Timesuck with Dan Cummins - 169 - Stan Lee! And the History of Comics

Episode Date: December 9, 2019

Stan Lee! The man, the myth, the legend! The man who co-created 200 different comic book characters. The co-creator of Spiderman, Thor, the Hulk, the Fantastic Four, the X-Men, and so many other popular characters. The man who is still the face of the Marvel empire after his death. We go over this incredible creator's legendary life today and also go over the history of the comic book in this KA-BOOM! ZAP! POW! graphic novel edition of Timesuck! Check out Lynze and I's new horror podcast Scared to Death. Listen on Spotify, Stitcher, iTunes, Youtube, and more! Here's the iTunes link: https://apple.co/2MRMgai Happy Murder Tour Standup dates: (full calendar at http://dancummins.tv) December 26-28 Spokane, WA Spokane Comedy Club CLICK HERE for tix! Listen to the best of my standup on Spotify! (for free!) https://spoti.fi/2Dyy41d Timesuck is brought to you by the following sponsors: Manscaped! Get 20% Off + Free Shipping when you use the code TIMESUCK at Manscaped.com Felix Gray! Shipping and returns are free when you go to FelixGrayGlasses.com/TIMESUCK Watch the Suck on Youtube: https://youtu.be/TwjsbHDAJko Merch - https://badmagicmerch.com/ Want to try out Discord!?! https://discord.gg/tqzH89v Want to join the Cult of the Curious private Facebook Group? Go directly to Facebook and search for "Cult of the Curious" in order to locate whatever current page hasn't been put in FB Jail :) For all merch related questions: https://badmagicmerch.com/pages/contact Please rate and subscribe on iTunes and elsewhere and follow the suck on social media!! @timesuckpodcast on IG and http://www.facebook.com/timesuckpodcast Wanna become a Space Lizard? We're over 6000 strong! Click here: https://www.patreon.com/timesuckpodcast Sign up through Patreon and for $5 a month you get to listen to the Secret Suck, which will drop Thursdays at Noon, PST. You'll also get 20% off of all regular Timesuck merch PLUS access to exclusive Space Lizard merch. You get to vote on two Monday topics each month via the app. And you get the download link for my new comedy album, Feel the Heat. Check the Patreon posts to find out how to download the new album and take advantage of other benefits.

There are only a handful of American writers that have gone on to become true household names around the world. Stephen King is one, Daniel Steele is another James Patterson, Dan Brown, Nora Roberts. But there's only one comic book writer with international name recognition, arguably more name recognition than all those authors. I just mentioned with the lone possible exception is Stephen King. And that's Stanley Stan motherfucking Lee gosh dang. exception is Stephen King and that's Stanley. Stan, motherfucker Lee, gosh dang, that boom bam, yeah, yeah. The man co-created some of those popular

cultural icons of the last 100 years, hell of ever. Characters that have gone on to become some of those popular fictional characters in the history of the world. I would guess most kids today around the world are way more familiar with Stanley characters like Spider-Man, The Hulk, Thor, The X-Men, the powerful box office franchise, The Avengers, then they are with Shakespeare's characters, Aromio and Juliet, Hamlet and King Lear.

Stanley left behind an enormous creative legacy, helping create characters beloved by millions, known by billions, characters who undoubtedly will live on the zeitgeist for centuries. Stan's gift was to evolve comic book characters from the wooden black and white, all good or all bad. Characters initially marketed at young children and turned them into much more flawed and nuanced human characters that young adults and full grown meat sex have come to enjoy immensely. He was also one of the most successful promoters of comic books in history.

Although he never owned Marvel comics. He became the face and some might argue the heart of the comic book publishing giant. Lee's creations have dominated Hollywood and recent years. A list Hollywood actors fall all over themselves to be cast and want to lease or as one of Lee's heroes. The Avengers alone not only smashed recent box office records, they also attracted superstars like Robert Downey Jr. Scarlett Johansson, Chris Evans, Chris

Hemsworth, Gwyneth Paltrow, Samuel L. Jackson, Josh Brolin, just to name a few. Stanley has, as you would expect, a lot of fans who think he is pretty much one of the coolest, most talented dudes to ever walk the earth in immensely talented world builder. He also has a lot of people who think he was fraud and an unscrupulous asshole who casually and commonly took credit for the work of others. We will address that criticism of Lee today as well. And we'll look into the history of the art form that Lee was so influential in bringing

from a little niche industry into a very mainstream and incredibly profitable, massive fictional genre. We'll trace the history of Lee and some of his fellow artists as they reshape the entertainment landscape for America and the rest of the world in today's power, wham, get zoos, Zoink, hook smash,

comic book edition of Time Suck. This is Michael McDonald and you're listening to Time Suck, you're listening to Time Suck. You're a mistake. To top some. Happy Monday made sex. Work, work, can't wait. Make a wait. It's time for time suck. Get on in here. Fellow knowledge seeker, the Colton Curious welcomes you.

Grab a seat. Don't forget to throw a hailed Nimrod, toss a little hailed maybe it'll be gone to loose a fena if you're scared. Be sure to praise our one-eyed three-legged pit bull, good boy, demigod, mascot, boat jangles and put some money in the tip jar for our bar to triple M. Almost done touring for the year. Thanks to everyone who's come out to a show in 2019. Had a great time in Tacoma this past week and Saturday especially was pretty magical. So many military suckers there got a lot of challenge coins, met a lot of awesome vets active duty. Thank you all for your service. Only a couple shows left this year and they're all about 30 minutes from the suck dungeon. Spokane washington four shows right after Christmas December 26th

to the 28th Thursday, Friday, one show each of those nights and then two shows on Saturday. And that's it for 2019. And then I will announce a whole bunch of 2020 dates soon. We got them all figured out, just got to do the announcement for the ticket sales. They will be at dncomans.tv. Thanks again to you, Patreon Space Luzers for allowing us to make a Christmas super special

for a few cult to the curious families need, I'll release any details I can about that later. Hope we can make this an annual December tradition for many years to come. Again, like I said, last week we'll be giving $3,600, at least that much to some, you know, families in need for the holidays to make it special for the kids and whatnot. Back to a traditional charity next month. If you want a traditional charity like this month, you know, this isn't one that we are donated to right now, but I'm sure we will at some point in the future.

I look no further than the Tilva Hala project. Top shelf meat sack, Adam Moore, owner and craftsman of wooden stars and bars wrote me an amazing letter. Gave me a 22 a day. Tilva, Alhalla, bracelets. If you're watching YouTube, it's this bracelet right here. And 22 was at one point. How many veterans were estimated to kill themselves each day.

That number seems to still be very high around 20 now, according to some sources. The wonderful TILVA Hall of Project organization was founded by a veteran, employs veterans, builds beautiful memorial plaques, do give to the families of fallen soldiers, and raises awareness about veteran suicide in order to reduce veteran suicide. They donate to mission 22, an organization dedicated to healing America's veterans. They offer treatment for post-traumatic stress, traumatic brain injury, substance abuse, and all of the other issues facing veterans today. So for more info go to tillvahalaproject.com, link in the episode description. Thank you, Adam

Moore, for your service, for your letter, for raising awareness. Also just in time to decorate your Christmas trees. We now have some time suck ornaments towards time suck or oh my heck what this big deal. Do you even cold bro? All printed on little round Christmas tree balls all made out of 500. Uh, giant stone balls. Little spaceless or joke there. I tried to keep those two shows separate, but I can't stop thinking about the way the conspiracy theorist David Hatcher, children says, join Stone Balls. Makes me happy. Also, back by popular demand, restock the champion time suck University Huddies. Those are back in the store. And finally, a hail Nimrod long sleeve tea. Simple, sleek, black or white. Only the words hail Nimrod for something a little more subtle.

Nimrod, very pleased with this classic design. And going back to an old fabric choice with this one, making those shirts out of 101% imported Jinchille, Lebia for maximum comfort and luxury. And that's it for announcements. That's not too bad. Really do try and keep in brief. Got some great time sucker updates this week. If you want to stick around for the end of the episode

and I got a great tail to dig into right now. So let's suck a comic legend. Let's see how much Stanley we can swallow today. [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ Before we dig in to Stan's life and the impact it made in the comic book industry, let's first check out a few aspects of the comic book industry in general.

Where it all began, the battle between DC and Marvel Comics, the overall impact of superheroes in general, a start with a little comic book history lesson. The precursor to comic books printed cartoons been popular in England and America since the early 1800s. Originating as satirical and political cartoons, printed in newspapers and periodicals.

Of course, I guess in some way comics have been with us a whole hell of a long longer than just a few hundred years. I mean, really, they've been with us longer than, the written language, old petroglyphs, hieroglyphs, hieroglyphics, I guess, going back thousands of years. You know, they were kind of sort of comics. You know, pictures drawn to help tell a story. But as far as the dictionary definition of a comic book goes,

a magazine that presents a serialized story in the form of a comic strip, typically featuring the adventures of a superhero, the 19th century is the best place to start. The most important cartoonist of the 19th century, that period of printing cartoons, certainly in America, was a German-born, German-born American named Thomas Nast. The dude was nicknamed the father of the American cartoon.

Thomas's critical cartoons played a major role in bringing down a guy known as Boss Tweed in his corrupt political machine in 1870s, New York City. Boss Tweed sounds like a comic book villain. Some got some city, dude,, sounds like a comic book villain. Some got some city dude, but he was a real guy. NAST also visually created the modern version of Santa Claus that exists worldwide today. He created the political symbol of the elephant for the Republican party.

This works for mostly printed in the magazine Harper's Weekly, just one panel, mainly political cartoons. NAST's satirical political illustrations mainly published inharpers actually played a very important role in the election of Abraham Lincoln for president in 1864 and Ulysses S. Grant in 1868 and 1872. Already back then, cartoons very important. Over the following decades, cartoons evolved from a primarily devised to lampoon politicians and other public figures and public issues into serialized fictional stories. Printed not just as one panel additions to magazines and newspapers, but an actual comic books.

The books were initially just compilations of magazine and newspaper cartoon reprints, then his books with original cartoon artwork. And then the actual superhero was born in 1938 with the advent of Superman. However, hold those eye rolls, comic book nerds. I am aware that many will argue that the first superhero actually debuted in 1936 with the Phantom. The Phantom appeared in newspapers and the man behind the mask was Kid Walker. Actually, the 21st Phantom, since the costume would get handed down from one generation to the next, that's the origin story, from father to son, one time to a daughter,

he bad guy scared. Right, have them think the Phantom was immortal. And he was the first fictional character to wear that skin tight, sweet costume. You know, eyes and where you know, just weren't really that visible, just like you see the pupils, that whole look has become the basic trademark

of superheroes, I'll start with the Phantom. But he initially, he didn't really have any superpowers. So maybe not like a superhero, just a mysterious cool dude who likes wearing some tights shit. You know, he's got a sweet costume. He's go with his hands, he's got the gun. He can fight pretty well. Writer and illustrator named Lee Fox from St. Louis, Missouri created the phantom who would go on to appear in multi panel comic strips and newspapers around the country, hitting an eventual audience in that format of over a hundred million people. A little funny note about Lee Fock is a his original official biography claim that he

was an experienced world traveler who had studied with Eastern mystics, which was not true. He wrote that because he thought people would be more interested in the phantom and another character mentioned here in a sec if their creator had an interesting and worldly backstory. And reality he was just a dude from St. Louis who when he traveled to New York city to pitch the phantom concept to a publisher that was a farthest he'd ever traveled from home never left the country uh... in the same leafy also created the uh... mandrake the magician character in nineteen thirty four and uh... mandrake also uh... nationally syndicated

in newspaper comic strips nation wide mandrake was nationally syndicated in newspaper comic strips nationwide. Mandrake was a magician, Avi, who could hypnotize people super fast. Just a gesture. He could make his subjects basically instantaneously see illusions. So that's kind of a superpower. As the comic went on, he also demonstrated the ability to become invisible, shape, shift, levitate, teleport. So he definitely came to possess some superhero powers.

So the first, I don't know, traditional superhero comic, Superman 1938, the first mass man, 1936. First illustrated dude who could do some things that a regular dude couldn't do, 1934. Now let's talk about the six ages of comic books. There are these six ages that most fans seem to agree on, this platinum, golden, silver, bronze, dark, and Juniper Barry. I mean, modern. I wish it was Juniper Barry. How funny would that be? This is the Juniper Barry, you know, era of comics. Published in 1897, let's talk about the platinum age, 1897 and 1938.

Published in 1897, the yellow kid and McFadden's flats. in the late 19th, 19th, 19th, 19th, 19th, 19th, 19th, 19th, 19th, 19th, 19th, 19th, 19th, 19th, 19th, 19th, 19th, 19th, 19th, 19th, 19th, 19th, 19th, 19th, 19th, 19th, 19th, 19th, 19th, 19th, 19th, 19th, 19th, 19th, 19th, 19th, 19th, 19th, 19th, 19th, 19th, 19th, 19th, 19th, 19th, 19th, 19th, 19th, 19th, 19th, 19th, 19th, 19th, 19th, 19th, 19th, 19th, 19th, 19th, 19th, 19th, 19th, 19th, 19th, 19th, 19th, 19th, 19th, 19th, 19th, 19th, 19th, 19th, 19th, 19th, 19th, 19th, 19th, 19th, 19th, 19th, 19th, 19th, 19th, 19th, 19th, 19th, 19th, 19th, 19th, 19th, 19th, 19th, 19th and white reprints of popular newspaper comic strips, the character of the yellow kid who popped up in one panel, socio political cartoons from 1895 to 1898 and Joseph Pulitzer's New York world is actually connected to the term yellow journalism. Sometime I studied quite a bit when I put together a TEDx talk earlier this year. You can Google that if you want to check it out on YouTube.

Yellow journalism is the American term for journalism and associated newspapers that present little or no legitimate well-researched news and stages for line on eye catching headlines and basic sensationalism for increased sales. In any way, while some of this book of compiled comics or while some think this book, excuse me, of compiled newspaper comics, is the first comic book, there is debate about this as well. Of course there's debate with all this stuff. His people are super passionate about it. The real first comic book, some people think, is the adventures of Mr. Obediah Old Buck,

published in Geneva, Switzerland, and 8, 10, 37. How did I say that? 1837. Then in the UK in 1841, and then in New York City as a newspaper supplement in 1842 and as a standalone book in 1849. And yeah, a lot of people think this is both the first comic book printed in the US and also America's first newspaper comic. There were no word balloons in this comic, but it did feature sequential illustrations,

accompanied by captions written and illustrated by Swiss caricaturists. Rodolf Tuffer, the story was never intended for publication. The sometime Rodolf did for fun for some friends. And the story got published, became widely popular. And I love that. The world's first comic was this story and drawing some for some fun. The story was a tale about the adventures and misadventures of a guy named Mr. Vue Boy as he attempted to court a young woman

And he goes to all kinds of bullshit and then eventually ends up marrying the gross chasing and they live happily ever after and he doesn't have any magical superpowers And he's bowed with a sword so I can't recommend reading it The first monthly comic book was creatively titled comics monthly and it was published in 1922 Still wasn't a comic book like we think of today though. It was just some compiled reprints of daily newspaper comic strips. In 1933, Funnies on Parade became the first color comic book printed in the now standard comic book size

of six and five eights by 10 and a quarter inches. Again, it was just more reprints. Let's talk about the first real comic book in the sense of what we think of a comic book as today. In February 1935, DC Comics precursor National Allied Publications published new fun number one. Really, the first ever comic book, because it consisted of completely original material.

It wasn't newspaper, Sunday, funny, these compilations being reprinted. It was Jerry Siegel and Joe Schuster, the duo who would become known and later worship by nerds worldwide for creating Superman, they began working on new fun in October of 1935. In March of 1937, in an edition of Detective Comics number one, Segal and Schuster introduced their character slam Bradley, hard drink and chain smoking private eye, originally operating at a Cleveland who worked with a sidekick, Shorty Morgan, and slam would later appear in stories with like Superman, Batman, other DC creations. Now it's getting going.

Jerry and Joe also created Dr. Occult, who first appeared in 1935, and Dr. Occult, random nerd trivia, earliest character created by DC Comics still currently used in the DC universe. Like Mandrake, the magician, Dr. Occult can hypnotize and create illusions. He can astral project. He wields a powerful talisman, a sphere or disc with a black and white pattern called the mystic symbol of the seven. He grants him the powers of clairvoyance, the power to cast out demons to deflection, force field projection, which I had one must be nice.

