Legendary comic book icon Stan Lee got to see superhero movies take off in a way nobody could have fully imagined. Really, who would have thought even 20 years ago that Marvel movies would have grossed more than $30 billion worldwide? Or that there would be enough to necessitate a “universe”? Well, Stan Lee may have had an inkling that something universe-sized was possible, but that had nothing to do with Marvel – it had to do with DC.
In an excerpt from the 2011 book The Stan Lee Universe, Lee – who was of course instrumental in the evolution of not just Marvel but comic books as a whole – said it was 1978’s Superman that demonstrated the potential that such fare could have. “You know, I remember when I first saw the Superman movie. It was a revelation. It showed everybody that superheroes are important, and incredibly imaginative and worthy of being adapted to the silver screen. It’s fitting that Superman, the first superhero, got the first superhero movie, but of course it just made us at Marvel that much more envious, hoping we could soon see our characters on screen. Superman was a big influence on everything.” Interestingly, Stan Lee has said in the past that he never liked the idea of a superhero being completely invulnerable – come on, Supes is faster than a speeding bullet and can leap tall buildings in a single bound! – and so tried to avoid that at Marvel.
While it would take another 30 years before Stan Lee could see this particular vision come to fruition with 2008’s Iron Man, we can’t pretend that there weren’t Marvel movies before the MCU. That’s right, we’re talking about the very first: Howard the Duck, although some might consider the 1940s Captain America serials as pre-dating all of it – Richard Donner’s Superman included. But yes, it’s the Marvel Cinematic Universe as we know it that Stan Lee was truly looking for once Superman proved to be one of the highest-grossing movies of the ‘70s.
Ironically enough, it’s DC that now trails Marvel in the movie department, although we’ll have to see how Marvel’s The Fantastic Four: The First Steps fares against James Gunn’s Superman this month.
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