Now My Parents Know How Jack Kirby Feels
It occurs to me that I have never actually told you all about my Stan Lee Says He Is My Father dream. I know what that sounds like, when I call it that – some crazy dream about the co-creator of the Marvel Universe turned even-more-shameless charlatan having produced not only seminal runs on comics like Amazing Spider-Man, Fantastic Four and The Savage She-Hulk’s debut issue, but also enough seminal fluid to father me and therefore give me some claim to a Fanboy Crown that hints that I, too, contain comic greatness in my DNA – but I promise you, the actual dream is something much more disturbing and, sadly, more in tune with the actual reality of the comic industry as it is today.
The dream, or what little I remember of it now, weeks later, had me meeting with Stan in some strange television studio that was also his penthouse apartment. I was there under work-related pretenses, I think, even though my family were all waiting outside for me (And outside, in this case, was the steps of the San Diego Convention Center; I remember, at one point, looking out and seeing them all bake in the sun, hoping I’d be finished soon), both excited and nervous to meet the man they actually call The Man. And, it turned out, with good reason: the Stan Lee in this dream was a sleazy, uncomfortable man who stood too close to you when he talked and kept a comically large, leatherbound journal of all of his sexual conquests with him wherever he went. And that’s where all the trouble started.
Upon hearing my name, you see, Lee declared that he had had sex with my mother back in 1976 and so therefore, was my father. Never mind that fact that 1976 is actually two years after I was born, or that the woman who he thought was my mother was – he showed me her entry in his journal, complete with headshot; Yes, my dream was this disturbing – not, in fact, my mother at all. He was convinced, and started angrily telling me that I was his son, and there was nothing I could do about it. I had to just accept it and bask in his reflected glow. I didn’t, of course; I tried being polite and then, as he started describing the night of my perceived conception, simply tried to leave, but he followed me, trying to convince me that I was his creation and the sooner I admitted that to myself, the better off everyone would be.
The dream ended with me leaving the building, and rejoining my family. “How was he? Did he live up to his reputation?” they asked, and I shook my head in a “You don’t want to know” way, smiled, and told them that, no matter what Stan Lee said, they should never, ever, take him seriously.
Sometimes I worry about my relationship to comics.
Related posts:
