Interview from the 1990s
JEFFREY GOLDSMITH: A lot of mainstream directors have been signed up to direct films based on your characters over the next few years, but Marvel characters have been animated before, right?
STAN LEE: Yes, but not too satisfactorily. I was disappointed by the Captain America movie. I was disappointed by The Punisher movie and I was disappointed by the Spider-man television live action series that we had on CBS some years ago. But those were the disappointments.
Q: How do you think you’ll feel about the new ones?
A: I think I’m going to be thrilled and delighted.
Q: What makes for a great character?
A: The character has to seem to be real to the reader, or to the audience if it’s a movie. You have to believe the character exists or you have to want to believe that there could be such a character. No matter how fantastic the story is, no matter how much fantasy or science fiction or magic the movie may have, the character should always act the way a real flesh and blood person would act or react given those fantastic circumstances.
Q: But somehow the fantastic circumantances astound me, personally. If I think about it, I’m amazed that I’ll keep reading a comic strip where a man is affected by radioactivity, for example, and turns into this green large man named The Hulk. It’s impossible, so why do I care?
A: I think this starts when we’re children. Most of us have read fairy tales. You read Jack the Giant Killer, you read about Snow White, you read about stories with monsters and giants and witches and you make yourself believe them when you’re a kid. Even if you know they’re fantasy, you still enjoy the idea that it could happen or what would it be like if you were in the hero’s or the heroine’s shoes? From the time you leave the womb, everybody has an interest in things that are inexplicable, bigger than life. We look up at the sky and say, “What’s beyond the stars? Where does it end? Where did it begin? What’s the world all about?” You mentioned The Hulk. Well, we all know that radiation does affect people. Why couldn’t it turn somebody into a mutant?
Q: Radiation also affects the spider that bites Spider-man.
A: I don’t know that anybody has ever been bitten by a radioactive spider, but who knows what would happen?
Q: Is Spider-man you’re favorite?
A:. If I have to give an answer, I usually say Spider-man because he’s the most famous and so forth. But I love them all.
Q: Why did you make Spider-man a geek?
A: Very few of us have the strength of a Schwarzanager, the brains of an Einstein or the personality of a Carey Grant. Most of us wish we were more than we are. It seems to me it’s easy for a reader to relate to a character who could be the reader. I didn’t think Spider-man was really a geek. He was just a kid, he was a good student and he was worried about his aunt and uncle. He was trying to get good grades so that he could become a scientist and make money for them later. He didn’t have time for the frivolous pursuits of the other kids.
Q: I’ve got The Essential Spider-Man, the first twenty issues. How do you feel that they’ve been collected into such compendiums?
A: When I read the stories I say, “Gee, I wish I had changed that dialogue.” You always get that feeling, but it’s still a kick when a new one comes out.
Q: When will the Spider-man movie finally come out? James Cameron is slated to direct, but there are legal problems…
A: As soon as the litigation gets cleared away. It has nothing to do with me or Jim, personally, or with Marvel. A lot of other companies feel that they have a stake in this movie. I’m not really involved in the negotiations, but I hear we’re getting close to a resolution.
Q: Is it going to be animated?
A: No, no, live action. I’ve seen the treatment for the movie that Jim wrote. It’s a little more than 50 pages long and one of the greatest things I’ve ever read. He has taken Spider-man and not changed him the way some writers or directors change a character to suit their own taste. It’s still the Spider-man we have all known and loved. It’s very true to the comic book version and yet it makes you feel you’re reading something new and different that you haven’t seen before. When he finally does this, it’ll be one of the great movies of our time.
Q: What about the Blade movie?
A: One thing is going to happen with Blade. I have a walk on role in the movie which, of course, is going to be a great moment in the history of the cinema.
Q: Jeffrey Wright, the director of that ultraviolent film about Australian skinheads called Romper Stomper, is going to direct Silver Surfer. He’s very edgy. Have you seen Romper Stomper?
A: I haven’t, but Jeffrey is a great guy. I know he did Romper Stomper and I’ve been meaning to see it, I just haven’t gotten around to it yet.