Talisman probably got his power from some kind of, you know, space, giant stone balls out there somewhere. Dr. recalled private investigator, user of magic, who specializes in cases involving the supernatural. These early artists love magicians and detectives, apparently reflecting the cultural interests of the day. Dr. Colt originally had a sidekick, Rose Psychic. Now Rose is more of an alter ego, at least one storyline written by Neil Gaiman. Something to keep in mind with these characters, by the way, if you're a big comic book nerd, is I'm describing one version of them.

As the years have gone on virtually all, if not literally all, of the major comic characters have seen their abilities and backstories and personalities and oftentimes even racist and genders more often change and evolve as numerous artists and authors continually re-imagine and reinterpret them and put them into different story worlds and narratives. Which I love because it infuriates certain diehard fans who get really anal and in my opinion take some of this shit a little too seriously. And arguments, you know, go around who these superheroes are supposed to be and it turns into these epic and entertaining kind of nerd keyboard battles online.

Now let's talk about the golden age of comics. Golden Age comics began in June 1938 with the debut of Motherfucking Superman. Action comics number one would last until 1956 this era on August 24, 2014, a near-ment copy of this early comic book was sold on eBay for $3,207, or $207,852, the only comic to have sold for more than $3 million for a single original copy. Superman obviously went on to become a huge hit for DC. Other characters introduced in action comics number one, like Sticky Mitt Stimson, did not go on to become widely popular.

Who would have guessed that Superman would go on to become a bigger, more popular character than Sticky Mitt Stimson? Everyone guessed that. I'm guessing literally everyone guessed that. It is his comic debut, Sticky Mit swipes some apples and is pursued by the police, and then he gets lucky break. And he escapes and hides a trash can.

And then he quickly fades into comic book obscurity. Poor dude didn't have any superpowers. He was just a guy with a shitty nickname. He was hungry for some fucking tasty apples that he couldn't afford to buy. Sticky mitt would have appeared, uh, sticky mitt would reappear only once in the common book world. In a November 1939 issue of Poodie and Juju, America's most popular early 20th century monthly comic. In the first few years after Superman's release, Poodie and Juju actually outsold the Man of Steel.

Pudy and Juju had nine out of the 10 of the best selling issues or comic issues of the 1930s with titles like Pine Tarr Pudy and Juju sold third. Hobo Pudy rides the rails to Juju Town and who the gosh dang heck is Shirley and wears her lunchbox were especially popular editions of this comic book franchise. Issue 338, Sticky Mit, take Shirley's lunch box, was not one of their more popular issues. And this issue, Poodie has hired Sticky Mit. To be in charge of Poodie and Juju's finances, because Sticky Mit asked to do it, and Poodie didn't think to check if he had any kind of, you know, a county background.

Sticky Mit asked for the key to Poodie and juju's safety deposit box to make sure that quote everything was in order. And then after Pudi gave him the key, he wiped them out and they never saw him again. And juju was less than pleased. He took out her money, Pudi. And Pudi was like, he seemed like a good guy, juju. And then juju was like, accountants don't have names like Sticky mitt. Well, now I know said Pudi. And then juju of course, two little two, did a Poodie. And the two page publication was an enormous flop. And if you're a fairly new listener, Poodie and Judeo, they are real, but only here in the suckers,

not in the rest of the world. Now, sticky mitt. No, no, I cared about sticky mitt after his debut. Batman premiered less than a year later in May of 1939 in detective comics number 27, creative artist Bob Kane, writer Bill Finger, Mr. Finger. Good work. Batman like Superman will become part of the DC universe back when the initially published Superman of Batman. There were no other courses, national allied publications. And the initial DC, as you may have just guess, come from that

company's popular initial series detective comics, DC. That series published 881 issues between 1937 and 2011. The longest continuously published comic book in US history. In October 1939, Marvel Comics predecessor, Timely Publications, released Marvel Comics number one, which included the human torch, angel, prince Namor, the submarineer, along with Fosette Comics, superhero Captain Marvel DC Comics Flash and Green Lantern debuted in 1940. Marvel's Captain America and DC's Wonder Woman first published the following year. The period from 1938 to the mid 1940s represents the peak of comic book popularity, whereas current multisales of popular comic book titles hover around a hundred thousand copies.

In the early 1940s, Superman, Batman, Captain Marvel, those titles each regularly sold in the range of 1.5 million copies a month. Super impressive considering the population of the United States was 132 million in 1940. It's more than doubled to over 327 million now. So per capita, comics in the 1940s way more popular than now. After World War II ended, superhero comic books sales plummeted, many titles were canceled. After winning the war against Nazis, I guess kids weren't thinking about heroes as much. Through the mid 1950s, the void was filled by comic books containing more serious themes about crime,

romance, Western horror, throughout this period comic books based on a Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman. You know, the most famous heroes of the bunch, they retained a modest audience, continued to be published, but didn't do great. Some of the other superheroes would resurface later

as the industry itself again became more popular. Okay, now let's talk about the silver age of comic books, 1956 through 1970. Comic books took some heat during this age because some insane moralists decided that all these cartoons were corrupting America's youth. Mass men and tights were shredding the very moral fabric of this great nation. These damn comics are playing right into the Soviets' commy hands. We're going to end up with the nation of left-leaning big red sympathizers. They keep looking at these tunes. Oh my heck, what about the children?

Two years before the Silver Age had begun in 1954, a psychiatrist named Frederick Wortham, Wacadoodle wrote in his best-selling book, Seduction of the Innocents. Oh, God. The comic books of all types were cropped in the youth of America. Worth a positive that Superman represented fascist ideals. How dare he save everybody. Batman and Robin, they promoted homosexual lifestyle, it's two dudes, hang it out in tights. Well, I don't think it's get out with

and suck it till it's dex all the time. Wonder Woman was a lesbian with a bondage fixation and straight boys, you know, young men across the nation thought, where the fuck is that issue of Wonder Woman? I've been beating off to modest depiction of her fighting bad guys for years. And apparently there's some hot lesbian bondage Wonder Woman action out there. Hey, Luciferina, uh, members of Congress were so alarmed because this was the 1950s and some ways in my opinion, people were out of their goddamn minds. They were so alarmed because this was the 1950s and some ways in my opinion, people were out of their goddamn minds.

Uh, they were so alarmed, they called a wort them to testify before the Senate subcommittee on juvenile delinancy. Gosh, damn, what about the children you guys? Look at Robbins bulge. He clearly wants to explore Batman's back cave. Yes, fellas, that back cave. The one with the hemorrhoids instead of the stalactites. Young and pressable minds might see that.

And then when they get older, experience the type of sexual pleasure they prefer in the privacy of their own homes and literally not bother anyone else on earth. It doesn't go way out of their way to be bothered. Get so inks, crime fighters, kaboom, playing pow, auga. Sensing public backlash, worried about government censorship during the McCarthyism era. Comic book publishers created the comics code authority in 1954 in order to show Congress they could self regulate their industry. They didn't need to be censored.

They could calm down all of those very worried 1950s parents, all those moral leaders. The code set a number of requirements for comics books that are ridiculous. We'll look at them more in depth during Stanley's timeline, but some of these Richard Codes included that quote, in every instance, good shall triumph over evil. And if crime is depicted, it shall be assorted and unpleasant activity. Another rule was that female shall be drawn realistically without exaggeration of any physical qualities. Yeah, easy on the boobs, nerds. My God. Once you start jerking up before you draw these barely dressed tiny waisted top heavy heroines. Plus there was this GM, vampires and vampirism, ghouls, cannibalism, and where wolfism are prohibited.

Imagine these people back then, some congressmen, no more werewolves for flip-sake. They start letting kids read about werewolves, well, then you know, it's next they're gonna just start thinking about, well, you know, yeah, come on, they're gonna they're gonna think that they're, they are werewolves, you know, just how kids who read King Lear suddenly start thinking they're European royalty, you know, it is just how kids who read the sports pages start thinking they're famous athletes. The more I think about it, we need to we need to stop letting kids read. That's the real problem. The reading. This code was a real bummer for the comic book industry because it just fucking took their balls off. Right, basically

it canceled, you know, various horror crime romance titles. Their mere existence now broke the rules. And it kept other titles from having good fucking stories. Comic book companies reacted this code by taking less creative chances. Started folks and more on publishing comic books featuring superheroes from the previous Golden Age. Like the Flash. Who is not Flash Gordon, by the way, did not know that. Until the research for this week. Let's get super nerdy for a second.

A lot of people like me. Tell just another day thought that flash flash Gordon same dude. Nope flash Gordon originally came out back in 1934 and 1934. It was just a comic strip flash gore with just a handsome polo player. Gail graduate who got kidnapped by a mad professor. Flown in a rocket to the planet, Mongo. And he had many in adventure on Mongo for years. He was created to compete with buck Rogers actually.

It goes to you. Another cool handsome space traveling dude, more more captain Kirk than the speedy flash. The flash came out in January 1940. The flash has the ability to run, move, think extremely fast, use superhuman reflexes. Basically, tell various laws of physics to go fuck themselves. The original flash was Jay Garrick, a college student who gained his speed by being thrown into a massive grain silo full of methamphetamines, and he was forced to eat, snort, and smoke his way out.

And it made him super fast and twitchy as meth might do, you know. No, he became super fast by working on some sciencey stuff and inhaling some hard water vapor. Some gases got into his bloodstream, you know, and gat joints, boom, bam, slam. Next thing, you know, he's super fast. It doesn't make any more sense in Spider-Man being able to swing around New York City because he got bit by a spider. It's just, you know, it's a backstory that was just completed in like four panels. Got some water and hailed the fumes super fast. The flash comes back in October of 1956

as return marks the beginning of the Silver Age. Superhero comic books see a renewed level of commercial success. Right, conservatives, 50s parents are able to buy their kids comics featuring the same wholesome superheroes they grew up with. Whoo, no werewolves! Oh goodness, me!

The late 1950s through the 1960s saw a change from dark and supernatural comic book themes to the other end of the spectrum with, you know, books containing silly plots, high degree of cheese, thanks to that code, dumb rules, create dumb stories, but the children were safe. Oh my heck, that's all that really matters. Next day, two comments with the Bronze Age took place between 1970 and 1995. The counter-culture movement, talking about it again, keeps coming up in these sucks.

I love it. We've talked about it in so many sucks now. 1960s, 1970s, cultural pushback, against stupid fucking McCarthyism. God, I'd like to travel back in time and kick that guy in the nuts a whole bunch. You know, Vietnam war, conservative trusted government, don't rock the boat at work or anywhere else in life,

tuck your shirt into your pants, that kind of culture of 1950s. This pushback against that effect of the entire culture of America, including naturally comic books. People are letting their hair grow long and they're, and they're writing some cool stories and drawn some sweet boobs

again. The Bronze Age ushered in a more realistic style within the comic books as younger generations of artists or the younger generation of artists, including Neil Adams, John Byrne, George Perez, Frank Miller and others replaced many of the previous generation of artists who would help to create the superhero comic books of the 30s and 40s. The beginning of the Bronze Age comic books marked by the shocking murder of Peter Parker's girlfriend Gwen Stacy at the hands of the green goblin an amazing spider man issue 121 and 122 June, July 1973. I sure said issues seen in innocent killed and the hero unable to stop it shook up the industry. This was able to happen because

in 1971 the comics co-authority relaxed some of its standards, you know, with this counterculture movement. Even when it's far as the state, quote, vampires, ghouls and werewolves shall be permitted to be used, win, handled in the classic tradition. All right, hippies, fine. You can have your werewolves. I can have them, put them in your comic books and just flushed in tired goddamn country on the toilet, I guess. And of course, because of this, you know, this relaxation of the rule, the zombie apocalypse kicked off in the 80s and we've been living in a dystopian nightmare ever since, and I'm recording this basement or this of this podcast.

God, from a deep underground abandoned missile silo, it was converted into a doomsday bunker, right? They were right. There's more or less we right. Of course, of course, they didn't happen. More lenient attitude towards this subject matter allowed to be used in comics allowed for the return of the horror comic genre. Titles such as The Tomb of Dracula, 1972, and Ghost Rider and Tales of the Zombie in 1973, republished Ghost Rider Rider pretty sick superhero, by the way, pretty dark. At night and went around, evil blaze finds his flesh consumed by hellfire, because he has had to become a flaming skull.

He rides a fiery motorcycle. He wheels blast of hellfire from his body. It looks like, you know, a neck cage, a necklace cage, usually from his skeletal hands. Now, he played him in a movie, obviously, later. In order to say the life of his dad, he'd given his soul to Satan in order to have his powers, you know, he was bonded with the demon, Sirothos. I'm pretty sure some parents freaked out

when they found their kids reading Ghost Rider. Are you trying to go to hell, Jimmy? Why? Why do you exist our reading, his devil comics? What did I do? Have I not been a good mother? What did I do to push my sweet baby towards the dark Lord? Additional supernatural character like a swamp thing and blade were introduced in early

70s. Social conscious stories became numerous in 70s as well, most famously during the collaborative adventures of Green Lantern and Green Arrow. They fought against racism, pollution, social justice. The Green Arrow also confronted his sidekick, speedy's heroin addiction, while Iron Man came to terms with his alcoholism, getting real. Also realized that the vast majority of the superheroes

were Caucasian, a lot of non-Cocasian readers. You know, realizing they probably wouldn't mind seeing their racial likenesses depicted in some kind of comic book page, these sea and marvel introduced a number of ethnic superheroes like Storm, Black Lightning, Blade, the Green Lantern, John Stewart. Okay, now let's move over to the Dark Age, 1985 to 1996.

Kicking out the Dark Age of comic books was the publication of the monumental series Crisis on Infinite Earths. To commemorate DC Comics' 50th anniversary, DC published Crisis on Infinite Earths as a 12-issue comic book event. In this series, DC planned to clear up decades of plot and consistencies, as well as bring

together conflicting characters from the Golden Age and the Silver Age. The idea was to have multiple alternate realities brought together to make one consistent reality, reconciling how Green Lantern, Alan Scott from the 40s could exist in the same reality as Green Lantern, how Scott from the 40s could exist in the same reality as Green Lantern, how Jordan of the 60s. How could the justice society of the 40s with their Green Lantern exist at the same time with the Justice League of the 1960s with a different Green Lantern? To solve some of these inconsistencies, certain major characters were killed off. Characters long at a play were brought back with new storylines.

It was super cool. Ultimately, Crisis on Infinite Earth was a major success for DC Comics and gave comic book fans comic book boners, weens and lady weens alike. During this period, anti-heroes became popular, dark pessimistic stories reigned as an Alan Moore's classic watchman, published by DC in 1986 and 1997, where a world looks down on once mighty superheroes, or in Frank Miller's Batman the Dark Knight returns were a 55 year old Batman is retired from crime fighting leaving criminals to terrorize Gotham City in a four issue 1986 DC run which had time to reread the watchman

right this past week watchman you know I use Dr. Manhattan from watching is a inspiration when coming up with the icon based on my face in the time, such a logo with the white eyes. Big fan of that series. And Frank Miller's Batman, the Dark Knight returns has been on my reading list for a long time. During the Dark Age readers witnessed Superman dying, Batman becoming critically injured, Green Lantern, Hal Jordan, slaughtering his fellow Green Lanterns. The comic book code had been completely tossed out the fucking window.

Dark Age also saw the publication of Mouse, art speaklman's moving autobiographical tale of a Jewish family in Poland living through the reign of Nazi Germany. The first graphic novel to win the Pulitzer Prize for literature. We have a copy here in the suck dungeon. Thanks to a thoughtful list, I wish I had time to read that one this past week too. Why can't I crank out the research for the show in like 30 minutes? Right? If I could just take, you know, the script keepers research and add to it like half an hour,

then it should be done. I need to flash his powers. I need to apply the flash powers to episode construction. The dark age ended with a massive sales slump industry downsizing caused by a speculators market where excess merchandise, too many collectors additions, too many series being produced, quality fell victim to quantity, and the market became oversaturated. Sales slump contributed to the chapter 11 bankruptcy of Marvel Comics in 1996. How crazy is that to think about now considering how successful they are right now?

