Throughout the 1970s, as he removed himself more and more from the specifics of writing and putting together comics, Stan Lee, now Marvel’s Publisher (and briefly its President) spent a lot of his time doing publicity for the firm–and for himself as its charismatic and creative wellspring. These pieces certainly tended to over-inflate Stan’s creative contributions (or downplay or omit the contributions of others) but there were, for the longest time, the best and most consistent coverage the field got in the mainstream. This particular piece comes from an issue of OUI Magazine. The image at the top of this article is an ad for that issue which ran in PLAYBOY. It was published in 1977, shortly before the Marvel characters began to come to television in live action and Spider-Man started appearing as a daily newspaper strip.
The Tom Brevoort Experience 
Aw, man, “Hey gang, you can lie & belittle others as long as it serves as marketing & increases sales!” That’s Capitalism, funky flashman style.
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Is the interviewer Anne Beatts the same person who would go on to write for SNL? Seems possible — Beatts was writing for National Lampoon around this time.
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The way I think about these interviews is this: Stan Lee was, first and foremost, a Company Man. His goal was to Sell Product, which he did very well. But this is not the same as providing accurate and honest history.
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Reading this, I wonder if anyone else watched the hagiographic documentary about Stan Lee that premiered on Disney+ this very week. The similarities between the two – the OUI interview and the documentary – are such that at times they are virtual repetition.
One wonders how many times – and to how many audiences – Stan told the same stories?
I think it would be fair to say that by 2023, most people (with a passing interest in Marvel comics) had long ago concluded that the company’s success in the 1960’s was not solely down to Stan Lee. One wonders, therefore, why a newly produced documentary chooses to perpetuate a myth that, if not largely discredited, has been so qualified in recent decades as to no longer warrant belief.
In fairness, the programme has clearly been well produced; people need to watch it and make up their own minds.
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History is what people want to believe. People love the idea of the singular, charismatic genius. So they choose to believe that.
Steve Jobs had no engineering skills. He never designed any hardware or wrote a line of software code. Yet he is largely credited with Apple’s success even though everyone knows there was a whole company of people who actually made that success possible.
Stan is the same thing. He was charismatic while Kirby and Ditko were introverts. So he got, and continues to get, all the credit.
To this day…
I would argue most current fans love a universe created by Claremont, Byrne, Starlin, Michelinie, Miller, et al. Those creators were rebelling against the standards set in the Lee, Kirby, Ditko era. Creating modern interpretations of those characters that became the template going forward.
I don’t recall seeing a cameo by David Michelinie or Bob Layton in any Iron Man movies.
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As someone who met and interviewed Stan multiple times, I can attest that he did, indeed, tell the same stories over and again, often verbatim spitting out the same sound bites.
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As someone else who met and spoke to Stan multiple times and also has read or viewed over 95% of every recorded interview he ever gave- his story did often change depending on the point in his life.
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