Q: And Ironman?
A: When we were going to do Ironman, I thought to myself, “Well, we’ve already seen RoboCop and we’ve seen robots and people in iron suits, cyborgs. What are we going to do to make this different?” I’m working with a screenwriter named Jeff Vintar. I just met with him yesterday and I am very excited about it. We have come up with so many angles, I think it’s going to look fresh and new.
Q: Ironman’s Tony Stark reminds me of Batman’s Bruce Wayne in that he’s a businessman who has this other side.
A: Tony Stark wasn’t your average hero because he was a businessman. When I created the character it was, I forget, either during the Korean War or the Vietnamese War. In those days, young people were very anti-military/industrial complex . And I thought, “Wouldn’t it be fun to take the kind of character that everybody hates and make a hero out of him?” So I took a guy interested in making money, who made munitions and supplied armaments and I said, “We’ll make him the hero. We’ll make him like Howard Hughes.”
Q: There’s one cell in the first Avengers story where the Hulk has disguised himself as a robotic clown. Somehow it startled me. I stared at it for a minute.
A: Well, that’s good, you see. That’s what these pictures should do. They should startle you, interest you, intrigue you, make you take a second look, surprise you.
Q: I guess that’s how you have to think; visually.
A: When you’re doing comics, I tell the guys back at the office in New York that you have to be an art director more than an editor. To me the artwork is so important. The artwork could make a mediocre script look wonderful or it could make a great script look boring, depending on how it’s drawn.
Q: When you create characters, I wonder how you start. How do you brainstorm?
A: I’m a little different. Most writers get ideas all the time. I don’t. I really don’t like to write that much. So, I’ll say to myself, “I want to do a story now.” Or, “I want to create a character now.” And I’ll sit down at the computer–years ago it used to be at the typewriter–and at that moment I’ll start to think. But normally if I’m walking around or watching television or talking to my wife, it’s the last thing on my mind. When I write the Spider-man newspaper strip I give it no thought until I look at the calendar and I say, “Uh-oh, I better write another week of Spider-man.” Then I sit down at the computer. I’m a little like a machine, I guess.
Q: I guess deadlines are a good thing for you.
A: Well, I have lived all my life with deadlines. I don’t think anybody has had more deadlines hovering over him than I have because I’ve been in comics since I was about 16 1/2. And from the day I started we had deadlines. In fact, I’ve reached the point that you’d probably get a kick out of it, if you could see my house, in the room where I work I have about six clocks. I have a clock on every wall and a clock on my desk and a clock on the table so that no matter where I’m facing I can always see what time it is.
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JEFFREY GOLDSMITH Interview with Stan Lee
GOLDSMITH: What inspired this call was that a lot of mainstream directors have been signed up to direct some big films based on your creations, over the next few years. How do you feel? I assume you’ve seen your characters up on movie screens before, right?
LEE: Yes, not too satisfactorily, but I’ve seen them.
Q: Have you been disappointed by those results so far?
A: I was disappointed by the Captain America movie. I was disappointed by The Punisher movie and I was disappointed by the Spider-man television live action series that we had on CBS some years ago. But those were the disappointments.
Q: How do you think you’ll feel about the new ones?
A: I think I’m going to be thrilled and delighted.
Q: Tell me what makes a great character. You’ve created a lot of characters over the years. What makes a great one?
A: Well, it’s hard to say. Actually, the character has to seem to be real to the reader or to the audience if it’s a movie. You have to believe the character exists or you have to want to believe that there could be such a character. And no matter how fantastic the story is, no matter how much fantasy or science fiction or magic the movie may have, the character should always act the way a real flesh and blood person would act or react given those fantastic circumstances.
Q: But given the fantastic circumstances and given the many of the things that are beyond reality, why do we still care? I’m a reasonable person but somehow it astounds me, personally, when I read a comic strip that these guys are in outer space or The Hulk is affected by radioactivity and turns into this green large man. Why do I believe that? Why do I want to believe that?