The Dark Age was not only gloomy and serious for fans, they even killed Superman for Fox Sake. It was also a dark for comic companies, you know, bottom lines. And then the modern age of comics kicked off in 96, the publication of Alex Ross's kingdom come in 96, which harkened back to the optimism and strength of silver age superheroes, marks the beginning of the modern age, according to the experts. During this period, comic book publishers attempted to rectify their past mistakes by creating a leaner business plan, putting more effort into a fewer number of projects.

1997, the George Clooney, Crystal Donald, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Uma Thurman, Alicia Silverstone, and more DC superhero film Batman and Robin went big with the resurgence of comics, with the budget of $160 million, and it was profitable, making a profit of almost 70 million at the box office,

but universally panned by critics and critics and audience members hated it. Its plan sequel was canceled and this film could have crippled the beginning of the comic book modern age resurgence, but then the X-Men came along and saved the fucking day. Bam, pal, zap, got staying. Boom, boom, here you go, beep, beep, beep. 2000, the massive box office success of the X-Men really helped repopularize the comic book industry Based on Marvel character Stan Lee that Stan Lee and Jack Kirby created the X-Men came out in 2000 Shot on a budget of 75 million us and half a batman and Robin

Made well over two hundred million dollars in box office profit and also spawned two sequels and then many spin-offs Three Wolverine films four X-Men prequels, two deadpool films and counting. 12 films so far shot on a total budget of $1.67 billion, and these movies have made over $6 billion at the box office, over $3 billion and $300 million in box office profit alone. I wonder how many other projects,

comic-based or non-comic-based ended up being launched by 20 century Fox. Thanks to the, the film's distributor, or the film's distributor, thanks to the insane amount of money like they were able to make, often Marvel X-Men universe movies alone. How many mansions were bought by producers,

studio execs, actors, writers, et cetera, due to these movies? Gatsuke, Spl execs, actors, writers, etc. Due to these movies. Gatsuke, Splat, Cabloey, Mother Why? Popularity hasn't really slowed down since the debut of the first X-Men film. Online retailers like Amazon.com have really heard the actual business of brick-and-mortar comic book shops, so retail sales, you know, maybe not great, as far as going to the store and buying a comic book, with the big comic book dogs, Marvel and DC, man, they're making more money than ever.

Or at least Disney and Warner Brothers are, Marvel and DC's respective parent companies. Now that we have a basic understanding of the history of comic books, let's take a peek of the rivalry between Stan Lee's Marvel comics and his main competitor, DC Comics. Look at a bit more comic related info and then we'll jump into Stan's life. Marvel was the first of two franchises to really do a ton of cross-pollination featuring numerous superheroes. I just seen how well things worked out with the X-Men, Marvel went even bigger into cinema, other non-printed forms of media, the Marvel Cinematic Universe populated by the Avengers, which includes damn near all of their superheroes, including Stan Lee's Hulk Iron Man Thor, Phil Will Stories crossing from the big screen to Netflix, to his comic books,

has certainly been a formula for financial success. The Marvel Cinematic Universe films have been in production since 2007. 23 films have been released so far, at least 14 other films currently in some stage of development, and collectively these movies have grossed over 22 and a half billion dollars of the box office box office alone against a total budget of roughly four and a half billion for roughly eighteen billion dollars in box office international profit DC hasn't went quite this big so far Although in 2016 they released Batman versus Superman, Don of Justice, it featured a ton

of DC characters and did very well. Budget of under 300 million, gross of almost 900 million. So profit of around 600 million, and you can bet DC will soon start kicking out one movie after another, after another, until they start losing money. That's how it works. There's been so much money made off of comic books in Hollywood in the last decade. There's video games, 2011's Batman Arkham Cityham City 2018 Spider-Man at the top of the sales charts when they were released. They won critical acclaim. Stanley Spider-Man has bought numerous popular video games such as Spider-Man, Web of Shadows from 2008, PlayStation 2's classic Ultimate Spider-Man. There was the incredible Hulk Ultimate Destruction.

Comics and their longer more complex counterparts, graphic novels have become a massive part of the Western world's culture. In total, over 600 million copies of Superman comics have been sold around the world. Batman has sold 460 million copies. Stan Lee and Steve Ditko's Spider-Man has sold over 360 million copies. Stan Lee's X-Men sold over 360 million copies. Stanley's X-Men sold over 270 million copies. Numerous authors and illustrators have had a hand in the immense success of comics and comic book characters,

but no single person has had as much success or been as influential in having helped create so many different characters who continue to live on and be immensely profitable and reimagined in so many different forms of media as Stanley. Think about all the money I just talked to you about. All the movies, all the comic books, all the ages of comics, Stanley, you know,

worked through all of them, basically, except for maybe like the very, very first one. And all of that at one time, you know, all these other characters and stuff, at one time were just like random ideas and some guys had, and a lot of instances in Stanley's head, you know, we're just like a random ideas and some guys head and a lot of instances and Stan Lee's head, you know, just sitting around in a and some office just, hey, what do you think about this?

That's what I'll started. Yeah, and arguably, no one had more of those ideas and Stan Lee, giant cinematic world's born-for-imagination of this one individual, at least at the very beginning. I know we'll talk about collaborations here soon. So let's get to know this individual in today's Times Look timeline, right after a word

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I think it's funny and extremely functional. It's a little spot treatment for your little grondleria. Do it, do it. Now time for digging into the life of the man who had the biggest balls in the superhero game, Stan Motherfuckin Lee. Shrap on those boots soldier. We're marching down a time suck timeline. On December 22, 1922, Stanley Martin Lieber was born to Jack and Celia Leiber in New York City, New York State.

Stanley's father Jack was addressed cutter by trade and not a rich or well-connected man to say the least. Stan's mother Celia was a homemaker. Lee entered the world in the middle of the jazz age and prohibition in suing speak easy culture. The beginning of an economic recovery following a post-World War I economic dip Stan's father Jack was born in 1885 and his wife Celia Solomon Leber born in 1890 Both were Romanian Jewish immigrants who had arrived in New York in the early years of the 20th century and then met in the city Jack and Celia were barely able to afford to live at 777 West End Avenue when Stan was born

The building at the corner of the West 98th Street or of West 98th Street was built in 1910. And the West End Avenue was becoming a coveted address among the rising Jewish middle class New York. High-rise luxury buildings like 777 were replaced in the smaller tenements that had previously lined the avenue. The neighborhood was ideally located for Jack Lieber's work in the Garment Center, which encompassed much of Manhattan's West 30s and around 7th Avenue. However, Jack struggled to earn a living as a garment worker

and was chronically unemployed, starting around 1926 when Stan was just three or four years old. The family soon moved to one of the more affordable regions of Upper Manhattan, Washington Heights, and Libre spent the next 20 years bouncing around between apartments and the high 10 similar working class immigrant neighborhoods in the Bronx. According to Jean Goodman, a relative of stands quoted in the book Stan Lee and the rise and fall of the American comic book, money was scarce in the labor home. And the family often accepted financial help from Celia's sisters who were better off. Jack was intelligent but difficult in demanding. He was exacting with his boys. Celia on the other hand was warm and nurturing

to the point of self-sacrifice. The demanding father and the persecuted mother that made the atmosphere difficult. Stanley would later say this of his father, my father was not a good businessman and he was not lucky. Most of the time I knew him, he just wasn't working. He couldn't find a job. He'd be sitting at home reading the want ads.

I felt sorry for him. I thought it was a schmuck. I didn't respect him. I stopped loving him. A lot of the villains I came up with were based on him. Dr. Doom, the green goblin, Vulture, all based on my father, lizard guy, professor squirrel,

butterfly boomerang, all based on him. Spoon flicker, lice man, the dingleberry express, all based on my father, Jack. Uh, everyone's pretty sure I'm just making all that up right? I just, I just made everything up after staying, saying he felt sorry for his dad. He didn't hate his dad or base villains after him and there were no villains named lice man or a professor squirrel or the dingleberry express. Too fun though.

Uh, if there was, uh, I like thinking about him. Well, if it isn't Spider-Man, I see you've gotten stuck right into one of my dingle berries. God damn it, dingle berry express. When I could lose, I'm going to have to wash my whole outfit again. I just got back from the cleaners. You weird sticky asshole. Oh, I'm no asshole, Spider-Man, but I do live in one and soon you will too. I'll turn all of Queen to the one big dingle bearer jungle. Ah, ha, ha, ha. Yeah, that's kind of shit I think about

when working late at night on these sucks. December 28th, 1931, when Stan is just turned nine years old, there's little bro, future Coke and spirit are Larry's born, sweet little Larry bear. Larry would go on to work in the comic industry for almost as long as his big brother Stan, two lifelong comic industry professionals coming from the same family.

Lairie would even go on to help co-create the Iron Man, Thor and the Atman. As these two brothers grew up, they noted that their parents really got along and were frequently anxious and arguing mostly about money. 1932, all still just nine years old, Stan went to see the Warner Brothers mellow drama, The Mouth Piece,

and this movie actor, Warren William plays an aggressive prosecutor, Vincent Day, who unwittingly sends an innocent man to the electric chair. So traumatized as day that it becomes a defense attorney and ends up becoming corrupt, getting wealthy criminals, who are very much guilty off the hook. Life becomes complicated and tragic,

not unlike the Melodromas that would years later be found in Stan Lee's comics. The mouthpiece was the only specific movie Lee singled out in his 2002 memoir, Excelsior. Set it left a huge impression on him. As far as school goes, Lee described himself as an average student who couldn't wait to get out of school, saying, I didn't hate being in school, but I just kept wishing it was over and I could get into the real world. Because I wasn't studying anything I was particularly interested in. Pretty inspirational message there, you know, well, I for sure don't think this message should

be interpreted as staying late and care about school. So, you know, you shouldn't bug and care about it either. You don't need it. I do think it's a nice reminder that just because traditional subjects don't interest you, you know, if that's the case, it doesn't mean you won't find as much or more career success than other students who do love school and who excel in those traditional subjects. Lee recalled reading several popular kids book series and he was a in school including the Hardy Boys, the boys allies, allies, Tom Swift.

Two of his favorite series, Jerry Todd and Poppy Ott were written by a man named Leo Edwards. He especially loved Edwards series because they had more humor than the others. And he noted, best of all was at the end of Jerry Todd's books. Yeah, the Jerry Todd books. There were letters from readers with answers by the author. I thought that was so wonderful. It made me feel I was part of this thing. And I knew him.

Stan would certainly be influenced by this when he, you know, when it was his turn to interact with fans of his work. Some of the other authors stand loved to read included H. G. Wells or Arthur Conan Doyle, Mark Twain, Edgar Rice Burrows. As he got older, he discovered Edgar Allen Poe, Charles Dickens, Edmund Rostand, Omar, Kayem, Emil Zola, plus Shakespeare in the Bible. I think my biggest influence was Shakespeare, you would say, who was my God.

I loved Shakespeare. To me, he was the complete writer. I love that he said that, just like Shakespeare created timeless stories and characters whose tales would be told over and over and re-imagined Lee has done the same thing. Lee also loved the stories that were being told in the radio when he was a kid.

Listening to those stories was a positive bonding experience you have with his family. He'd say, Sunday night in our house was family night. We'd have delicatessen, we'd have hot dogs, beans, sour crowd of times were good. Sunday night we listened to the comedians. There was Fred Allen and Jack Benny, Edgar Bergen, Charlie McCarthy, there was WC Fields.

The funny thing to me was when it was time for the family to gather around and listen to the radio, all the chairs were turned facing the radio. Everybody sat looking at the radio just as if it was television. I love it. I can totally imagine that. I do that sometimes when I can't hear something on the radio in the car. I will stare at it as if just staring, and not even the speaker, staring at the actual

radio itself, which makes no sense as if somehow that would help me hear it better. Yeah, this future storyteller love stories. Of course he did. Not surprisingly, young Lee also liked comic strips, both in the newspapers and in the collected editions that made up his first comic books. He would later say that his favorite comics were the ones by Milton, Kenneth Terry in the Pirates. That was the big one. And then there was little labner.

I liked the humor stuff. I liked the adventure stuff. He also liked works including the cats and jammer kids, Skippy, Dick Tracy, Smitty and the Gumps. As he said in the 2000 documentary with great power, creating comic books was never part of my childhood dream. I never thought of that at all. And if that sounds surprising to you, remember that when Stan Lee was growing up, comics

as we know of them today were just barely getting going. My first Superman comic didn't come out until Stan was 15 years old. Lee was raised Jewish, but more in a cultural sense than in a religious sense. He said his family was not especially religious. While Stan didn't have any substantive Jewish education, he did have a bar mitzvah. As he recalled in 2006, my father insisted I be bar mitzvahed and I took a crash course in learning to read Hebrew, all of which I'm sorry to say I've forgotten by now. My parents didn't have much money at the time.

And I remember during the bar mitzvah ceremony at the temple, there was my father and me, and maybe two other people that wandered in. That was the whole thing. By the time I stayed in at high school, the lemurs were living at 1720 University Avenue in the Bronx University Heights neighborhood. It was a one bedroom apartment with the boys sharing the bedroom while his parents slept were living at 1720 University Avenue in the Bronx University Heights neighborhood. It was a one bedroom apartment with the boys sharing the bedroom while his parents, you know, slept on a fold-out couch. Man, kids got the room, parents got the couch. Clearly, family struggled financially throughout Stan's childhood, as he said. Stan attended

DeWitt Clinton High School during his teenage years where he excelled in writing. Clinton High, enormous institution. Sproul in writing, Clinton high, enormous institution, sprawling campus, the all boys school, the time, fed by a large part of the Bronx's population and it's at its peak at host to 12,000 students, 12,000. That's a small city made up of entirely high school boys. It sounds like a nightmare. Way too much testosterone under one roof, probably a fair amount of B.O. too, but that whole place smell like a giant dirty sock. Clinton high has a very impressive alumni

roster. One of Lee's peers was the author James Baldwin born two years after Stan. One of Baldwin's novels, if Beale Street could talk was adapted into an Academy award winning dramatic film in 2018. The playwright, Patty Chiefsky went to Clinton High, was born the year after Stan. He's still the only person to have won three solo Academy Awards for writing both adapted and original screenplays. His third award was for the famous 1976 film network. Another alumni born the year after Stan

was the photographer Richard Avidon. An obituary published in New York Times in 2004 for Richard said that his high fashion or no his fashion and portrait photographs helped define America's image of style, beauty, and culture for the last half century. Clinton High School even kicked out some other comic book titans. Bob Cain and Bill Finger, Mr. Finger. The creators of Batman graduated from Clinton just a few years before Stan started going to school there.

Spider-Man and Batman both created by Clinton High School products. Will Eisner went to Clinton High, graduated about two years before Stan showed up? This guy was so influential to the development of the comic book industry that the most prestigious award, a comic book author or illustrator can receive his name after him, the Eisner award. Will help popularize the term graphic novel in the late 70s. Irwin Hason, creator of the popular Don Decomext script that ran in more than 100 newspapers from 1955 to 1986, also a Clinton high school graduate,

leaving when Stan showed up, and on and on and on. In his Clinton yearbook, Lee is listed as a member of a number of organizations. He worked for the school paper known as the Magpie where he remembers Paul the prank. He said, I must have been a little bit crazy even then because I remember they had a school magazine called the Magpie and it was published in a room called the tower, which had a very high ceiling. And there was no way anybody could ever reach that ceiling.

One day it was being painted and one of the painters had left the ladder when they went out for lunch. So I climbed up and wrote, Stan Lieber is God on the ceiling. You know what? In a way, Stan Lieber was God. He became a God-like creator. He gave life to so many characters who seemed just as real to me and many others as actual people.

1938 when Stan was 15, he took first place in the biggest news of the week contest running the New York Carol Tribune for three weeks in a row. One biography does claim this actually didn't happen in a bit of a myth building on Stans Park and they actually only want a small seventh place prize in a couple honorable mentions in three different weeks. I choose to believe Stan in this instance. I mean, considering all of his highly documented accomplishments, I don't see why he would choose to make up with some unimportant high school contests. I mean, maybe he did. I don't see why he would choose to make up when some unimportant high school contest.

