ShareThisBy ANDREW A. SMITH
Sunday, October 22, 2006
The "X-Men: The Last Stand" DVD arrives Oct. 3 with a lot of surprises, not the least of which is an original comic-book story written by X-Men co-creator Stan Lee.
And who better to tell us about it than ... X-Men co-creator Stan Lee?
"(X-Men: The Last Stand Special Collector's Edition) has three stories, old X-Men stories, which are three of my favorites," Lee said in a telephone interview. "They asked me to select three that I'd like to see re-published. (And) it has an original X-Men story that I wrote, and I think you'll find it's like nothing you've seen before."
That story is "X-Men: The Unlikely Saga of Xavier, Magneto and Stan," featuring _ well, Xavier, Magneto and Stan, and drawn by a who's who of Marvel's best artists, including Ron Lim, Ron Frenz, Leinil Yu, John Romita Jr. and Howard Chaykin.
In the story Charles Xavier (leader of the X-Men) and Magneto (their arch-foe) visit Stan with an unusual request _ although neither seems to like him very much. So, yes, the real, live Stan is a character who shares a story with his fictional creations.
"A character? I'm like the (ital) lead character! (end ital)" Stan said with a laugh. "I don't know how my name got last (in the title), but these things happen," he chuckled.
"Xavier, Magneto and Stan" is packaged in a 100-page digest with the aforementioned reprints of Stan Lee-written stories from the '60s: "The X-Men" No. 1 (September, 1963), with the first appearance of Prof. Xavier, Magneto and the X-Men, "The X-Men" No. 4 (March, 1964), introducing the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants, and "The X-Men" No. 9 (January, 1965), guest-starring The Avengers.
Take note: The Special Collector's Edition DVD ($39.98) is only one version of three being released Oct. 3. The "regular" DVD ($29.98) and the "X-Men Trilogy Pack" (complete with the first two movies, $44.98) share with the Collector's Edition the usual host of extras and "Easter eggs," like three alternate endings, 10 deleted scenes, audio commentaries and theatrical trailers.
But only the Special Collector's Edition has the comic book, which for this fanboy is the selling point.
Stan Lee is justly famed for co-creating the Marvel Universe, including the Fantastic Four, the Hulk, the X-Men, Spider-Man and Daredevil. But he's also significant in my personal history, in that I learned to read from early '60s "Fantastic Four" comics, and it was Stan Lee's stories, as much as any other influence, that sculpted my moral paradigm.
It was from Stan _ I never thought of him as "Mr. Lee" _ that I learned that "with great power comes great responsibility," and it was from Stan that I learned it's better to do the right thing than to be popular, and it was from Stan that I learned the essence of a lot of stories from The Bible and Shakespeare, whose lessons and language he liberally lifted.
"People have mentioned that to me over the years, and I can't tell you what a gratifying feeling that is," Lee said. "At the time I was writing these stories I was just trying to make a living. ... And then years later ... so many people have said that those comics helped them with school, with reading ... and their grades in English picked up after reading our books.
"The funny thing is even though they were comics for kids I always tried to use a college-level vocabulary when I wrote the stories. I felt if there's a word (the readers) don't understand, they'll either get it through its use in the sentence by osmosis, or if they have to go to a dictionary and look it up, that's not the worst thing in the world that could happen."
And, while true, it's far too serious a topic to discuss in the same breath as "Xavier, Magneto and Stan," which is more on a par with the "Stan Lee Meets ..." books Stan's writing for Marvel Comics currently, or the "Who Wants To Be A Superhero?" series Stan hosted on Sci Fi Channel (with a comic book coming out this month), or many of Stan's new creations for POW Entertainment. The book, like "The Last Stand" itself, is just a lot of fun.
And who knows fun better than Stan Lee? That's what he promises in "Xavier, Magneto and Stan."
"I didn't want to do the same type of thing, so I tried to make it a funny story, while still keeping everything in character," he said. "I'm really proud of it _ I think it belongs in a magazine like 'Mad'."
Or in a DVD of some of his most famous creations, on the silver screen at last.
(Contact Andrew Smith of The Commercial Appeal at capncomics(at)aol.com or visit www.captaincomics.us/forums.)