A: Because I wrote it so beautifully. Well, you know, if you think about it, I think this starts when we’re children. Most of us have read or had read to us fairy tales. You read things, Jack the Giant Killer, you read about Snow White, you read about stories with monsters and giants and witches and you make yourself believe them when you’re a kid. Even if you know they’re fantasy you still enjoy the idea that well, it could happen or what if it did happen or what would it be like if were in the hero’s or the heroine’s shoes? I think everybody, from probably the time you leave the womb, everybody has an interest in things that are inexplicable, things that are bigger than life. We look up at the sky and we say, what’s beyond the stars? Where does it end? Where did it begin? What’s the world all about?
I think we all have imaginations. And when we read these kinds of stories–you mentioned The Hulk. Well, we all know that radiation does affect people and actually it pretty much kills people. But why couldn’t it turn somebody into some sort of a mutant? The way I wrote it, it just happened that the mutant was The Hulk.
Q: And also the radiation affects the spider that bites Spider-man.
A: It could be.
Q: It’s true. I just read it.
A: I don’t know that anybody has ever been bitten by a radioactive spider but who knows what would happen.
Q: Why in real life did you make Spider-man a geek, for example?
A: Again, to make him–you see, most people in the world are, if not geeks are very ordinary. Very few of us have the strength of a Schwarzanager or the brains of an Einstein or the personality of a Carey Grant. Most of us wish we were more than we are. It somehow seems to me it’s easy for a reader to relate to a character who could be the reader. I didn’t think he was really a geek, he was just a kid, he was a good student and he was worried about his aunt and uncle and the fact they didn’t have enough money and he was trying to get good grades so that he could become a scientist and make money for them later. He didn’t have time for a lot of the frivolous pursuits of the other kids.
Q: Who’s your favorite character of all the ones you’ve created?
A: Believe it or not, it’s the one that I’m writing at the moment or the one that I’m reading at the moment. I love them all. If I have to give an answer, I usually say Spider-man because he’s the most famous and so forth. But I really love them all.
Q: I bought the essential Spider-man, the first twenty issues. How do you feel that these have been anthologized, have been collected into these compendiums?
A: I get a kick out of it, of course. Of course, when I read the stories I say gee, I wish I had changed that dialogue or, I wish I had done this a little better, I wish I had done this differently. You always get that feeling. But basically, I get a kick out of it. Some of these stories has been anthologized so often. You know Marvel has these series of the Marvel Masterworks Edition. I don’t know if you’ve seen those. I’m getting sort of used to it but it’s still always a kick when a new one comes out.
Q: When do you think the Spider-man movie will come out? I know James Cameron is slated to direct it but there’s a lot of litigation going on with all this.
A: Yeah, well, as soon as the litigation gets cleared away. It’s the most unfortunate situation. It’s nothing to do with us. It has nothing to do with me, personally or with Jim personally or with Marvel. It’s just a lot of other factors. A lot of other companies feel that they have a stake or an interest in this movie. And until everything gets cleared away we can’t start. But I’m not really involved in the negotiations. But from what I hear, we’re getting close to a resolution of this thing.
Q: Is it going to be an animated film?
A: No, no, this is live action. I must tell you, I’ve seen the treatment. I haven’t read the script, the screenplay but I’ve seen the treatment for the movie that Jim wrote. It’s a little more than 50 pages long. And it’s one of the greatest things I’ve ever read. What he has succeeded in doing, he’s taken Spider-man and not changed him the way some writers or directors change a character to suit their own taste. It’s still the Spider-man we have all known and loved. It’s very true to the comic book version and yet it’s done in such a way that every paragraph you read in that treatment makes you feel you’re reading something new and different that you haven’t seen before. I mean, I think when he finally does this it’ll be one of the great movies of our time.
Q: Do you still work on characters now? Are you developing more characters?
A: I’ve been spending most of my time on movie and television, animation projects. So I haven’t been doing as much as I did in the past. I still try to keep in touch with the guys in New York who were doing the comics. I talk to Bob Harras, our editor, from time to time. I’m also working on a few projects of my own, original movie and TV ideas.