I mean, maybe he did. But I don't think so. Lee also would claim that the editor asked him to stop submitting after his third win so that someone else could have a chance to win. And then he should consider a career in writing and he said that experience changed his life. Said him on a path to becoming a writer.

No, clear to some, that he's thought a lot about and it was a pivotal moment for him and he did go on to make a career at a writing. So again, I'm gonna take his word on this one. Lee also remembered losing his virginity in high school. He remembered some of it at least later saying that at some point in high school, he was initiated into the mysteries and pleasures of sex.

One of my great regrets is that I cannot remember the name of the daughter of the neighborhood candy store proprietor with whom I lost my virginity. I love that quote so much, and not just because he says proprietor. An accomplished older man reflect on his life and what is one of his major regrets not being able to remember the name of the neighborhood candy store owner's daughter who he lost his virginity too. That's one of your major regrets you have lived an amazing life.

Do I wish I would have spent more time with my daughter? No, we hung out plenty. Should I have been kinder to my wife? No, I treated her great and made a long, loving marriage. Should I have worked harder to accomplish more? No, I killed it. I created some of the most beloved characters in history and I'm adored the world over, but I do have one major regret that was this red-headed girl with a title last and firm, freckled

hot tata. She took my virginity in her dad's shop when it was closed for the night and died came in between the root bear barrels and the tutsi rules. And I'd erase Thor and the Hulk if I could just remember her name. Well, attending Clinton High School, attending Lee had a number of part time jobs. He sold subscriptions to the New York Herald Tribune to fellow students. He delivered sandwiches from Manhattan's Jack Mays pharmacy near Rockefeller Center. He had a good work ethic. I like it. June of 1939, just a few weeks before World War II kicked off, Lee graduated Clinton High School at only 16 and a half

years old. Right after graduation, he joined the Works Progress Administration's Federal Theater Project. The WPA was a part of FDR's new deal, a program born out of the Great Depression to fund live artistic performances and entertainment programs. Leigh often spoke of being employed by the WPA at the same time that Orson Wells was there. Orson Wells, a star writer, director and producer, that famous film citizen Kane, amongst others. Although the two didn't know each other, work together. Lee followed a girl he was dating into the WPA. And while he was there, he acted in a few plays, loved acting, but the pay was terrible, so he decided to quit. Also the romance with the girl ended, you know, making leaving the WPA even easier.

And I also loved that he followed a girl into a job right after high school. I would love to see the stats that I'm sure will never be gathered on how many straight dudes have ended up in a career because of chasing a girl or switched majors because of a girl or or studied something mostly because a girl they liked thought it was cool. How many dudes live where they live mostly or entirely because they chased a girl there? Or because one of their male ancestors had chased a girl there? I was thinking about all this reminds me that in some ways we meet sacks are just another member of the animal kingdom.

So complex in some ways, so simple in others. Male mammals, chastened female mammals, due to that basic desire to fulfill a reproductive urge, man, instincts can't totally escape all those instincts. Some of these first jobs after high school included writing obituaries for a wire service. And that cracks me up only because I imagine him writing comic book style obituaries. Martin Hurvitz, a K, a professor cheeseburger passed away in his home last Monday night, August 12, 1939, after

battling Dr. Hardtum. Four years, Professor Cheeseburger absorbed patty after cheese covered patty, dissolving the evil cholesterol lights in his powerful stomach acid of justice, zap, pow, kaboom. And then when he was napping in his guard was down, Dr. Hardtum decided to hit him with one of his artery clogged blasts. Wham! Zip! Oh, gas shock! Or what will his family do now?

Will Dr. Hartdum work his way through the halls of Hervets? Stay tuned, doom fans. They say heart disease runs in families. Services will be held to Sunday at Temple Bethel, synagogue at 1 p.m. Smack swish zoom. Illuga. Uh, while Lee is still barely out of high school, school, he gets what may not have seemed like a big break at the time, but it was a big break because it would lead to his career in comics.

Lee's cousin on his mother side, Gene Goodman was married to Martin Goodman, a publisher who'd hit it big, putting out a wide variety of pulp magazines. Martin would go on to be one of the most important people in Lee's life, but at this point, they didn't know each other that well. I believe in the WPA stand was looking for a new job and it's cousin and her husband connected him with the Jewish communal organizations recently founded vocational service program. Through this program, we got a job right in publicity material for national Jewish health, a tuberculosis hospital in Denver, Colorado doing all the writing from New York.

Lee later claimed that I can never understand what I was trying to do with that job. Get people to get tuberculosis so they could go to the hospital. But anyway, the idea was that if anybody had tuberculosis, we had to convince them to go to that hospital. I love the sense of humor. Lee's connection with the vocational service program didn't last long, but the job got him on Martin Goodman's radar.

And he gave him some writing experience. It was as they say, a start. After he'd written the needed publicity for material for National Jewish Health, he took a job as an office boy for H. Lysner Co. A Manhattan trouser manufacturer where he felt exploited and unappreciated by supervisors who never even bothered to learn his name.

I bet they knew his name later. This job would help his comic career, you know, as well because it would motivate him to find something he loved and never have to take a job like that again. I'm sure you've heard that wonderful cliche, timing is everything. And while I wouldn't say it's everything, it is so important.

And the timing of the birth of the comic book industry and Lee searched for a career after high school was perfect. As I said earlier, 1938, the first Superman was published in 1939, the first Batman was perfect. As I said earlier, 1938, the first Superman was published in 1939, you know, the first Batman was published. Pull publishers are now rushing to supply this new demand publishers like Martin Goodman. In the summer of 39 Goodman had launched a new comic book line under his timely publishing imprint, starting with Marvel Comics number one, published in August 31st, and the comic

book giant that would eventually be named Marvel was creatively born. Marvel number one wildly successful selling close to a million copies, very few returns from news dealers. The cover promised action, mystery, adventure. Boy, his Marvel delivered over the years. The first comic introduced among other characters, the Submariner, the human torch. I said that earlier, Marvel comics number one and subsequent timely titles have been produced by Goodman or, or, or, or, or, or being produced by Goodman

for an outside packageer, funny, is incorporated, but Goodman wanted his own in house comic book line that will be produced by staffers and freelancers working directly for him and to accomplish this. At early 1940, he hired two young men, two skilled writers and artists who were just starting to make a name for themselves and the still young comic book business editor Joe Simon and art director Jack Kirby nerd boners fully hard. Joe Simon would co create Captain America Jack Kirby would co create Captain America with Joe Simon with Stanley. He would co create the fantastic for the X-Men the Hulk black panther Thor Iron Man many

more. Wham! Boom splash, slagger doodles! Peanut butter! Uh, summer 1939, still 16 year old Stan is hired, and he liked to joke, uh, he was hired as a gopher for his cousin's husband's timely comics. Uh, actually Stan wasn't just Jean Goodman's cousin. His mother's brother, Robbie Solomon, was married to Martin Goodman's sister, so he was

actually double related to the owner of timely comics. In many ways, timely was a family affair with several of Martin's brothers working for the publishing operation. So time he was good, and also there was that element of it's not what you know it's who you know. You know, had Stan not been related to the Goodman's, what he have gotten that job, entered the new world of comic books? No, probably not. How different would our world looked today. Stan became Joe Simon and Jack Kirby is all around assistant and gofer. He said, Jack was five years old and Stan, Joe was nine years older. Stan would go out to grab these guys coffee and sandwiches, he would clean up their pages, erase the unnecessary pencil marks,

he would do proof reading, whatever he was asked to do, he would do it. Joe Simon would later recall, mostly we had Stan erasing the pencils off of the inked artwork and going out for coffee. He followed us around, we took him to lunch, and he tried to be friends with us. When he didn't have anything to do, he would sit in a corner of the art department and play his little flute or piccolo driving Kirby nuts. I thought he was a cute kid. I love he was sitting in a corner playing piccolo when he wasn't working on comic books. Like he couldn't have been more of a fucking dork.

I love it. But like in the best way. And how fun, by the way, to have this job, you know, to work at this place when you're 16. Man, when I was 16, I was back in groceries or working as a labor and one of my dad's construction jobs listened to pervy older dudes, you know, at both places, asked me what I was doing with the high school girls. Looking back, super, super creepy.

Uh, sure, shit wasn't hanging out with cool artists who may have, may have also been talking about stuff like that, but at least they were drawing cool stuff too. Would love to have that job and Lee loved it. And late 1940's Simon and Kirby came up with what would be timelies biggest hit. Captain America comics number one. The magazine went on sale in most areas in the US around December 20th and flew off the shelves. By 1941, when Stan was 18, the nation was in patriotic frenzy with World War II getting into full swing. Captain America character became so popular

that they had to bring in some freelance artists to meet the demand for new stories. And they not only needed new stories to be illustrated, they needed new stories to be written, thought up, you know, thought up, imagined. And because of this demand, because of being in the right place, the right time, Stanley Lieber was given the chance to write some filler stories. The time we could publish while established writers worked on the bigger plot lines and standard a great job. The first of the throwaway stories, the Stan row was titled Captain America foils, the traders

revenge. Captain America comics number three, May 1941. Just two pages. Stanley Lieber didn't want to use his real name on the comic because he was still at this point planning on using his real name when he finally got around to writing that great American novel.

And so he chose to be credited as Stan Lie. Story has two drawings by Jack Kirby. It was their first ever collaboration. Story was sandwiched between the bigger stories of a demonic killer on the loose in Hollywood. Shobies. And one about a giant Nazi strong man and another murderer who kills people

while dressed up in a butterfly costume. Okay, weird and dark, I like it. Shortly after this publication, Kirby and Simon grew skeptical of how Goodman was running his business and sharing the profits and he started to secretly work for DC Comics as well. And Goodman found out and fired them both. And some think that Stanley ratted them out.

Lee forever would insist that he did not. But according to Simon, Kirby always believed that Stan told Goodman on him. Simon, however, believed that Lee kept their moonlighting a secret and that in the gossip-driven world of comics, it could have been any number of people who revealed what they were doing. Because I like Stanley, again, I'm going to choose to believe that, you know, his side in this situation. I'm going to choose to believe that he did not rat them out. We'll never know the real truth.

Because of this firing in November of 1941, Stanley is suddenly promoted to editor-in-chief a month before his 19th birthday. During this time, Stanley co-created the first character or his first character, Jack Frost, who would last until 1946 when he was killed off. And then Jack Frost would be brought back years later paired up with Captain America, a parent and print at least as recently as 2014. Jack Frost had the ability to generate sub freezing temperatures combined with ambient water vapor. He could create snow, sleet, ice for various effects, such as propelling snow flores. It hurricane wind speeds or fashion ice in a very simple construct. There's his fears, bridges or walls.

He also had superhuman stamina durability. Stan also co-created the destroyer as well as father time who both ended up in the Captain America world. He would come up with roughly 60 other characters during his time at timely comics, just in that period alone. These first official credit as editor appeared on Captain America number 12, published it a few weeks after his promotion in early January 1942. And then immediately following this World War II called on January 11th, 1942, Stan and listed in the US Army. He would serve from 1942 to 1945 as a member of the signal

corps where he would repair communications equipment like telephone poles and radios. Eventually, the fact that he had experience as a fictional author got him transferred to the training film division where he wrote manuals, training films, slogans, even some cartoons for the Allied War effort. The military classification of his position was playwright. It titled, only nine people were given during the war, which speaks greatly to his abilities. A few of the others were Frank Capra, the director of, it's a wonderful life, and Theodore Geisel, Dr. Fucking Su's,

pretty good company. Timing may have worked out for him. You know, he may have been related to the right, publisher, you know, about who you know, but he also had talent. Lots and lots of talents. This would have never worked if he didn't have that talent for the rest of his life and a good work ethic. Now, for the rest of his life, Stan would be extremely proud of his service and the people he served with in World War II so much show that his last ever tweet is about veterans

day. And it read, thank you to all of America's veterans for your service. You'd pass away the next day. Even while he was in the army, America's veterans for your service. You would pass away the next day. Even while he was in the Army stands still worked for timely comics. He'd worked for the military during the week. Stan, we get a letter from the editors every Friday, let him know what they needed. Stan would spend the whole weekend writing the stories and then mail them back the following Monday morning. It's a rumor that he once had to break into the mail room in order to get an envelope that

hadn't been delivered to the right mailbox so he could meet his deadline. He was almost court-martialed for tampering. We've gone to 11 worth, but a colonel got him out of it. I really love this. More often than not, very successful people have a history of going above and fucking beyond to do what it takes to get to where they want to be. He could have told timely that he could back to them after the war. Could have spent his weekends drinking, dating, recklessly, and joined his youth.

Nope. He worked out. He got shit done. Bam, zap pow! He was tenacious. Another trade of successful people, right? When an envelope wasn't delivered to the right place, he didn't just say, ah, well, what do you do? Nope, he risked a court marshal just so he could get his job done.

And doing all that when he was so young, you know, he'd grown up watching his dad struggle financially throughout his entire childhood. Guessing that really helped motivate him to take his job very seriously. Fuck, I love this dude story. Stanley, get me fired up from beyond the grave. Yeah, yeah, yeah. When the war ended in 1945, Stan returned home to New York and timely comics, which is now headquartered on the 14th floor, 14th floor, excuse me, of the Empire State Building.

And before we dig into his post-war life, let's take a moment to share a word from our final sponsor. Time suck is brought to you today by Felix Gray. Too much screen time can result in tired, dry eyes, headaches, blurry vision, trouble sleeping. For this week's suck, I was up super late for hopefully the last time in a long time, finishing my last out of town standup shows for 2019 this past weekend. I counted upcoming Spok can shows as being local. I didn't have a lot of time this past week to

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Now back to 1945, when everyone's glasses were shit. When no one had computer screens to look out because the internet did not exist and the world was terrible. Stanley is just returned home from his World War II assignment. He meets a very special girl, his muse, his loose Athena, the love of his life, a woman with the terribly unfortunate name of Joan Clayton, Bu-cock. Uh-huh? Bu-cock. I said, Bu-cock. Bu-cock. She was a hat model, which reached me as a very part time job.

I doubt there's a lot of full time hat models out there. Oh, she was British, she was beautiful, smart, funny. She was 10 months older than Stan. And when she met Stan, she was married to someone else. She met Stan while modeling in New York, while still being married to a man named Sanford Dorf Weiss. They got married during the war in 1943. We're already separated.

Lee's cousin set him up on a blind date with a different model that the agency Joan worked at. When Lee went to the modeling agency to meet his intended date, Joan entered the door. And upon seeing her, he immediately professed his love for her. He'd be embarrassed by this later. Apparently, he just told her like, right away, I love you. And also told her that he had been drawing her face since childhood, which is adorable and creepy as shit. I just kind of adorable because they get married, you know,

and they would live happily ever after. But if she wouldn't have been into him, how creepy is that? I mean, can you imagine opening up your door, strangers there? Somebody who's come over to date your roommate, they immediately tell you that they love you, and then also tell you that they've been drawing your face since childhood. That's something either an artist says or a serial killer or both. Lucky, you know, luckily, Joan ended up marrying a good dude, not having a dude where her fucking face skin for a mask like Edgene. Just weeks after

meeting on December 5th, 1947, Stan and Joe get married, Stan and Joan get married. Joan ended up getting her first marriage in Nold. The same day she married Stan, he was 24 years old, turned 25 in less than 30 days. Now he's married. Years later, when Stan's comments began to be adapted into animated TV shows, Joan would voice some of the characters. Pretty sweet. She would also later go on to write a novel called The Pleasure Palace, published 1987,

still available on Amazon. Three additional unpublished novels were found after she passed away. Just days after his marriage to Buu Cock, Stan's mother Celia died at the age of just 49, December 16, 1947. So that is a huge bummer. That kind of puts a damper on the honeymoon. Well, Stan never spoke publicly of his mother's death, never revealing how she died is it is known that for his brother Larry who was still a teen, it was a deeply traumatic experience.

Three years later, timely comics also dies. World War II being over, America stopped being as patriotic. Their love of Captain America grew cold as I mentioned earlier before the timeline. Captain America was canceled at Issue 75 with the cover dated February 1950 and timely then turned into atlas comics and focused on different types of comics. They began publishing horror, westerns, crime, romance, medieval times, biblical stories,

sport stories, even a comic about models and career women. Also in 1950, on August 29th, Stan and Bukak have their first child, a baby named Joan Celia. We later took the nickname JC. Joan Celia would later become an artist for Marvel Comics, dabble in acting, and then help manage her parents finances.

