It’s 3am, an autumn wind is furiously whipping the
abandoned avenue beneath my apartment window, and I can’t stop thinking about Stan
Lee. Mind you it's not something I tend to be thinking about at this hour, but I’m currently
reminded of an aspect of myself I don’t really intellectualize much. Growing up
a sensitive nerd who liked to draw, I naturally gravitated towards the world of
comic books. I loved reading about villainous plots and the social dynamics
imparted upon the exceptionally different. Being that my childhood was during
the last years of the 20th Century, I’d often find myself lost in
the pages of Marvel, Image Comics or Wizard Magazine. And within the endless
realms of those media outlets, there was no franchise more important to me than
the X-men.
Like a lot of kids in the 90’s, I was obsessed with
Charles Xavier and his Children of the Atom. I read the comics, watched that
rad cartoon on Fox Kids, collected the trading cards, played with the toys, and
role-played with my friends (I was always a psychic, because to me they were strategically
the most useful. Yes, I was that kind of kid). I can still hear that badass
theme song to the show just by thinking of it. If you’re around my age, you
probably can too. It was after all, presented in stereo.
The thing about the X-men, for me and countless other
kids, was that it wasn’t just the crazy stories, ideal physiques, superpowers and stuff
blowing up that made it so appealing. When I turned on the cartoon or leafed through the comic, I saw
characters that didn’t just look like Super-Man, John McClane, Bruce Wayne or Arnold
Schwarzenegger. And yeah, sure, there was Cyclops, but no one wanted to be
Cyclops. Instead, there was a badass Black Woman with godlike powers, underground
intersectional communities, pacifist political figures, a capable Asian teenager
who didn’t do karate, and several Indigenous characters. Yes, that’s correct,
Indigenous superheroes. I had heroes who looked like me as a kid. Which
is huge.
My personal favorite Native superhero growing up was
Forge. He was intelligent and Indigenous. So, naturally he’s often depicted
with a firearm just to make him more masculine by stereotypical American
standards. But, toss that accessory away and you have a genius-level inventor
who’s also a spiritual leader and former Weapons Maker for the US government.
Wait, scratch that last part. I mean, granted Tony Stark was doing the same thing. But, I
digress. Of course, over the decades, these characters weren’t free of their
own transgressions and controversies concerning representation, but when you’re
a little kid, all that matters is feeling included. Critical Theory wasn’t
exactly at the forefront of my young impressionable mind, but again, I digress.
As I got older and my interests in comics began to wane,
I instead shifted my attention more towards a social life and trying to understand
my budding sexuality. Things like MTV2, writing notes to girls with gel pens,
wishing I could also write notes to boys with gel pens, and trying to phone
into TRL were at the forefront of my teenage mind. It was around this time that
I did however notice something that was happening in the world of comics; LGBT
characters. Not caricatures or after-school-special fodder, but fully
autonomous heroes and villains with agency. These weren’t your AIDs victims, suicide
survivors or drug abusers that sadly made up the “gay profile” of sympathetic
characters within the media. These were mainstream characters who identified
along the queer spectrum and allowed to be multi-dimensional beings beyond
stereotypes.
The most prominent of these occurrences was the marriage
between Canadian superhero Northstar and another man in 2012. Which is a big
deal considering his comic book history goes all the way back to 1979. Naturally,
a lot of fans were upset. The term “SJW” hadn’t been invented yet, but if it
had, the internet trolls of that time would’ve been primed for the stoning. As
if they actually cared about this character or even remembered who he was. Especially
since he’s been out since ’92, and let’s be honest, if it was going to be
anyone, it was going to be Northstar. I mean those elfin eyebrows and ears.
GURL. And don’t get me started on all the fans of Deadpool who don’t know that
he too is a member of the LGBTQ+ community, OR, all the backlash when Iceman
came out.
The nerd community has a lot of problematic areas that needs
to be sorted out. Unfortunately, thanks to places like Reddit, fans “now’a days”
tend to take a bit more ownership of their media, and force narratives created
from their own minds onto works created by others, but that’s a whole other
topic in of itself.
That brings me to my life as a creator. Not only have I
loved to draw since a very young age, but I’ve also loved to tell stories. From the
time I could hold a pencil and string enough concepts together, I’ve been
creating and imagining my own set of characters, dramas, adventures, struggles
and triumphs. I too like to talk about social issues and how that affects
alternative universes as a vehicle to discuss real world topics. That’s why
science-fiction has always fascinated me. What one can put into their work can
have immense impacts not only on the reader, but greater society. Mediums like
comics have had such a huge influence on artists, filmmakers, musicians, actors, political
figures, etc.
That’s some powerful stuff.
The reason why I write all this and attempt to qualify
myself as a comic and Marvel fan is to illustrate just how impactful Lee’s
death has been. I often tell myself that TMZ is the worst way to tell everyone
you’ve left this existence, but honestly, for the departed, it doesn’t matter. No,
they’re free, and worries about who will tell the world of our passing is for
the living. But since I heard the news (via TMZ), I’ve been thinking a lot
about all the good Lee’s work has done and how much he influenced my life. Was
he a perfect person? Probably not. You’d be hard pressed to find anyone who is
or was. No, he was a storyteller, and storytellers like people. Telling stories
about people and their struggles takes empathy and an ability to imbue an audience
with that empathy. Since the dawn of Humanity, our storytellers have always been
crucial aspects of our species.
I’m grateful we had an ally who made such amazing and
prolific works. Someone who helped teach the majority a little bit about what
prejudice, discrimination & oppression looks like. All through a lens young people could understand and learn from. I’m grateful that looking at Stan Lee’s long
career in the time since I heard the news has reminded me how much better things have
gotten over the decades, and that being on the right side of history is a continuous path. It’s
not over, and in some ways, it may never
be over. That’s why we can never become complacent.
Thank you, Stan Lee.
Thank you for Storm, Danielle Moonstar, Northstar, Black
Panther, Thunderbird, Karma, Bobby Drake, Jubilee, Miles Morales, Daken, Warpath,
Forge, Deadpool, Mystique, Bishop, Luke Cage, Carol Danvers, X-Statix, America Chavez, The
Morlocks, Sunfire, Falcon, War Machine, Hulking, Wiccan, Synch, Rogue, Blade, Ironheart,
Kamala Khan, Shatterstar, Rictor, Sue Storm, Sunspot, and all the countless
other heroes and characters who represent those of us who would otherwise never
get a voice or a platform. Thank you for your opinion piece, Stan’s Soapbox,
and all the work you did to talk about social injustice to comic fans during
the height of the Civil Rights movement. Thank you for providing universes in
which to populate with better worlds and more tolerant futures. Above all,
thank you for giving this nerd a home to hideaway in and helping forge a path
for me to create my own universes.
Until I myself meet that great Excelsior in the sky, I will
always be a True Believer.
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