Q: When you brainstorm these characters and so forth, you must have had a method and you must still have a method for working. I wonder how it is that you start. Every writer has a method and I wonder what yours is. How do you brainstorm?
A: I don’t know. I’m a little different, I think, than most. Most writers get ideas all the time. They’re thinking of stories no matter what else they’re doing. I don’t. I really don’t like to write that much. So, I’ll say to myself well, I think I want to do a story now or, I want to create a character now. And I’ll sit down at the computer–years ago it used to be at the typewriter–I’ll sit down at the computer and at that moment I’ll start trying to think or trying to work on it. But normally if I’m walking around or if I’m watching television or if I’m talking to my wife or if I’m doing anything, it’s the last thing on my mind because I’m concentrating on what I’m doing at the moment.
I sort of tell myself, like when I write the Spider-man newspaper strip I give it no thought until I look at the watch or the calendar and I say, uh-oh, I better write another week of Spider-man. Then I sit down at the computer and I start thinking of what to write. I’m a little bit like a machine, I guess.
Q: I guess deadlines are a good thing for you.
A: Well, I have lived all my life with deadlines. I don’t think anybody has had more deadlines hovering over him than I have because I’ve been in comics since I was about 16 1/2. And from the day I started we had deadlines. In fact, I’ve reached the point that you’d probably get a kick out of it, if you could see my house, in the room where I work I have about six clocks. I have a clock on every wall and a clock on my desk and a clock on the table so that no matter where I’m facing I can always see what time it is.
Q: Why do you think that is?
A: I’m just so conscious of time. There’s always something that I have to do an hour from now or a half hour from now. Or there’s something that I have to write but I’ve only got a half hour to write it because there’s a phone call I’m expecting at that point or I have a meeting an hour later. It seems all my life I have lived with this damn clock fixation.
Q: Here’s a slightly different tact: I am aware of this phenomena of an issue of a comic strip series being something marvelous or being something famous or being something crucial in the history of a comic strip, such as Issue 137 of the X-Men. Why do you think one comic strip becomes essential to the saga of a character or a number of characters?
A: You mean why one special issue becomes essential? Usually it’s a turning point in the life or the career of the character. It’ll be when a certain character is introduced whom we haven’t seen before who will play an integral part in the series or if something happens like a character gets married or somebody dies or a new villain is introduced. It’s usually some sort of a ground breaking issue in some way.
Q: Do you think anything like that is going to happen in these movies that are coming out? Is something going to happen with Blade?
A: One thing is going to happen with Blade, I think I’m going to play a supporting role. I think I have sort of a walk on role in the movie which, of course, is going to be a great moment in the history of the cinema. But we would like to feel, in every movie, there will be some watershed moment, sure.
Q: Ironman, I just wonder what your thoughts are on all of these films that are coming out.
A: Ironman, at the moment, I’m working with a screenwriter named Jeff Vintar. I just met with him yesterday, as a matter of fact, and we’re trying to do the story for the Ironman movie. We’re working on it together and I am very excited about it. I think originally when we were going to do Ironman I thought to myself well, we’ve already seen RoboCop and we’ve seen robots and people in iron suits, cyborgs. What are we going to do to make this different? We have come up with so many angles, I think it’s going to be a fascinating movie and I think it’s going to look fresh and new.
Q: In some ways he reminds me of Batman in that he’s a businessman who has this other side. It seems apt for our times to do something about an industrialist because of the Bill Gates thing.
A: The thing I always like about Tony Stark was he wasn’t your average hero because he was basically a businessman. In fact, when I created the character it was, I forget, it was either during the Korean War or the Vietnamese War, one or the other. I think it was the Korean War. But at any rate, in those days the readers, the young people in the country were very anti-war and they were anti military/industrial complex establishment. And I thought, wouldn’t it be fun to take the kind of character that everybody hates today and make a hero out of him and somehow make the readers like him. So I took a guy who was interested in making money, who made munitions and factories all over and supplied armaments and I said, we’ll make him the hero. We’ll make him a guy like Howard Hughes or so. And luckily, it worked out. I was very proud of Ironman.