She never married, dedicated her life to caring for her parents and the family business. 1953, Adela's tried to bring back their superhero comics. They brought back the human torch and Submariner also Captain America Drawed now by John remittas senior and written by now 30 year old family man Stanley During this time Stan was also writing a syndicated newspaper strip called my friend Irma Which was drawn by his friend and colleague Dane or sorry Dane? Miss pronounced my own it. What the fuck? What is he Dana Dan Dan to Carlos? The strip was based on the radio show with the same name, Stari Marie Wilson. Dude was always busy.

Miss Fortune hit the leaf family in the summer of 1953. Stan and Joan lost her second daughter, Jan, who died just a few days after her birth. In 1953, of an undisclosed ailment. ailment, uh, fucking brutal man, just a few days, uh, separating so much joy and so much pain. Fall of 1953 was a devastating time for the young leaf family. uh, fucking brutal man, just a few days, uh, separating so much joy and so much pain. Fall of 1953 was a devastating time for the young leave family. Stand and jump would never try to have another child.

In 1957, Alice nearly goes under thanks to Dwinlein's sales. They changed their name to Marvel, bring back Jack Kirby in 1958 and slowly, but surely build themselves into a superhero factory powerhouse. Zip zap, kapow! In the late 1950s, Marvel competitor DC Comics revised their superhero genre with the Flash. They have some success there. This prompts them to come out with the Justice League

of America in early 1960. Original Justice League of America characters were Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, the Flash, Aquaman, and Martian Manhunter. To compete, Marvin Publisher, Martin Goodman,. To compete Marvin publisher Martin Goodman, Marvel publisher Martin Goodman, Goodman is still running, she had a sign staying with the task of coming up with some new superheroes.

At this stage of his career, Stan has grown increasingly frustrated, writing the Western romance comics, Alice has been pumping out, and he's psyched to get back into superheroes. When he's told to come up with these new superheroes, it was his wife Joan who suggests that he write what he wanted to,

and Nabel was expected of him. The DC characters had all had impeccable morals. They did the right thing every time, all the time, and that did not appeal to Stan. He took his wife's advice, created superhero characters with everyday human flaws. The kind that aren't necessarily considered good qualities in a purse, you know, they could be angry and pulsive, obnoxious, arrogant. Stan made his characters as human like as possible, while still allowing them to have superpowers. And he along with his illustrating creative partner, Jack Kirby revolutionized the comic

genre. Jack Kirby did the art, the company stand stories during this important period, excuse me, in their first true creation together was the Fantastic Four group of scientists who got their superpowers after they were exposed to a cosmic ray, were though, while they were on a mission in outer space. The Fantastic Four appeared in Marvel Comics, Fantastic Four, number one, a new breed of superheroes was born,

people who were just like the readers. And you know, except for having larger than life superpowers. The Fantastic Four became popular almost immediately upon his November 6, 1961 release, the first issue of that comic has been sold for as much as $300,000 recently. The Fantastic Four characters consists of, Mr. Fantastic, read Richards.

He'd stretch himself into different shapes through his elastic body, plus invisible girl Sue Storm, who later would be called invisible woman, the highly flammable human torch Johnny Storm, the thing Ben Graham, who had rocks for skin, which I'm guessing was a huge pain in the ass, other than when he was fighting. The media popularity that Fantastic Four gave Lee and Kirby a new creative license that they took full advantage of to create some of the most famous characters in human history.

Hail him, Rod! May 1962, the incredible Hulk number one appears, featuring a monstrous adaptation of Robert Lewis Stevenson's Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde story. About this time in May of 62, Lee and Kirby, also develop a bug-like superhero that would become a Titan in industry, right? To this day, it's important that the origin of the web slinger came when Stan saw a fly

crawling on the wall, thought of an insect superhero. He went down the list, fly man. Nah, that's not dramatic. Mosquito man, no. Lice man, that's not good. Cockroach dude, fuck. You kept going until he got to Spider-Man. Before getting to Spider-Man, he almost did settle on two other title possibilities.

One was Ombre, a Sino Ant-Man, and another was Ronoke recluse Spider-Man. Ombre, a Sino Ant-Man would have had the power to send a whole nest of ants out of his body and then all those ants would eat the heads offmbrae, a Sino Ant-Man would have had the power to send a whole nest of ants out of his body, and then all those ants would eat the heads off. Ombrae, a Sino Man's enemies, but stands published for Goodman thought that readers would be a little bit concerned about where the ants were coming from, because early Jack Kirby illustration admitted it seemed like the killer assassin ant army that were kind of

coming straight out of his butt. And he also felt like that eating the heads of enemies was still a bit too graphic for 1962 readers. Rowanook recluse Spider-Man was a lot like Spider-Man, except that instead of wrapping up guys with it, with a web, he would open enemies' eyelids and he would send in little spiders out of his fingertips, and then those spiders would crawl around

into people's brains and drive them insane. He could also send them like in their ears, he sent them like on the back of their neck, like a know, like a lot of times like right now if you're listening, if you feel something tingling, you're like, oh, that might be a spider. I mean, it probably is like he would do things like that. And be careful because there's a lot of spiders in poisonous. You don't know about it. And there's, they can be one crawling on you. Good, but also thought, you know, the spider stuff with in the ears and in the eyes and you know, probably crawling on your back right now was a bit much for 62 Raiders.

So he, you know, canceled that. And of course those last two superheroes were never actually considered because Ombria Sinoans and Rhino Greek loose fighters are only real here in the suckverse. Zap out, Kerwam, splat, splat, splat. For real now, Stanley loved the name Spider-Man. He ran into the publisher's office, told Goodman about his great idea and Goodman didn't like it, but let him publish it anyway. Illustrator Steve Ditko, not Jack Kirby, the man who would also co-create Dr. Strange

with Stanley, would co-create Spider-Man. Spider-Man would first appear in the anthology comic book, Amazing Fantasy No. 15, August of 62. Spider-Man quickly became one of Marvel's best-selling comics that month. Stan later joked that after the initial sales reports came in, good one came into his office and said, stand, stand. Do you remember that guy spider man? We both love so much. Shobis.

That's how they do it in Hollywood or New York. Also in August of 1962, another Lee and Kirby creation, Thor, the North God of Thunder, founding member of the Avengers appeared in Journey into Mystery number 83. What a great month for comics, a great year. Oh yeah, great month, hang great year. Thor was also co-created by Stan's now 30 year old baby bro Larry, Lair Bear. Stan credited as the editor, platter,

Kirby did the illustrations, Lair Bear wrote the story. March of 1963, Stan, Jack, Lair Bear, team up again to create Iron Man along with Marvel, Pensler, Don Heck. Oh my heck. It's Don It's Don Hack you guys. Good thing Iron Man first appearing in Tales of Suspense number 39 The X-Men would also be born in September of 63 another Jack Kirby Stan Lee collab The X-Men were originally called the mutants, but good men told Stan that readers wouldn't buy something with that name because no one knew what a mutant was. Well, there was no Wolverine, Wolverine. In the initial series,

he'd come along in 1974, not created by Lee and Kirby, but instead by Roy Thomas, Len Wein and John Ramita, Sr. Popular characters like Professor X Cyclops, Jean Grey, Magneto, the beast made their debut here, apparently the origin of the name X-Man just meant extra powers. Sweet. Holy shit. And just 1962 and 1963, these guys pumped out the Hulk, Iron Man, Spider-Man, mostly X-Men. How crazy is that? These characters that for my whole life, there have been countless cartoons done about them TV shows, action figures, movies, comic books, their their likenesses put on everything from lunch boxes to bicycles to bed sheets to Halloween costumes

to underroost. These incredibly recognizable characters were just some shit of you guys in an office in New York City. We're just, you know, bullshit in about six decades ago. It's great. It's amazing what these things can turn into. I mean, do you ever think about that?

Like every story you've ever heard, every single one was originally just a thought in some meat-saxx head. Like at one point in history, somebody wrote that down for the very first time. No matter how famous it is now, and now it's just something we all know about. I think that's so incredible. You know, we use stories to define our lives,

our cultures, the song reminds us of a wedding or a friendship, a book time travels us back when we first read it. We bond over shared interests and TV shows, books, movies, comic books, whatever. And all these things started off in one meat sack's mind. I love that so much. I've always loved the incredible world building, uplifting power, right? The power to bring people together of the human imagination, Stanley had one of the best imaginations of all time. What a beautiful thing. Nerd, boner, so hard, Hulk, smash hard, boom, zap, pow!

C-c-c-com, c-com! B-b-u! I know. Starting in 1965, Stan changed the way comic writer interacted with their fan base. When he wrote a monthly column for Marvel's bull-pin bulletins, a news and information page that appeared in most regular, regular monthly

Marvel comic books from 1965 to 1972. Always had previews of upcoming comics and profiles about Marvel staff writers and artists. Stan's column was called Stan's cell box where he addressed the readers almost as if they were on a first name basis. Stan never talked down to his audience. The fact that he made an effort to communicate was a big deal, innovative. At the time, DC was starting to become considered as old out of touch run by a stodgy, pretentious grownups. Stan made shit cool and casual. He spoke to the kids. He was a, he was a cool casual motherfucker. He talked about the Marvel bullpen, the in-house staff of Marvel artists and producers. He always spoke highly of the staff, gave them sweet nicknames like Jack King Kirby.

Stay in the manly. I had no idea. Did that or maybe I just forgot. And then I ended up trying to do something similar on a small scale. You know Reverend Dr. Joe, Queen of the Sucks, Gripkeeper, High Priestess, Suckmaster. Nicknames are so fun. Staying created a fictional staffer to make fun of and ridicule Irving Forbush, who also made it into a few comics.

It was during the writing of these columns that Stan began using Excelsior, which is Latin forever upward, still higher. And the terms, enough said true believer in his little columns, right? Got some clubhouse language going. Hey, I'll nimrod. He used to end his column with phrases like face front. And again, enough said, but other comic could easily rip that off without having to explain themselves.

So Stan, you know, got the idea to say something that he was positive that the competition probably wouldn't know what it even meant. And it would definitely be considered his because no one else was saying it. And that's when he started using Excelsior, which was also the New York State motto since 1778. Okay, now let's get back to Spider-Man. He's the most famous creation, which is spelled with a hyphen. If you're going to be proper, but the hyphen between Spider-Man

and any other spelling not okay, as far as Stan was concerned, he would say, ooh, that gets me angry. It's gotta have a hyphen, because that's the way I stated it. And also, it makes it look very different from Superman, which doesn't have a hyphen. It should be a capital S and a capital M.

If I don't see it done that way, it arouses my eye. So if you don't want my eye to be aroused, you'd better write it correctly. And another one that bothers me too is the word comic book. People always write it as if it's two separate words, but to me, if it's two separate words, then it means a funny book, a comic book. If you write it as one word, which is the way I do it, is an instant generic term meaning a comic book. So I feel everybody either write comic book as if it's one word because it doesn't mean funny book. You stupid fox and they fucking punch whoever

he was talking to. And he's threatening to kill their family. Now I didn't do that, but I do like how he takes this stuff so seriously, man. Details matter. Also I made fun of Spider-Man on my stand up before and folded mission, I don't really care for Spider-Man. This is superhero.

He's my least favorite, famous superhero. But that being said, I respect how important he was to stand lead, how important he is to the genre, all the creativity that went into making him. And I know him in the minority when I don't give a shit about him, a lot of meat, sacks, love, Peter Parker. Spider-Man would go and sell hundreds of millions of copies, gross billions of dollars in the box office

as a solo act as part of the Avengers. Stan said he's glad he didn't know Spider-Man was going to be so popular. He said, it's so indescribably thrilling to realize that so many people really care about a character I dreamed up and wrote so many years ago. Although it's probably lucky I didn't know how big Spidey would become in later years because if I suspected that, I'd have been too nervous to write the stories, worrying if they're good enough for posterity to judge. I relate to this on a very comparatively small level, like very small.

As more fans have begun to come out to stand up shows because of this podcast, I have found myself getting to my head in moments second guessing new material. And then I shake it off because I know it's not good for creativity, but it's just different creating something that you know, you know, like in my case, that a couple hundred thousand people are gonna hear perhaps more than it is when you're creating stuff early on. They don't know if anybody will ever give a fuck about. I can't imagine the pressure of creating something if you knew that like billions would know about it and have opinions on.

And now I feel a little bad for saying I don't care about Spider-Man, whatever. During the interview with Larry King back in 2000, Stan talked about the audience. He did have in mind when he created his characters. He said, I don't have an audience in mind. I write for myself. I write stories that I think I would like to read. I try to write them clearly enough that a youngster can understand and appreciate it.

Love this. Again, I relate on a teeny tiny level. I think about this with Stan. If early on I imagined myself and also my old college buddies being the audience I would write for and then it's time went on I decided to write just for myself because I lost touch with most male buddies at least in the sense of spending a lot of time with them There's a lot of shift of the audience only me and from that point on you know I'd write only what I was funny to hear because to me that's the only thing that makes sense You know if you try to write for somebody else, you have this imaginary audience in mind,

then you can't have a consistent voice. And you'll never care about it as much as you would if you just wrote it for yourself, for your own pleasure. Way back in 2005, I did once write for a different audience instead of myself, and I've never felt so creatively dirty before since. I had some gigs opening up for Larry, the cable guy, who was at the height of his popularity with the same manager as how I got the gig. And I did okay the first time I worked with him

in Pullman, Washington State University. We got along backstage, he's a super nice guy, very nice guy. And he gave me a bunch of dates and he really liked me and his audience did not like me. And it is not fun to bomb in front of 8,000 people, night after night after night. So one day I sat down before some upcoming gigs with him

and I wrote some jokes that I didn't give a shit about. I didn't even like him at all, but I thought his audience would like him. I told them the next time I opened up for him and they crushed and I've never felt more disgusted with myself creatively. It was so inauthentic. And I made a deal with myself

that when I came to stand up, I'd only do what I like. From that point forward, the audience didn't like what I liked anymore, but I didn quit. And as they did like it then I'd be able to keep it going you know for a long long time. But what best creative decision I've ever made. And it's cool just for me to hear that Stanley had that same perspective. You know why stand in creative arts? If you're not going to actually be creative. All right but enough about myself. Let's talk about Stinnelly. Sorry. I get all inspired about this guy's life 1996 interview with a Chicago Tribune Stan would be asked what his favorite character that he created was and he said

I like spider-man because he's become the most famous He's the one who's most like me nothing ever turns out 100% okay He's got a lot of problems. He does things wrong. I can relate to that and I like silver surfer because he's the most philosophical Always philosophizing about the human race and the human condition and why people are the way they are. Why they don't appreciate this wonderful planet they live on. How fucking Nimrod stand exactly? He's a nice moral tone to him. Uh, Felix, he was talking about the edits of the internet before the edits of the internet existed right there. Uh, okay, enough about spider-Man for now. 1966, excuse me, 1966 Lee and Kirby created the Black Panther comic series.

Black Panther, the first superhero of African descent and mainstream American comics, having debuted years before early black superheroes such as the Falcon in 1969, Luke Cage in 72 Blade in 73, or DC Comics John Stewart in the role of Green Lantern, Green Lantern in 1971. Love him even more. February 26, 1968 stands, Father Jack passes away at the age of 82. He dies in a motorcycle racing accident. Jack could take an motorcycle racing a few years before against the advice of his family.

