Stan Lee the Narcississt

Stan Lee

Showing the new incivility that has swallowed our public discourse, I see that hatchets are suddenly out for Stan Lee, the moment he can no longer defend himself. He is charged with

1. being a sexual predator 
2. being racist and anti-gay 
3. not being the real creator of the Marvel universe 
4. being a narcissist who hogged undeserved credit. 

As to the first charge, this is apparently based on a complaint by a home nursing company he employed recently.

That means the charges are that a 94 or 95 year old man was a sexual predator.

This sounds inherently unlikely, simply in terms of physical ability. Also unlikely for someone to become so only in his final years, if there had previously been no such record. If he really was, it was probably a symptom of senility, which can make people randy, and something that ought to have been easily managed by a physically healthy young woman without involving anyone else. What's the point of being a nurse for the aged if you cannot manage the symptoms of senility?

It sounds, more plausibly, like an attempt at extortion. Anyone rich and famous is going to be a target: make an accusation, and they may pay you off just to silence you. And the insane doctrine of “believe all women” makes it more attractive.

As to the second charge, this is based on a clause in a contract with Sony specifying that they must, among other similar conditions, portray Spiderman as Caucasian and heterosexual. These days, such a concern apparently makes you racist.

But surely we can all agree that it would be an act of vandalism to paint a moustache on the Mona Lisa. Why? Is that being sexist and anti-male? Same principle here.

Any work of art, for its effect, depends on what Coleridge called “the willing suspension of disbelief.” We have to look at that canvas, in the case of Da Vinci's painting, and see in our minds not globs of paint, but the illusion of a human person. An imaginary character is a work of art, like any other. Altering it in a way that would be improbable for a real person destroys the illusion that gives it life, or at least severely damages it; damages the art. Changing skin colour is an obvious example, like having a woman grow a moustache. Making a heterosexual character with a prominent history of relationships with women suddenly turn gay is not much better.

Stan Lee is not being racist or anti-gay; he is only giving a damn about his business and his work as an artist.

As to the third charge, the claim is that Jack Kirby had at least as much to do with the “silver age” of Marvel as Lee. This is true, and not denied, certainly not by Stan Lee. Kirby's artwork was a big part of the appeal for me personally. He is, as Lee named him, “The King.” But the claim here is, specifically, that it was really Kirby who created the characters and the plot lines, and Lee just took credit. 

There is a simple way to test this hypothesis. How did Lee make out when working with collaborators other than Kirby? How did Kirby make out when working with collaborators other than Lee?

When Kirby left Marvel for DC, to work on his own, his projects for them, although they have their audience, broadly failed, lost money, and were a general disappointment. Lee, for comparison, did Spiderman entirely without Kirby, and it is probably his single most successful creation. Kirby was a great artist, perhaps a good plotter, but the spark that made the Marvel tales marellous must have come from Lee.

As to Lee hogging the credit, this is literally false: he invented the tradition of conspicuously crediting the artist on the first page of the comic book. He even credited the inkers and letterers; creating a fandom for previously anonymous comic book artists. He gave regular reports to readers about who was in “the bullpen.” He is as responsible for Kirby's fame as his own. Lee was not about self-promotion; he was about promotion. He was a brilliant marketer and salesman.

And so the charge of narcissism is also false. As is the far more common claim that Donald Trump is a narcissist. It seems to be a common misunderstanding of what narcissism is. It is urgent that we begin to understand what narcissism is better than this indicates. It is not simply a matter of saying “look at me”; otherwise anyone who makes their living as an entertainer or performer of any kind, or in sales, would be by definition a narcissist. And it would equally mean that any actor playing a character is that character. Both Lee and Trump are showmen; it is a performance art. Dave Nichols or P.T. Barnum or Walt Disney were similar showmen.

Real narcissists are by nature not creative; they fear the sort of introspection necessary to come up with new perspectives or new ideas. It can mess up their delusions. Accordingly, anyone who, like Lee, is conspicuously creative simply cannot be a narcissist.

Real narcissists are easily wounded by criticism; they crave constant adulation. They fear abandonment. As a result, they are people-pleasers, full of charm. They will say whetever they think those listening want to hear. This is the very reverse of Trump, who seems to enjoy scrapping with the media or political opponents; who seems fearless in the face of criticism; who will say anything. He cannot, on this basis, be a narcissist.

Real narcissists do not honour their promises; they say whatever they think the listener wants to hear, and then will do whatever they want. It follows from being self-centred. As president, Trump has not been like that at all; he seems to have done a better job than the average pol at trying to keep the promises on which he was elected. There have been no surprise changes of direction—as we have seen, for example, with Justin Trudeau in Canada, dropping his promise of electoral reform. If Trump has not kept all his promises, he seems to have tried to keep all his promises.

It is worrying that the popular imagination so often seems to get things exactly backwards. This is not a symptom of a healthy society.