Q: He’s very interesting. He’s somehow different from the rest of the characters.
A: We try to make all our characters different. It’s a concerted effort.
Q: Captain American somehow interests me, as well. He also became one of Andy Warhol’s cohorts, his cohort took up the name of Captain America. How do you feel when a name like that shifts over to another milieu?
A: It happens a lot. Captain America is one of the characters that I myself did not create. I probably wrote more Captain America stories than anyone but it was created by Jack Kirby and Joe Simon years ago. However, the name is such a natural. It’s a fantastic name. But we’ve seen things happen like that. For instance, when The Hulk television series was on, the live action series with Bill Bixby and Lou Ferregno. They used the expression, “he’s hulking out.” And I saw that become part of the language, where people would get excited or they’d lose their temper and they’d say, hey, he’s hulking out. So, there have been other examples. Again, I think I’ve gotten used to it. Do you remember the Silver Surfer, our character? I don’t know if you’re familiar with him.
Q: A little bit. I didn’t read any. I read a lot of your Marvel stuff in the past few days to refresh my memory but I didn’t read any of him.
A: The point I’m making is he’s one of our characters who had been mentioned three times that I know of in various movies. There was a movie called Breathless with Richard Gere where I think–my memory isn’t that good–but I think Richard Gere had been a fan of the Silver Surfer in that movie. I think in Crimson Tide he was mentioned, the Gene Hackman movie. And there was another one. I forget which it was. Then there was a movie called Adventures in Babysitting some years ago, if you remember that one.
Q: I’ve never even heard of it.
A: It was produced Linda Oakes and it was quite a hit, I don’t know, maybe seven or eight or nine years ago. But they mentioned our character Thor, the mighty Thor in that one. There was a little kid in the movie who always wore a Thor helmet and he was her hero. So, we’ve had a lot of that.
Q: I know that the director of Romper Stomper is going to be directing Silver Surfer. He’s a very edgy director. You’ve seen Romper Stomper, haven’t you?
A: No, I’m sorry, I haven’t.
Q: One of the most frightening scenes I’ve every experienced.
A: Is that Jeffrey Wright? Jeffrey is a great guy.
Q: He’s Australian right? I recommend Romper Stomper but there’s one of the most heart-pounding scenes I’ve every seen in the cinema.
A: I’ve been so busy. I knew he did it and I’ve been meaning to see it, I just haven’t gotten around to it yet.
Q: Thor is interesting, as well. A hammer? Where does an idea like a hammer come from?
A: If you had to have a weapon.
Q: And you never used a hammer before?
A: It seemed like such a nice thing. What I was thinking of was you know King Arthur with his sword Excalibur? It seemed to me that a god, I didn’t want to give him a magic sword because that’s already been done. I figured, I didn’t think of it as a hammer, I really thought of it as a mallet. It was this enchanted mallet which when he’s on earth it would be cane because he’d be lame. And then when he’d tap the cane on the ground twice it would turn into this enchanted mallet. I just like the idea. I thought visually it was good.
Q: I guess that’s how you have to think; visually.
A: When you’re doing comics, I always tell the guys back at the office that you have to be an art director more than an editor. To me the artwork is so important. The artwork could make a mediocre script look wonderful or it could make a great script look boring, depending on how it’s drawn.
Q: So you give direction when you’re writing scripts.
A: At least I used to.
Q: There’s one cell in one of the Avengers, I think it might even be in the first Avengers story, where the Hulk has disguised himself as a robotic clown. Do you remember that stuff? It’s so beautiful, the Hulk dressed as a clown. Somehow it startled me. I stared at it for a minute.
A: Well, that’s good, you see. That’s what these pictures should do. They should startle you, interest you, intrigue you, make you take a second look, surprise you.
Q: And a lot of that we owe to the writers.
A: You also owe it to the artist. I don’t want to take credit from somebody else. Some of these artists are just wonderful.
Q: This has been a very interesting interview. Is there anything else you would like to add about all this, what we’ve talked about?