And I cannot continue to sell the sly. I just wanted you to think just for a quick moment. I the fuck was an 82 year old man racing a motorcycle. But he did die. He died from being 82 years old and Stan would say an unexpected phone call from my brother Larry told us in a voice trembling with sorrow that my father who had never remarried and had been living a man I had in all these years had died unexpectedly. 1970 stands created powers letting back to the government because of the popularity of his

comic books, the US government came to stand in his team. 1970 Nixon's administration, the US Department of Health Education, welfare, ass marvel comics and stand to do a story about drug abuse in order to teach kids, let them know the drugs are bad, which is not a bad idea. Good way to reach the kids. Stan agreed to do the stories and wrote the amazing Spider-Man issues 96 to 98. This three episode arc is called Green Goblin Reborn. First, in episode 96,

Spider-Man sees a man dancing on the rooftop and then falls and Spider-Man saves him only to realize the guy's wasted on drugs. And then Spider-Man says, I would rather face 100 supervillains than throw my life away on hard drugs, because it is a battle you cannot win. Then in the next book, 97, Peter Parker finds out

that his friend Harry, Green Goblin's son, is popping pills because Mary Jane doesn't like him. Harry ends up getting deeper into drugs, eventually Peter finds him overdose, takes him to the hospital, finally, in the great conclusion. Episode 98, spotty lures the Green Goblin to the hospital to see how sick his son is from his OD. And the goblin sees Harry sucking some guys dick in the alley behind the yard to get enough

money for quick fix. And President Nixon was like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, Mr. Lee. This is the exact message that I would like to give to the American youth, but I wish you would have conveyed it differently. I thought the extreme close up where you could actually see the calm mixing with Harry's tears was especially unnecessary. Of course, I did not happen. The goblin saw his son all messed up from his Odin and he fainted.

He was vanquished. For this anti-drug spider-man trilogy, Marvel had to remove the comics code seal of approval because of all the drug stuff. It didn't pass the code. That code introduced what we talked about before because of McCarthyism. Even without the seal of approval, the comics went on, or the comics, you know, those issues went on to be a big hit. They were actually so well received that their argument for denying the seal was deemed

counterproductive and the comics code was revised. And true competitive fashion DC comics also then made one of their characters, speedy from the green lantern, a heroin addict. Let's talk about the comics code or comics code authority CCA a little bit now, formed in 1954 by comics magazine Associate of America as an alternative as I said earlier to government regulation. Or I mentioned earlier, they had some pretty absurd standards like to know where wolves rule.

Let's take some time now to really go into this a little bit more in depth. There are 19 tenants and they are fucking hilarious. First crime should never be presented in such a way as to create sympathy for the criminal to promote distrust or the forces of law and justice or to inspire others with the desire to imitate criminals. It's number one. No complex characters, guys, bad guys, super bad, pure evil. That's why they commit crimes because there are Satan's minions, hell bent on destruction and not complex people committing crime for a variety of, you know, socio economic reasons. Number two of crime is depicted as sorted in unpleasant activity.

Okay. Number three, police judges, government officials, and respected institutions shall never be presented in such a way as to create disrespect for established authority. Okay, a little bit scary. Feels like a rule you'd read in North Korea, Soviet Union, not in the United States.

Number four, criminal shall be presented, so as to be rendered glamorous. Oh, criminal shall not be presented, so as to be rendered glamorous. Oh, criminals shall not be presented. So as to be rendered glamorous or to occupy a position which creates a desire for emulation. All right, fine. Number five, in every instance good, shall triumph over evil

and the criminal punished for his misdeeds. I read that one is, make every story formulaic and predictable and above all, boring. Number six, scenes of excessive violence shall be prohibited, scenes of brutal torture, excessive and unnecessary knife and gunplay, physical agony, and gory and gruesome crime shall be eliminated. Well, we have clearly strayed quite a bit from this rule recently. Glad there isn't a podcast of killing this

rule. The Albert Fish Shuck would have never happened. Peanut butter. No comic magazine shall use the words horror or terror in his title. We must think of the children, right? God forbid they read the word horror in a title and they'd lose their minds. Number eight, all scenes of horror, excessive bloodshed, gory, or gruesome crimes, depravity, lust, sadism, masochism shall not be permitted. Man, my favorite comic of all time, favorite graphic novel, Garth Ennison, Steve Dylan's preacher has a lot of everything mentioned in rule number eight. man, my favorite comic of all time, favorite graphic novel, Garth, Ennis and Steve Dylan's preacher, has a lot of everything mentioned in rule number eight.

Number nine, all lured, unsavory, gruesome illustration, shall be eliminated. That one sounds almost like a book birdie to me. Oh, my heck! Number 10, inclusion of stories dealing with evil shall be used or shall be published only where there is intense to illustrating moral issue. And in no case, shall the evil be presented alluringly,

nor so as to injure the sensibilities of the reader. And you really don't have much faith in your parenting abilities. If you think a few panels in a comic book is going to unravel your kids fucking moral world. Number 11, scenes dealing with or instruments associated with walking dead, torture, vampires, and vampirism, ghouls, cannibalism, and where wolf or instruments associated with walking dead, torture, vampires, and vampirism, ghouls, cannibalism, and where wolfism are prohibited. All right, now we covered that one. Number 12, profanity, obscenity, smuts, vulgarity, or words or symbols which have acquired undesirable meanings are forbidden.

Casting with a flippling gong, smother, father. Number 13, nudity in any form is prohibited as is indecent or undue exposure. Thank God, they no longer follow that one. Some of these artists can draw a very sexy lady. As can some of you. I have a very, very sexy, excuse me, naked Lucifina illustration. I'm looking at right now in the suck, dude. Hey, Lucifina.

A susceptible and salacious illustration or suggestive posture is unacceptable. What? Superheroes can't even stand in the sexy way. And this code was still around the 70s. Feel like, feel like something that was written around the time of the sale in witch trials. Number 15, female shall be drawn realistically without exaggeration of any physical qualities. No big tata's got it. Number 16, elicit sex relations are neither to be hinted at nor portrayed. Rape scenes as well as sexual abnormalities are unacceptable. And by sexual abnormalities, yes, these Puritan psychos meant homosexuals. Nimrod, not pleased with them. Number 17, seduction and rape shall never be shown or suggested. Okay, I get, you know, how rape could,

you know, maybe should grant a book some I get, you know, how rape could, you know, maybe she'd grant a book, some kind of parental advisory sticker, but seduction. Come on. There's a thing that hates this code. Number 18, sex perversion or anti-inference to same is strictly forbidden. We get it.

You guys fucking hate sex. All right, you'll have these characters beat the shit out of each other. Pow, kaboom, zap. Now, I happen to kill each other. That's all well and good for America's youth, but God forbid they fuck. Or make sweet, sweet love with their super hard hero cocks.

And super firm gravity resistant, super hero boobs. God forbid some kid, you know, jerk off or diddle themselves after reading one of these comics. No, no, better than having them get into fight, just like their heroes. Number 19, nudity with merit-tricious purpose and salacious posture shall not be permitted in the advertising of any product, clothes, figures, shall never be presented in such a way as to be offensive or contrary to good taste or morals for fuck's sake.

People who came up with that code, at least the people of the comic book industry were worried about offended if they didn't follow that code with some seriously sexually repressed motherfuckers. So, what about Shell? No sexy, no complicated comics. You know, we're supposed to be drawn. So, see written, so say it, the pure tanical psychos, wonder what they would have thought of Deadpool. This code was revised a number of times during 1971, initially on January 28th to allow for, among other things, that sometimes a sympathetic depiction of criminal behavior, corruption among public officials, as long as it is portrayed as exceptional and the culprit is punished, as well as permitting some criminal activities to kill law enforcement officers and the suggestion but not portrayal of seduction.

Now, that's allowed. Stories get a little better, more realistic. Stand still riding the Amazon, the amazing Spider-Man full time after issue 100 in September of 1971, coming back for only a handful of issues after that. By the end of 1972, almost 50-year-old Stan had completely stopped riding monthly comics, so he could focus on his role as publisher for Marvel. The last Spider-Man issue he wrote was 110 in July, 72. His last fantastic four was 125 in August of 72.

1974, Spider-Man began appearing in live-action form on the show, The Electric Company, and a recurring skid called Spidey Super Stories. Season four, show 391, Spidey is TV famous. By 1975, 50-year-old Stan, the public face of all things Marvel. He attended Comic-Con, similar events all around the country as well as conducted lectures at colleges and did countless panel discussions. And by the way, the first San Diego Comic-Con held a 1970. I did not think it was that old.

Learning that may have led me to Google 1970s cosplay, which may have caused me to look at some nude cosplay pictures for, you know, a lot longer than I intended for research. 1977, Spider-Man was made into a TV movie, released the Actically Abroad, served as the pilot for the 1978 television series, the amazing Spider-Man, ran from 77 to 79, for A into, you know, film has begun. Also in 77 stands started the Spider-Man comic for King Features, the company that puts out all the comic strips to newspapers around the country. The last Spider-Man comic strip ran March 23rd, 2019.

Spidey back in the newspapers. Zap, kaboom, hongy bongy, huff, huff, to boom pow. Lastly, 1977, Stan's final collaboration with Jack Kirby was the Silver Surfer, the ultimate cosmic experience. Published in 78, considered Marvel's first graphic novel, and I impulse ordered it because of this research. Hope we have time to read it soon.

If you don't know the difference between a graphic novel and a comic, it's very simple. Graphic novels are much longer tend to be much more complex. While a comic book will tell a story over many issues, graphic novels have compiled those storylines into one, you know, or maybe a few books, but into larger books. And that's it. I thought there'd be more to it. Basically, a graphic novel is just a bunch of comics, Question, new book. 19-11 Stan was given the role to develop Marvel's TV and movie properties,

moved his family out to LA from New York where he quickly discovered the job to be a little more technical than he felt he could handle. Eventually, he stepped down from the position to remain closer to the creative process And then he stayed in California because you know weather's better Stand was a publisher for Marvel from 1972 He's still he stepped away in 1996 and then he would still receive a yearly salary after that of one million dollars a year as chairman Emeritus Quite the tribute to the man's contribution to the company

Part of his agreement with Marvel after he stepped down was that he would also be allowed to compete against them and he would, dude, kept on creating. Can't turn a creative switch on that powerful of a mind off. You can't shut it down. 1988, 75 year old Stan, along with a few business partners, including a super questionable dude named Peter Paul Lee, found the Stan Lee media company Lee's formal title is chairman Paul is a master impressive roster of Hollywood names. He was associated with the American spirit foundation, which he ran. It looked legit enough to give him enough credibility to take advantage of a living legend. The ASF had been established by actor Jimmy Stewart to improve public education

with Paul in charge. It had given annual Spirit of America awards to figure such as Ronald Reagan, Bob Hope, Stan Lee. Paul had enlisted lead to become the ASF's Chairman and to head up its entertainers for education committee. Paul would introduce him to figure such as Muhammad Ali, Bill and Hillary Clinton, Tony Curtis. Paul proposed to lead the idea of start an intellectual property development company

which would focus on the internet then a magnet for investment money. Paul unbeknownst to Lee had a very checkered past, including having been incarcerated for his scheme involving attempting to defraud the Cuban government out of more than $8 million. He claimed to leave this had been a frame job on him and he was part of a US government secret plot to overthrow Castro. Lee chose to take Paul's explanations of face value, deciding to cast a lot with this guy whom his direct experience had been positive.

More or less sidelined by Marvel, though still as public face, Lee at 75 remained energetic, ambitious. Stanley Media was Stan's chance to be back in the saddle. He was not interested in retiring, considered himself very much a producer of current material. Stanley Media was his outlet, knowing what questions work ultimately, but him. It was a dream job, included a creative staff of 150 people. And again, like so much of today's suck, I fucking love this so much. 75 years old, wealthy, accomplished, beloved. I think I said, beloved earlier, like both versions, that word. He just wants to tell more stories. It doesn't want to be some fucking the style Jacked, like some old band still

singing the same shit they wrote 40 years ago and nothing you know but those songs now he wants to tell new tales I hope I'm still you know alive and creating it 75 inspiring According to colleagues, that's kind of a weird way to phrase that like I hope I'm still alive at 75 Well, I'll make it at 75 You know if I if I'm at 75 I am alive 25, you know, if I'm at 75, I am alive. When asked during the Stanley Media period to be an old, to be on an old timers panel at the San Diego Comic Con, Comic Con, Lee responded, I will do any panel you want me on, as long as it's about current material.

I will not do anything about history no matter what. I'm an active current producer of material. That's all I want to talk about. Fucking hell, nevermind. Stanley Media, I was a very hands-on company for Lee, but it wouldn't last long. One insider came to believe that aside from Stan, the other executives didn't really care much

about the new properties the company was coming up with. Instead in their minds, the purpose of the company was to be sold. To make itself look so damn successful that Yahoo or Amazon or Sony or somebody were just required for a huge sum of money. Damn suits. Once a soul of suits surrounding Lee, just for the money.

What really hurt the company wasn't a lack of creative passion by these suits. So it was a Peter Paul. The con man started committing various types of securities fraud with a now publicly traded company. The fraud was discovered by the authorities and Paul after fleeing to Brazil ended up in prison in the US. In 2001, after the collapse of Stanley Media, Stan decided to do what very few 78 year olds decided to do, start another company with lessons learned from Stanley Media Lee, along with his longtime lawyer Arthur Lieberman, as well as colleague, uh,

Gill champion, Stan forms a new intellectual property farm, which he calls Powell for purveyors of wonder entertainment. Uh, Powell was designed to be the primary allot, which Lee's ideas often featuring Lee himself in some way will be conveyed to the public and pitched to other media companies. And it's been incredibly successful. Again, he started this is 78 years old. The concepts they made were like a strip arella, Stan Lee's superhero Christmas light speed who wants to be a superhero mosaic the condor, ultimate time jumper hero man. Stan Lee's line Stan Lee's superhuman shock rest Stan Lee's verticus Stan Lee's superhero packed a zodiac legacy Stan Lee's command the unknowns lucky man Stan Lee's cosmic crusaders

God woke workforce the reflection and still more projects coming out. Power was bought by a Chinese company based in Hong Kong, Cam saying international holding in 2017, you know, and still pushes on, still creating more content. 2002 Lee took on yet another project writing his memoir entitled Excelsior with co-author George Mayer. And then there were the cameos. Lee would keep busy for another decade and a half

and do his mid 90s, he would actually become more popular to than ever in his 90s. How cool is that? Big part of that would come from ongoing cameos and mainly Marvel movies. His first cameo actually had come back way back in 1989 as a juror in the TV movie, the trial of the Incredible Hulk.

The next one was supposed to be the 1998 film Blade, but his little cameo was left on the cut room floor. His next cameo, one that started a long running gag of tons of cameos, was when he played a hot dog vendor in 2000's X-Men. From then on, he would find his way into nearly every Marvel film. It's much easier to count the Marvel films that lead to not have a cameo in. These include an early count in America movie, uh, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a in 2002 Spider-Man 2003's Daredevil 2003's Hulk Spider-Man 2.04 the Fantastic 4.05 X-Men

the last stand in 2006 Fantastic 4. Rise the Silver Surfer 06 Spider-Man 3 in 2007. On and on and on. Post-Tumously appeared thanks to pre-recordings cameos in two films in 2018 three more in 2019. Dude was also a philanthropist. Stan Lee Foundation was founded in 2010. It's a nonprofit organization seeks to provide access to literacy, education, and the arts

throughout the nation. Still working in 2012 with the age 89 Stan launched a YouTube channel called World of Heroes. I watched some of the videos and they're fucking great. His health declined in 2012. He had a pacemaker put in a few months for his 90th birthday in the statement of the public. He just jokingly said he did it in an effort to be more like fellow Avenger Tony Stark, the Iron Man. Also this year, Stan admitted that his producer titles and the big Marvel movies were honorary. He said, I hate to admit this, but I do not

share in the movie's profits. I just share in the interviews, the glamour and the people saying, wow, I love that movie Stan stand But I'm not a participant in the profits Seems crazy to me But I guess because he was an employee of Marvel's and not the owner While all his characters were his creations artistically they were not his creations legally So you know little less than there I guess to own your shit when you can't artist I know you can't always do that, but man try your best to Beginning in 2005 Stan released the first

of a trilogy of books called Zodiac. Of course he did, why slow down, he's only 92. Second of the series came out in 2016, and the third in 2017, the description of the book on Amazon reads, when 12 magical superpowers are unleashed on the world, a Chinese American teenager named Stephen will be thrown into the middle of an epic global chase.

I'll have to master strange powers, outrun superpowered mercenaries, unlock the mysteries of the zodiac and the ratings on these books are good. 2015, one recent hour, or our, excuse me, recent outrage culture, sunken's illogical witch hunt claws and the Lee, Gokker published some leaked emails from Sony Pictures that revealed a strict licensing agreement between the movie studio and Marvel comics in regards to Spider-Man. The article was titled Spider-Man Campy Gay or Black. Among several things, it does indeed say that Spidey Peter Parker can't be gay. He must be a white male and he doesn't drink or do drugs. Outrageous, right?

