Customer Reviews

Just Imagine Stan Lee Creating the DC Universe - Book 1

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1 star:		(2)

 

 

I'm not much of a DC fan and I am a big fan of Marvel, so I thought that this would be interesting, getting to see Stan Lee "create" the classic DC characters. And it was interesting if not great. I think he did a great job with Batman, though he's the one DC character that needs no tweaking. The Wonder Woman story was pretty interesting, though not something I'd want to see a whole lot of (though certainly better than her original version). His Superman was weak. There isn't a whole lot you can do to change Superman, so Stan Lee was sort of doomed from the start. His Green Lantern was basically Silver Surfer. Beside what can you do with Green Lantern. It was all very interesting though.

This is the second graphic novel I've needed negative stars to adequately express my feelings for in the last two months. I really was taken aback by Stan Lee's writing. "He created my favorite comic superhero, Spider-man, how bad could this be?" was my thought when I bought this. The story lines are really bad. I guess the best way to describe it would be to compare the stories to the mostly bad 70's comics. This isn't something that I'll ever reread due to the poorly written stories which is a shame since I respect most of Stan Lee's work. My true review of this would be about negative 2 stars. I hated it but I didn't throw it away which I was very tempted to do with Frank Miller's DK2 travesty.

Okay, I'm going to be frankly honest with you guys, I didn't read this and I have no intention to. But if I had, I probably would feel the same way as I do now. Instead, what I'm reviewing (and/or bashing) here is the principle of this book. Before I say anything, I just want to make it clear that I respect Stan Lee and admire his work with all the characters that he's created for Marvel Comics. HOWEVER, when I saw this, let's just say I was a little peeved. I love the DC universe as it is. In fact, the DCU is why I first started reading comics in the first place. I love all the characters and their backstories. I understand that Stan Lee is a legend in comics, I actually consider him to be one of the Founding Fathers of the modern comic book even. But, what gives him the right to disrespect the work of the others who helped found comics as we know it. The superhero genre wouldn't even exist in comics if it hadn't been for these characters and their creators; so how could DC disrespect those very creators by letting Stan Lee basically rewrite their work. What would Jerry Siegel, Joe Shuster, William Malton Marston, Bob Kane, Bill Finger, Gil Kane, and John Broome say if they could see this. Part of me thinks that they would at least be incredibly offended. I love Stan Lee, he helped move comics forward by creating Spider-Man, Iron Man, the Hulk, Thor, and all the other wonderful characters that Marvel owes him for and even impacted the way that DC wrote their characters, but even a comic book god like Stan Lee has lines that he shouldn't cross.