A: I can’t think of anything, but let me tell you, if you think of any additional questions later on, call me later. I’m always available, except next week when there will be nobody at the office.
Q: All of next you’ll be out. Where do you live in L.A., just out of curiosity?
A: Are you familiar with L.A.? I’m just next door to Beverly Hills. Do you know where Doheney Drive is? I live up in the Hills off Doheny Drive. It’s lovely here. I like it. I’ve been here for 16 years now and I still feel like a newcomer. It’s all new and exciting to me still.
Q: Thank you very, very much.
JEFFREY GOLDSMITH Interview with Stan Lee
JEFFREY GOLDSMITH: A lot of mainstream directors have been signed up to direct films based on your characters over the next few years, but your characters have been animated before, right?
STAN LEE: Yes, but not too satisfactorily. I was disappointed by the Captain America movie. I was disappointed by The Punisher movie and I was disappointed by the Spider-man television live action series that we had on CBS some years ago. But those were the disappointments.
Q: How do you think you’ll feel about the new ones?
A: I think I’m going to be thrilled and delighted.
Q: What makes for a great character?
A: The character has to seem to be real to the reader, or to the audience if it’s a movie. You have to believe the character exists or you have to want to believe that there could be such a character. No matter how fantastic the story is, no matter how much fantasy or science fiction or magic the movie may have, the character should always act the way a real flesh and blood person would act or react given those fantastic circumstances.
Q: But somehow the fantastic circumantances astound me, personally. If I think about it, I’m amazed that I’ll keep reading a comic strip where a man is affected by radioactivity, for example, and turns into this green large man named The Hulk. It’s impossible, so why do I care?
A: I think this starts when we’re children. Most of us have read fairy tales. You read Jack the Giant Killer, you read about Snow White, you read about stories with monsters and giants and witches and you make yourself believe them when you’re a kid. Even if you know they’re fantasy, you still enjoy the idea that it could happen or what would it be like if you were in the hero’s or the heroine’s shoes? From the time you leave the womb, everybody has an interest in things that are inexplicable, bigger than life. We look up at the sky and say, “What’s beyond the stars? Where does it end? Where did it begin? What’s the world all about?” You mentioned The Hulk. Well, we all know that radiation does affect people. Why couldn’t it turn somebody into a mutant?
Q: Radiation also affects the spider that bites Spider-man.
A: I don’t know that anybody has ever been bitten by a radioactive spider, but who knows what would happen?
Q: Is Spider-man you’re favorite?
A:. If I have to give an answer, I usually say Spider-man because he’s the most famous and so forth. But I love them all.
Q: Why did you make Spider-man a geek?
A: Very few of us have the strength of a Schwarzanager, the brains of an Einstein or the personality of a Carey Grant. Most of us wish we were more than we are. It seems to me it’s easy for a reader to relate to a character who could be the reader. I didn’t think Spider-man was really a geek. He was just a kid, he was a good student and he was worried about his aunt and uncle. He was trying to get good grades so that he could become a scientist and make money for them later. He didn’t have time for the frivolous pursuits of the other kids.
Q: I’ve got The Essential Spider-Man, the first twenty issues. How do you feel that they’ve been collected into such compendiums?
A: When I read the stories I say, “Gee, I wish I had changed that dialogue.” You always get that feeling, but it’s still a kick when a new one comes out.
Q: When will the Spider-man movie finally come out? James Cameron is slated to direct, but there are legal problems…
A: As soon as the litigation gets cleared away. It has nothing to do with me or Jim, personally, or with Marvel. A lot of other companies feel that they have a stake in this movie. I’m not really involved in the negotiations, but I hear we’re getting close to a resolution.
Q: Is it going to be animated?
A: No, no, live action. I’ve seen the treatment for the movie that Jim wrote. It’s a little more than 50 pages long and one of the greatest things I’ve ever read. He has taken Spider-man and not changed him the way some writers or directors change a character to suit their own taste. It’s still the Spider-man we have all known and loved. It’s very true to the comic book version and yet it makes you feel you’re reading something new and different that you haven’t seen before. When he finally does this, it’ll be one of the great movies of our time.