Sounds terrible? Well, it doesn't sound terrible to me when Stan explains it. Stan had this to say. I wouldn't mind if Peter Parker had originally been black, a Latino, an Indian, or anything else, that he stayed that way. But we originally made him white, I don't see any reason to change that. On the issue of Spider-Man not being allowed to be gay, Lee said, I think the world has a place for gay superheroes, certainly. But again, I don't see any reason to change the sexual proclivities of a character once they've already been established.

I have no problem with creating new homosexual superheroes. And this is what he gets in trouble for. Stan's argument is essentially just that the character has been around for over 50 fucking years. Peter Parker is Peter Parker and I don't disagree with him on that. He wanted to say it has nothing to do with being anti gay, or anti black, or anti Latino, or anything like that. Latino characters should stay Latino.

The black panther should certainly, should certainly not be Swiss. I just see no reason to change that which has already been established when it's so easy to add new characters. I say create new characters the way you want to hell, I'll do it myself. Fucking outrage closer. Spider-Man was his baby. He thought him up and guided him for decades.

Now I think it's his, you know, right, to want him to remain as he created him. You know, what if this podcast lasts for decades and gets more popular in the mythologies of my silly characters deepening? Someone then eventually tells me, Hey, Bojangles is now a chihuahua, not a people. I'd be like, no, no, that's not what the fuck he is.

You want a chihuahua? Well, that's fine. Then we come up with a new chihuahua character, but we don't completely change an existing character. Now, all that being said, Spider-Man has been reimagined as Mike Morales, a young Afro-Lutino dude in a run of Spider-Man comics and in the movie Into the Spider-Verse, which I saw with my son, Kaira, and his great. I think they did a great job. to run a Spider-Man comics and then the movie into the Spider-Verse, which I saw with my son, Kaira, and his great.

I think they did a great job. That being said, I still think it was okay for Stanley to wish that his creation was left alone, because there's again plenty of room for other characters. July 6, 2017 in Los Angeles stands longtime wife, Joan Bucock. Joan Bucock dies from stroke-related complications, 95, stand her husband of almost 70 years. And their daughter, Joan, present as she died. How fucking beautiful is that?

So they were together for almost 70 years and they got to be with her when she died. And I can't imagine the pain one would feel when you lose a partner of seven decades. And I'm going to move on because thinking about that would might make me emotional. Okay. And the months after Joe and his death numerous lawsuits filed by Lee also filed against him. How shitty. Large sums of money reported missing from various accounts of Lee's. Some of the result of checks. He had no memory of signing. Taking advantage of the elderly. In my mind, that puts you morally on par with the pedophile. Taking advantage of kids, right In my mind, that puts you morally on par with the pedophile, taking advantage

of kids, right? Plain, praying on the vulnerable, like a fucking human vulture. Numerous parties claim to legally represent lean as final days. The poor dude was recorded in videos posted on social media, reporting to clear the air about who truly represented him and his interest. Then his excessive videos would contradict previous to me. No, he's slipping a bit. There were also sexual harassment allegations from nurses employed for his home care in his final months Among the claims was that he walks around naked and demanded oral sex Really did he really do that? Over those nurses looking to make a quick buck and even if he did say that was he isn't was he in his right mind right would you sue a

Mentally handicapped person for saying that would you sue a schizophrenic, not on their meds for saying that? I mean, what the fuck? Stan sent a cease and desist letter to the company that employed those nurses and the charges were immediately dropped. Uh-huh. There were a variety of other legal battles revolving around a leaf feeling that he was being taken advantage of in 2017, early 2018, in May of 2018, his report that Stan Lee was suing Powell, entertainment

for a billion dollars. Sue Clendy was duped and decided to document, given away his right's name, and the two of the people he founded the company with were trying to steal his identity. Then in July of 2018, all the legal ugliness finally went away, thank God, before he died. It was reported that Stan dropped the lawsuit against Powell and then released a statement saying, the whole thing has been confusing to everyone, including myself and the fans. But I'm now happy to be surrounded by those who want the best for me. I am thrilled to put the lawsuit behind me, get back to business with my friends and colleagues at

Powell and launch the next wave of amazing characters and stories. Man, still creating, still passionate, 95. He just wants to come up with new characters. His mind was ready to go, you know, back to work, but his body was not. November 12, 2018, the comic book legend died in Los Angeles from pneumonia complications, 95 years old. His body was then cremated in his ashes, were given to his daughter, and that is all for this week's TimeSuck timeline. Good job, soldier. You've made it back.

Barely. Okay, so I know a lot of this suck has been me, you know, suck in Stansiac. A lot of hero worshiping. There was so much more I could have done in that regard. I don't even talk about all the awards you got. I felt like it would start to read like the world's longest obituary. But let me address now the main controversy that's around Stan taking credit for work that wasn't his.

There have been long standing dispute on who created what, who gets credit for what, you know, writing which comics, etc. To address this, we first need to understand the Marvel way, right, the way these collaborations went down. Stan and his co-workers were part of the Marvel way or the Marvel method, which in an attempt to pump out as many comics as humanly possible in a short amount of time, the illustrator slash artists would give, be given a vague outline, not a worked out plot with a clear story, right, just speed things along. So the artist would then have to decide what to show on the page, and then they would

end up helping, you know, to write and shape the story in that way. And sometimes, you know, they would do more actual story creation than maybe they would be giving credit for later. For example, the Fantastic Four was clearly based on a comic that Jack Kirby had previously worked on called Challengers of the Unknown. But then Stan claimed over and over that he was the one who thought of the Fantastic Four. Coincidence, maybe Jack Kirby did think of a similar plot line and then maybe Stan independently thought of that on his own as possible.

Stan's wife Joan claimed that she'd witness Stan come up with a fantastic four concept. Jack Kirby did always speak positively about his work with Stan. You know, he did leave Marvel in 1970 to go work for the rival DC, but he claims to treat it even worse there and came back to Marvel in 1976. So, you know, why would he come back to work with a guy who steals your ideas? That doesn't make much sense to me. In 1994, years before he died, Jack gave a rare interview to the comics journal

and said, this about Stan's contribution to the work they did together, which is where a lot of this controversy comes from. He said, I dialogue them. If Stan Lee ever got a thing dialogged, he would get it from someone working in the office. I would write out the whole story on the back of every page. I would write the dialogue in the back or description of what was going on. Then Stanley would hand them to some guy. He would write in more

dialogue in this way. Stanley made more pay than he did as an editor. This is the way Stanley became the writer besides collecting the editors pay. He collected writers pay. I'm not saying Stanley had a bad business head on. I do think he took advantage of whoever was working for him. Okay. All right. I mean, that's his, that's his opinion. After Kirby died in February of 94, his family fought for creator credits for years, settled out a court for a sizeable amount recently. So, you know, what we have here is a he said other he said here. I mean, who's lying? Who's telling the truth? Are both sides a little bit right and a little bit wrong? No one will just ever know for sure. But I just think based on how long you kicked ass

in the comic book industry, how many people he worked with, how many characters he created, listed as having created 200 characters over many decades, I just can't believe he stole all of those ideas. There would be a lot more complaints and there isn't actually a lot more complaints. It was a team effort to build these worlds

and Stanley was on arguably more of these teams than anyone, and I don't think that happens unless you're creative force to be reckoned with. And whenever there's a team collaboration, people are going to have different viewpoints about how much each person contributed. That's just human nature. So that is why Stanley is thought of, you know, by some is a guy who stole some stuff, you know, by like, you know, comments like that by Jack Kirby. Most comments with fans seem to think he was an absolute hero. Flood. Yeah, maybe a little bit, but aren't all heroes. Aren't we all from Spider-Man to the Hulk Iron Man to the Avengers Lee was there for it all. Man, he and his peers created thousands of characters nurtured an industry worth billions of dollars. I hope you enjoyed this March through comic book history and the life is tanley certainly not

able to cover close to it all in one podcast. It lived a long time, he did a lot of shit. But I hope you know more about Stan and the beautiful literary genre. He was a part of now than you did before you hit play. Let's recap what we learned now with today's Top 5 takeaways. Boom zap! Pukupau! Bam! Auga!

Auga! Time suck! Top 5 takeaway! I love all those comic book little bubble words. A-U-G-A-U-G-A-U-G-A! Time, suck, tough, five, take away! I love all those comic book little bubble words. A number one, Stanley helped create a massive multimedia entertainment empire. The movies and games are worth billions, the amount of comics that have been sold as mind-boggling. How cool it must have been for him to be there for basically the entire progression

of that industry. Right from a brand new, often struggling medium to the most profitable genre of film in the world. Number two, the X-Men world films have been made over, have made over $6 billion at the box office alone. The Avengers based universe has made over $18 billion. Zap, pow, caching! Number three, Stanley co-created 200 comic book character Spider-Man, the Hulk, the fantastic four ant man, the Avengers, Black Panther, Dr. Doom, Deathstalker, Thor, Quicksilver,

even some dude named fancy Dan, and on and on. Fancy Dan, super villain, created 1964 to battle Spider-Man, part of a group called The Enforcers, really good to karate, really good to judo, good to, as a marksman, once made Spider-Man's, once made fun of Spider-Man's once made fun of Spider-Man's butt saying that Spider-Man's butt was too big. Yeah. Yeah. Now you make a lot of characters they can't be hits. Number four, Stan Servedin World War Two working as one of only nine playwrights, his job was to write manuals, training, film, slogans, and even some cartoons for the war effort. I think Stan for his service. Number five new info,

comic book characters may make even more money in merchandising rights than they do at the box office. In 2013, Spider-Man alone made over $1.3 billion in global product likeness licensing revenue. The Avengers made $325 million. Batman made 494 million Superman made almost 300 million Disney who owns Marvel overall made 41 billion dollars in 2013 and just licensing sales There are also video game sales DVDs downloads rentals on and on and on all that money and it all started with a couple of silly ideas and a lot of hard work. So work hard in your silly ideas. That's all for today's top five takeaways.

Stanley has been sucked. I hope you enjoyed it. Thanks to a Karpow Slurp spit. Thanks to the time sucked team. Thanks to Queen of the Circle Indie Cummins. I preceed the suck Harmony Velocamp, Reverend Doctor Joe Paisley. Thanks to the Biddle Licks or App Design crew. Thanks to my mishmouth, my tongue constantly slipping today. Thanks to Axis Apparel, now another spicy club, big thanks to the script keeper. Zach Flannery also to comedian and book and comic book nerd John Huck. Yes, John Huck helped with initial research.

If you want to meet more time suckers, I keep seeing that the Colton Curious Private Facebook group is growing. Get in there, meet some people, make some friends, hear more about time suck friendships, all the time it shows. For even more social interaction, head over to the time-soaked Discord group from the time, or on the, you can link from the time-soaked app. Also links for both in the episode description. Next week we're going to get real wacky doodle, and I like it, the Nazi search for the Holy

Grail. Heinrich Himmler, head of the Nazi SS, made a secret wartime mission to an Abian Spain in search of what he believed was the Aryan Holy Grail. Himalayan visited the famous Montressette Abbey in your Barcelona where he thought he would find the grail, which Jesus Christ was said to have used to consecrate the last supper. Himalayan thought if he could lay claim to this holy grail, it would help Germany win the war, give him supernatural powers. He could be like a weird Stanley's superpower or super villain.

The Nazis were so crazy, they also, you know, they thought that instead of being the king of the Jews, the Jesus Christ was actually descended from Aryan stock. They convinced themselves that somehow that was possible. And they really thought that if they could find these, you know, supposed magical relics they could control the world. We're going to dig into their quest, which sounds like a crazy graphic novel plot next week on Time Shuck. For the rest of this week's episode, we're gonna dive into the mind of the cult of the curious, and today's Time Sucker Updates. First update coming in from a fantastic sucker Travis Matrius.

Gosh dang it, I don't fucking know. Matrius? Matrius. He has a beef with Nimrod and he gives me a chance to clear some stuff up. Travis, if you're listening, I do see you sent a follow of email which I didn't have a chance to really go over. It was Russian to get this in there about feeling bad about this email. You shouldn't feel bad about this email.

I thought it was great, which is why I'm reading it. Travis wrote, dear master of the suck While I love you in your comedy, but Spider-Man is awesome Fuck Nimrod my father comming to Siwin. I was a month old to say he and countless others are Nimrod's butthole because they had one bad day It's not only an insult, but a slap in the face of those who remain was my father a good person likely no Does that mean they he should be stuck in Nimrod's tainted best? No. I love my father. And I myself have contemplated hanging myself when things get dark. If Nimrod punishes those who commit suicide, he is no better than the Christian God. My father may not have been good, but suicide

is no reason for him to be punished. If you ignore this and have one of your assistants answered in high, I know this likely won't get read, but one other person reading this makes me feel better. Will I stop listing? No. Time suck health pulled me out of my darkness. But if I can get Dan to spend even one second saying, maybe suicide isn't so evil, then so be it. I don't think he feels it's evil, but maybe it's uninformed about it. I think he's a good person, but has misspoke for a while on suicide. Sarah, this was so long, but I'm drunk and then for more likely to speak out with no

filter. Sure, I can use this to push for topics I've mentioned, one of which is in the spaces of voting, but I'm not. I feel like those who are victims of suicide or future victims of suicide get lost in the discussion of suicide is bad. I said that, so I'm good, right? Your faithful sucker and peeper, Travis Matriuis. Your name, I don't know the last name. I think I'm nailing Travis though.

Travis, I'm glad you sent this yet. Suicide like most things in life, ultimately is complicated. When I said that those who commit suicide end up in Nimrod's buttole way back in suck 49, I was doing so as a way of encouraging everyone to not give up, right? In that episode specifically,

I brought it up in the context of not letting the world, not letting maybe a negative social circle beat you down to the point that you think suicide sounds like a good option. You know, I just want people to fight to stick around, bring some light to the world. That being said, I do realize that sometimes suicide is a direct result of a judgment clouded by mental illness or drug abuse. And when your mind's not working right, it can be very difficult to reach out for help. If you're capable of reaching out, then fucking reach out.

I really hope you do. Also, I don't think, yeah, the one shitty final act makes you a shitty person. Take Robin Williams, the comic actor, how much joy did that one dude bring to the world? So much. So did killing himself make him an asshole? In the end, no, no, of course not. I don't think it's that simple. Do I still think it's a selfish act?

Yes, in all but extreme cases I do. And again, by extreme case, I mean, you know, when somebody is as they're mentally clout about like mental illness, maybe they're terminally ill, maybe they killed themselves to avoid a painful death or inevitable mental and physical deterioration, you know, I get it in that sense. Travis, do I think your dad has to live in Nimrod's butthole or repunished forever? No, of course not. And I do apologize for phrasing that the way that I did, even in a joke, it doesn't feel right. Maybe I need to revisit my old scrolls, make sure I'm interpreting Nimrod's will correctly.

I probably messed up, you know. Some of his wisdom probably got translated poorly, just like the whole smashing cock or spaniels to appease him and pay tribute to him is probably symbolic and not literal. However, I also don't want to act like taking your life just because you have a bad day isn't a really fucked up thing to do. Especially if you have a kid to take care of and I'm sorry, you know, that your dad had that happen with him. I know not cool. I bet if he could somehow come back, he would apologize to you. So I hope you're doing well, Travis. I hope with things getting dark, dark thoughts

surround you. You continue to fight them off. I hope this show continues to help hail Nimrod. Next up, cool World War One update for military history buff, meet sack Joseph Jocoletto. Thanks for the pronunciation guide. Joseph writes, dear suck master, Reverend Dr. Cummins Nimrod's profit and slayer of Luciferia. I'm working my way through old episodes. I'm a recent convert.

This is why I'm writing to this World War One update now. You talked about all the new technologies that came out with the war to end all wars and you mentioned submarines. This was however not the first war in which the submarine was used. That distinction of the first submarine used in war used by the losers of the American Civil War,

the Confederate States of America. They developed a hand crank submersible attached to torpedo to the bow called the CSA Hunley, named for the designer H. L. Hunley, and has the distinction of being the first submarine to be successfully used in combat, sinking the USS Hussatonic in an attempt to break the Union blockade of Charleston. Unfortunately, it was more dangerous to its crew than the enemy, killing three of its own crew members.

