want, as long as it's something like this, and I'll put the copy in later.' So I was able to finish Jack's story. Steve in the meantime was drawing another story.....Okay, it started out as a lazy's man's device...but we realized this was absolutely the best way to do a comic.....Don't have the writer say, 'Panel one will be a long shot of Spider-Man walking down the street.' The artist may see it differently; maybe he feels it should be a shot of Spider-Man swinging on his web, or climbing upside-down on the ceiling or something.
  • On the early days of work at Marvel Comics. Interview (1975)

• They are working on The Fantastic Four, The Silver Surfer, Iron Man, Dr. Strange, The Hulk— they're doing a sequel to Spider-Man, a sequel to X-Men, and probably a third sequel to Blade. They still haven't gotten around to Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D.— they have to do the Ghost Rider.
  • On characters he created in comic books which are being used as the basis of movies. Interview at the DareDevil movie premiere.

• What did Doctor Doom really want? He wanted to rule the world. Now, think about this. You could walk across the street against a traffic light and get a summons for jaywalking, but you could walk up to a police officer and say "I want to rule the world," and there's nothing he can do about it, that is not a crime. Anybody can want to rule the world. So, even though he was the Fantastic Four's greatest menace, in my mind, he was never a criminal!
  • From Stan Lee's Amazing Marvel Universe (ISBN: 1402742258) on Doctor Doom

Unsourced

• I felt someday I'd write "The Great American Novel" and I didn't want to use my real name on these silly little comics.
  • On why he began using the name "Stan Lee".

• If a character had the same first initial in both names, I could at least remember one of the names.
  • On his use of alliterative names with many of his characters (ie: Peter Parker, Reed Richards, Sue Storm, J. Jonah Jameson, etc).
• I have no idea when the Golden Age was, but as far as I'm concerned, wherever I am is the Golden Age!