Q: What about the Blade movie?
A: One thing is going to happen with Blade. I have a walk on role in the movie which, of course, is going to be a great moment in the history of the cinema.
Q: What about Ironman?
A: When we were going to do Ironman, I thought to myself, “Well, we’ve already seen RoboCop and we’ve seen robots and people in iron suits, cyborgs. What are we going to do to make this different?” I’m working with a screenwriter named Jeff Vintar. I just met with him yesterday and I am very excited about it. We have come up with so many angles, I think it’s going to look fresh and new.
Q: Ironman’s Tony Stark reminds me of Batman’s Bruce Wayne in that he’s a businessman who has this other side.
A: Tony Stark wasn’t your average hero because he was a businessman. When I created the character it was, I forget, either during the Korean War or the Vietnamese War. In those days, young people were very anti-military/industrial complex . And I thought, “Wouldn’t it be fun to take the kind of character that everybody hates and make a hero out of him?” So I took a guy interested in making money, who made munitions and supplied armaments and I said, “We’ll make him the hero. We’ll make him like Howard Hughes.”
Q: Jeffrey Wright, the director of that ultraviolent film about Australian skinheads called Romper Stomper, is going to be directing Silver Surfer. He’s very edgy, but have you seen Romper Stomper?
A: I haven’t, but Jeffrey is a great guy. I know he did Romper Stomper and I’ve been meaning to see it, I just haven’t gotten around to it yet.
Q: Thor is interesting, as well, but where does an idea like a hammer come from?
A: What I was thinking of was King Arthur with his sword, Excalibur, but I didn’t want to give him a magic sword because that’s already been done. I really thought of it as this enchanted mallet. When he’s on earth, it would be cane because he’d be lame. Then when he’d tap the cane on the ground twice it would turn into this enchanted mallet. I just like the idea. I thought, visually, it was good.
Q: I guess that’s how you have to think; visually.
A: When you’re doing comics, I always tell the guys back at the office in New York that you have to be an art director more than an editor. To me the artwork is so important. The artwork could make a mediocre script look wonderful or it could make a great script look boring, depending on how it’s drawn.
Q: So you give direction when you’re writing scripts.
A: At least I used to.
Q: There’s one cell in the first Avengers story where the Hulk has disguised himself as a robotic clown. Somehow it startled me. I stared at it for a minute.
A: Well, that’s good, you see. That’s what these pictures should do. They should startle you, interest you, intrigue you, make you take a second look, surprise you.
Q: And a lot of that we owe to the writers.
A: You also owe it to the artist. I don’t want to take credit from somebody else. Some of these artists are just wonderful.
Q: When you create characters, you must have a method. I wonder how you start. How do you brainstorm?
A: I’m a little different, I think, than most. Most writers get ideas all the time. They’re thinking of stories no matter what else they’re doing. I don’t. I really don’t like to write that much. So, I’ll say to myself well, I think I want to do a story now or, I want to create a character now. And I’ll sit down at the computer–years ago it used to be at the typewriter–I’ll sit down at the computer and at that moment I’ll start trying to think or trying to work on it. But normally if I’m walking around or if I’m watching television or if I’m talking to my wife or if I’m doing anything, it’s the last thing on my mind because I’m concentrating on what I’m doing at the moment.
I sort of tell myself, like when I write the Spider-man newspaper strip I give it no thought until I look at the watch or the calendar and I say, uh-oh, I better write another week of Spider-man. Then I sit down at the computer and I start thinking of what to write. I’m a little bit like a machine, I guess.
Q: I guess deadlines are a good thing for you.
A: Well, I have lived all my life with deadlines. I don’t think anybody has had more deadlines hovering over him than I have because I’ve been in comics since I was about 16 1/2. And from the day I started we had deadlines. In fact, I’ve reached the point that you’d probably get a kick out of it, if you could see my house, in the room where I work I have about six clocks. I have a clock on every wall and a clock on my desk and a clock on the table so that no matter where I’m facing I can always see what time it is.