The last sinking left it to sit on the sea floor for over 100 years until it was discovered and raised from the depths. Experts have recently finished excavating the contents. Furthering our understanding of the first semi-successful submarine. Love the podcast. It's the greatest attraction I'm having a shitty day at work.

I praise Nimrod every day, that my cousin Lauren got me hooked. Keep doing what you do, your loyal spaces are Joe, Jocoletto. Again, thank you for the pronunciation. Thanks for the correction. Yeah. World War I was when submarines were really prominently featured in battle. Your example was the first successful use of a submarine.

Yeah, in the Civil War. And actually, technically, the world's first submarine use slash attack, as far as wartime occurred in September 7th, 1776 during the Revolutionary War, when the American submersible craft called Turtle attempted to attach a time bomb to the whole of a British admiral or to the whole of British admiral Richard House flagship Eagle in New York Harbor. First use of the submarine warfare. Designed by Seybrook Native and Yale graduate David Bushnell, the turtle was a one-man vessel submerged by a mending water into the hole and surfaced by pumping it out by hand.

The oak carved egg shapes submarine was armed with a torpedo made from a cacupowder. It would be attached to an enemy ship's hole on the night of September 6th, 7th, the turtle operated by army volunteer Ezra Lee made its way to the dark waters of the harbor, conducted the attack, problems arose. However, when the boring device operated from inside the submarine failed to penetrate the ship's hole. The torpedo was eventually abandoned. Lee emerged unhurt. The abandoned torpedo detonated about an hour after his release, but didn't know harm. The turtle would attack again, only to be discovered. It was subsequently captured by the British and then sunk. Pretty cool. Finally, Cornelius Van Drabel, a Dutch

inventor in the service of King James I of England, he designed and built the first successful submarine way back in 1620. The year he pulled off its successful demonstration in the River Thames. So thank you, Joe, for help me out with a little submarine history lesson. Now an important social message, centered from spaces or Emma Sanders, inspired by something I said way back in suck 118, Emma writes, "'Time me a sucker on high, I might be a little high, but this is regarding the tirade about not calling the cops

when it sounds like someone is being assaulted, 118 in the alphabet murders. As someone who's in a dumb sub relationship which involves some very rough play, please call the police. Excuse me, if you think that someone is being assaulted, we have had the cops called on us once and it just made for a funny story for them,

and an embarrassing yet proud moment for us. Fun fact, BDSM is actually helpful for people who have suffered through sexual assault or domestic violence. It requires trust and firm boundaries, contrary to popular belief, that submissive as total control and is able to stop the entire scene

to single word, a short phrase or a special hand signal. Fifty shades of gray really fucked up the actuality of a dom sub relationship. A true dominant will immediately stop and ask if you're okay, what's wrong, what they can do to make you comfortable. They will never do something you've explicitly told them not to do for or to you. Consent boundaries, communication and trust, the foundations of BDSM, all things people who have been physically or sexually assault to have problems with, often due to PTSD. There are studies which back this,

my therapist actually told me about it after I mentioned being a sub. Tasty tidbit for the chompers. The word pineapple is the most often used, say for it. Keep on sucking, Emma. Well, thank you, Emma, for that awesome message about sexual health and sexual empowerment,

Hailu's to Fina. I'm feeling her presence strongly right now. That was some hot education. I love it. And yes, call the police if you think you're hearing a sexual thought. Always. Worst case, you embarrass someone or yourself. And at the end of the day, you know, some embarrassment really that big of a deal.

I don't think so. I just recorded a standard special where I confess to once fucking a banana peel and also some pillows. Don't let potential embarrassment keep you from saving somebody from being sexually assaulted. Thank you Emma. Hail Nimra. Awesome info coming in now from Josh Branch Flower shooting down some false flag bull shit that's up to concern around certain conspiracies such as Sandy Hook which I've referenced in a few sucks. Josh writes, well hello suck master flex. I'm a long time listener and time suck. Longer listener, you're stand-up comedy

and finding you had a podcast, couldn't have been any better until you created the only STD that I have, I hope. Oh, thanks for listening to Skyr to Death. I'm writing you today with a request of a suck. I know that they get voted on and such, but just wanted to put this out there. Although I had lived in three different countries

by the time I was 11, the town I resided in when I came to America was Newton, or I think it's, yeah, Newton town. Maybe it's either Newton or Newton. Newton, God dang it. Now I can't remember. Now I'm having a whatever. It suddenly left me.

With a part of Newton being standing hook. I was in town working when the shooting happened and even worse lost friends, lost family friends in the tragedy. A few years later, I even coached a few kids in hockey that lost still beans or friends. Today, that haven't been through such a horrible event as that, and I don't think it ever will be.

One thing I wasn't prepared for was messages on Facebook asking me if the event was real. I know it was. I went to the funeral of our family friend where the casket was no more than four feet long. I know the cult of the curious has a lot of conspirators. And that's amazing because I love conspir long. I know the cult of the curious has a lot of conspirators. That's amazing because I love conspiracies.

I enjoy diving into them. But when it comes to something like this, where children's lives are lost, I discount everyone who asked me if it was real. You call them idiots of the internet. They are, but they are so, but there are so many because of the access to the internet. I feel this needs to get sucked.

I don't want this to be about the gun debate or anything that could lead to controversy because personally, I do not believe the guns are the issue. And who the hell wants to get political? Feel free to reach out with questions about this tragedy, even if you don't decide to do this suck because I'm happy to talk to like-minded individuals, especially the suck master. Anyways, whether you read the Ramlins or not, just know that I am one of the many lies

you touch with your comedy and podcasts. And if you're walking on my side of the sidewalk, I will never hesitate to put down my shoulder and tighten my core. I thank you for everything, Josh. Yeah, thank you, Josh. Yeah, stay tight and shoulder my friend. And thanks for sharing that. Yeah, conspiracy is a fun.

Some people take them way too far, start thinking that a variety of grieving parents with no history of working for the government or suddenly crisis actors, they keep thinking this because colossal dipschits, like Alex Jones says that these things are are true despite numerous people like yourself coming forward to say, hey, fuckers, I was there, sought, people died. It's not, it's not false. I'm not sure how to frame a topic about the advent of the internet or how the advent of the internet has led to massive

disinformation about a variety of topics, but it is a real problem. And I'm sure I can continue to touch on it in a, in various sucks. I do want to suck the Sandy Hook conspiracy. One of these days for sure. Hail Nimra. Next up, great message from a meat sack, Alex Garcia. Call him out for some judging-ness on the Kildos or suck. Alex writes, so I just listened to the Kildos or episode. Throughout the podcast, you get to say into the topic

was deep and complicated and not as simple as what people think. And while I agree with your position on that topic, I wanted to say that not everyone has to do research as a job for topics like you. Hell, it was so in depth, you had to thank Zach Flannery in the middle of the episode. I noticed you do this sometimes. There was a complicated topic that requires a shit ton of research to understand. And when people don't understand it, for not researching as much as you do, you call them fucking idiots. And I say this not to complain or anything. I just say this to bring it to your attention. And maybe get an answer as to as you do, you call them fucking idiots. And I say this not to complain or anything. I just say this to bring it to your attention, and maybe get an answer as to why you do it.

Anyway, start for the poor, you're written email. It's probably riddled with grammatical mistakes, not. So it was fine. Your humble servant, Alex Garcia, PS, yes, I get the most people that you call fucking idiots, are idiots, and I agree with that. Okay, all right, Alex. I want to thank you for sending this message.

Yes, thanks to you listeners. I wanna thank you for sending this message. Yes, thanks to you listeners. I do get to do research for Olivia. I do have the luck she was spending far more time on a topic than the average person. But I'm still gonna keep calling these people idiots, and here's why I don't think they're idiots for not understanding a complex topic.

I think they're idiots for confidently leaving public comments about an issue they clearly do not understand. And in that way, they are behaving ideologically. And that's a pet peeve of mine. When I don't know a lot about a topic and it comes up in conversation, I do my best to stay clear of really weighing in much. You know, I realize that I'm out of my depth, like with current politics.

A lot of my friends much more well-versed than I am. My wife Lindsey keeps up with politics much more than I do. So, when political subjects come up, when we're talking about specific political issues, I talk less and listen more. I don't leave comments on the web about issues that I'm self-aware enough to realize I don't know much about.

And I wish more people did the same. Now, it's okay not to know. So many people, you know, shouldn't have left a comment of unequivocal support and encouragement for Marvin Hemeyer when all they did was just quickly listen to just his side of what was obviously a complicated issue. You know, I mean, does that make sense? I hope so.

So it's not about people not understanding. It's about people being very opinionated about what they don't understand. Healed me about two Alex. Okay, one more kill those are message from Jason Scott. Calls me out for taking it to easy on Marvin Hemeyer zoning dispute opponents. Jason writes, suck dozer, hail masterdozer of knowledge, suck master, monthly money, muffler money, motherfucker, hail what a doozy. Killdozer was painful to listen to because it was full of details, but that's a good thing. The more detailed, the better for something like this to cut through the nonsense props to Zach script, dozer details, but that's a good thing. The more detailed the better for something like this to cut through the nonsense, props

to Zach Scripdozer, Flannery for doing a good job. I'll try to be brief, love the interview with the officer. That was a good touch. And though I don't want time stuck to ever become interview suck, every once in a while will be good. Hard to be sympathetic at all for killdozer because at the end of the day, he destroyed tons of private property, put everyone's life in danger, no sympathy. However, the pain in was just a cuck or a woe is me type, not entirely accurate.

He was a victim of small town horse shit and drove him over the edge. He could have sold out several times and left well enough alone, but he didn't. His pride drove him to this terrible act, and even though local assholes made his life painful, he wasn't without options for leaving multiple times. Nepotism and favoritism are sad traits of human nature, and he's far from the only person who's ever been a victim of it. I really wanted to write it and tell you that I felt like you gushed over the small townness of it all. And I think that sounded a little out of character for you. Generally, you seem to always champion the rule of law. But in this story, you got to knowingly ra-ra about him being a

townie versus an outsider. I get it. I grew up in a small town now, live in a smaller city, that is slowly being bought up by people from Northern states, goddamn Yankees, who take advantage of the disparity in income to buy up the affordable property here in price people out. Trust me. I've been in the same God damn tiny apartment for five years because it's impossible to buy a house so I understand. But the rule of law is what defines us as a nation and as a civilized species. We should never turn a blind eye to corruption. That shit happens mentality has poison government on every level and the tribalism that continues to support it makes even the discussion of it impossible. For the record, I don't condone Kildos or man at all nor do I believe he has any justification

whatsoever for his actions. If I was him, I would have sold out many years earlier and left well enough alone, but Pride is a motherfucker for some people. Dan, you probably saved my life more than once because you of a soundbite on a previous episode about the dangers of pride. You talked about how you were exiting the plane once and some dude cutting front of you and the guy next to you was like, it's not worth it. This past year I've been traveling a lot for my second job, you know, two jobs, still can't

afford a fucking house. And when I'm on the road, I always have your voice in my head, no matter how fucked up, corrupt, or unfair or something, his life is more important. Walk away from any shit situation, live another day, your pow loyal apartment dwelling spaces are J. Well, thank you, J. Yes, sir. I have to remind myself not worth all the damn time. Still have temper flare ups. When a moment I debate risking my family's financial future just to teach someone who I think

is an asshole, what I think is a lesson. Done. I have to fight those urges often. Yes, law is important. And while some minor laws may have actually been broken by the Grand B Council, here's my thing with Kildozer, I'm not sure any major law really was broken because he did file a lawsuit against the town. It didn't even make it a trial, it was dismissed.

So were a bunch of laws actually broken to fuck him over? I'm just not sure they were. Sounds like they weren't. As far as gloss and overnepidism and conflicts of interest, I just think it's inevitable in some small situation. Like in higher branches of government, I get it. Very important to avoid, you know, in the Oval Office, Capitol Hill and state government, but in volunteer, teeny-town less than 2,000 people volunteer government. Do I think it's messed up for people who grew up together to try to stay together and help each other out on an issue?

To be loyal to one another? No, I just think it's kind of a normal community thing to do. But again, I do see you're saying, come from a small town where my grandpa is one is not only the city inspector, but also the mayor. Yeah, I'm probably biased for sure I am. I'm sorry, my bias came out more than normal in that suck. Best luck with the change in economy in your town. I feel for you. Hail Nimrod J.

And last message, we'll leave on some comedy. Meet Sack, Chris Schwartz, Schwartzus. Schwartzus, there we go. Y'all, thank you for the pronunciation of Kate. Our guide, Chris Schwartzus, shared a rough part of the suck with the wrong audience. And I laughed my ass off when I first read this. Chris wrote, subject of God fucking damn it,

Master Sucker. Sorry for the strong subject line, just wanna get your attention. Hey master sucker Reverend Cummins, S.Qaire the third leader of Suckdom, you got me damn it. So things have been tough lately, so I decided to get a second job

to help support my wife and three kids. For the last four weeks, I've been interviewing and trading phone calls with a local company that helps those with mental disabilities with their daily lives and lead them to have a more productive individual life in the community. I tell you this because today, I received a final call from the company that I've been

waiting on for a week. Don't worry, get into the good part. At that moment, I have been sitting in my desk at my main job, working at a quality control associate in an office space that I share with two other gentlemen. So to listen to the suck, I used wireless Bluetooth earbuds. I was listening to the ninth circle cult suck when it suddenly cut out and my phone began to ring. I answered and went to say hello, but by some wackadoodle-tom fullery when I slide to

answer the phone, the suck comes back to life. And for some reason, my Bluetooth headphone disconnects. And what blers out of my phone was, I think we all can agree that every 40-something-year-old dude wants to motorboat some fresh out of the box junior high titties. And there's grass on the field. Am I right, fellas? I struggle to stop the suck, but Nimrod's will was too strong. To my biggest embarrassment, my boss, one of the guys I share my office space with, by the way, here's all of that.

Yes, the woman from the, the woman from the company I was applying to on the phone also heard it. I finally rastled the suck to submission, tried to answer the phone also heard it. I finally rassled a sucked a submission, tried to answer the phone as if nothing happened. She asked me what that was. I explained. I explained it was a podcast called Time Suck and I tried my best to explain what you just heard. Did I mention this is a Christian based organization? A few harrowing moments pass when she says to me, oh yeah, my husband listens to that. I felt a little relieved and you would be happy to hear

that I got the job. So it's good. I let it work out. So after the call, I put my ear buds back in, backed up a bit and lost my shit when you said that line about this, getting taken out of context. Anyway, I've been listening to Times Look for a while now. I've noticed that on the Times Looker updates,

this has been happening to others as well. So if someone else hasn't coined this term yet, I call it Cummins Law, kind of like Murphy's Law. And it states, if any situation has the potential to be embarrassing, an ill-timed master sucker rent will make it even more embarrassing. Well, that's all I got, master sucker. Sorry about the long email, but I had to share. Hail, name, rot, hail to master sucker, hail the queen of the suck, praise, bojangles, all glory be to triple them and lose the fena. Call me. Here come the spoons, motherfucker, and keep on sucking.

Your faithful space, hazard, Chris, Schwart, Shawartus. The e is silent, Moshmouth. Thank you, thank you for that tip. P.S., if you happen to read this on the suck and you shout out a fellow space, hazard, and one of my best friends, Lawrence Brewster for the Lovin' Imrod, where the hell can I buy a lighter rocket?

Oh, well thank you, Chris. And hello to you, Lawrence Brewster. Hail them, not to you both. Cummins, lie, love it. Man, if a situation provides a potential for me to really embarrass you by hearing others, you know, or having others, hear me say some super fucked up shit out of context.

It's probably gonna happen. So be careful out there, meet Saks. Don't let me get you fired. If you lose that paycheck, you might not be able to pay the phone or the Wi-Fi bill and you might not be able to keep on sucking. Thank you for the messages, everybody. Thanks for listening every week and letting us do what we do.

And I'll talk to you very soon. Thanks, time suckers. I need a net. We all did. Have a great week, everybody. If you make a ton of money and live into your 90s, careful who you trust with your money. We all did. Couple dirty trousers or hobos hitching a ride.