The Master of Marvel comes to Toronto

We all have our ways of marking the end of the summer months each year and one of my favorite ways after I became initiated to it is to attend the Fan Expo. For those of you who do not yet know of it, you are probably aware of the Comic Con held annually in San Diego, California. It is now a humongous convention for Sci-Fi and Fantasy fans where movie studios, television networks and dozens of celebrities, showcase their upcoming releases and latest projects.

Toronto's Fan Expo is just like that but on a smaller scale, packing the styling of a five-day Comic Con into just over two. One of the top celebrities featured at the Expo this year was Stan Lee, whose greatest achievements have stemmed from expanding Marvel Comics from a small division of a publishing house to a multimedia powerhouse corporation. He is co-creator of some of the most notable and beloved comic icons in history including but not limited to: Spiderman, the Fantastic Four, the X-Men, the Avengers, Iron Man, the Hulk, Daredevil... and the list goes on.

How does he hold sway over an audience? It's easy for him. What he most likes to write is comedy and let me tell you, the man is hilarious. The word modest is certainly not a part of his vocabulary and quite frankly, if I were as accomplished as he is it most definitely would not need to be, as you can witness here:



Of his body of work Lee says, he's his own 'biggest fan'. The artists are the talent and he just butts in throwing around the "germ of an idea" as he calls it, giving the stories that extra "POW". Speaking of "Pow" there are three more hero's he is set to launch with his company Pow and in collaboration with Boom, their names are Star Born, Soldier Zero and the Traveller. Similarly to his arrangement at the time with artists like Steve Ditko and John Romita from the Marvel days, the artists at Boom and Pow do the work and he winds up taking most of the credit as supervising editor / art director.



If he were a super hero, Lee says the super power he would most want to have is luck. That being said he claims his next great idea would be to create LUCKMAN! In the final moments of the spotlight he spoke of his signature phrase "Excelsior!"


Lee will next be seen in cameos this fall on episodes of Eureka and the new Nikita series launching next week. We will most assuredly see him out of the corners of our eyes in the upcoming big screen releases of Thor in May of 2011 and Captain America next July.