It's a Marvel-ous night for Stan Lee

Mike Hughes | TV America

It was eight years ago that Sam Raimi began working with Stan Lee's most famous cartoon character. Something clicked.

"You're talking to Sam Raimi's biggest fan," Lee said by phone.

At first, these two men might seem to have little in common. After all:

• Lee is 86; Raimi is 50.

• Lee grew up poor in New York and went straight to work after graduating from high school at 16. Raimi grew up comfortably in suburban Detroit and went to Michigan State University.

• Lee is a writer and producer; Raimi is a director. The two fields don't always connect. "Directors sometimes show you nothing of the character," Lee said. "Very often they'll pander to the violence."

One exception is Raimi, who has directed all three "Spider-Man" movies. "He understood the character," Lee said, "He understood the emotion. His casting of Tobey Maguire was brilliant."

Those movies helped launch a comeback for the comic-book character Lee co-created. Tonight, Lee will be on cable, winning a lifetime prize at the Scream Awards.

None of this came could have been predicted when Lee started out in the comics business. Back then, he figured he would save his real name (Stanley Lieber) for later, when he became a novelist.

"Nobody had much respect for comics back then," Lee recalled.

Then the world changed. Respect soared for the comics and for Lee.

"I just love my life," he said. "I'm excited to get up each morning."

He has remained trim and tanned, something he attributes partly to his move to California in his 50s.

"When I first (visited) here, I thought this was paradise," Lee said. "Then Marvel (Comics) decided to start animated shows here. I said I was prepared to make the supreme sacrifice, to move here."

He's stayed in California ever since, as Marvel Comic characters were turned into good cartoons, a bad TV series and (especially with Raimi) great movies. "It's been a wild ride," Lee said.

With an uncle's help, Lee (or Lieber, back then) became an assistant editor for Timely Comics. Before he turned 19, he was editor.

It was two decades later, co-creating characters for Marvel, that he changed everything.

"It started with the Fantastic Four," Lee said. "I asked, 'If I had a super power, what would I do?' "

A spurt followed - "Fantastic Four" in 1961, "Amazing Spider-Man" and "Incredible Hulk" in '62.

The old superheroes had been strong and sturdy; these new ones were human. Peter Parker wanted to be a regular teen, not a spider-man; Bruce Banner was tormented by transforming into an angry hulk.

There were more, including Iron Man, X-Men, Daredevil and Thor. At first, Hollywood didn't get it.

The TV cartoons were fairly well-done; the live-action "Amazing Spider-Man" series (1978 on CBS) was not. "It lacked the humor, lacked the authenticity," Lee said.

The big shift came when he linked with Raimi. The three "Spider-Man" movies have linked spectacular visuals with a warm sense of the characters.

Other Marvel movies - the ones not directed by Raimi - have ranged from witty ("Iron Man") to noisily empty ("Daredevil," "Wolverine"). Lee has remained a salaried Marvel employee - narrating cartoons, doing brief bits in movies, available as a consultant - without an ownership stake.

Now Marvel has been bought by Disney. "I just love it," said Lee, whose separate company (Kapow) was already working on proposed Disney projects.

And others seem to love him. At the Scream Awards, director Quentin Tarantino told Lee of his boyhood fondness for Marvel and complained that he'd never received one of the awards Lee sent to helpful readers. "I'll make sure he gets one now," said Lee, who has plenty of awards of his own.