This is a highly readable account of Stan Lee's involvement in the rise of comic books in the 20th century to superhero movies in the 21st century. Stan Lee lived from 1922 to 2018, carving out a highly visible role in comic book mythology. I am casually interested in Marvel and Stan Lee. The various heroes have been part of pop culture throughout my life. In other words, I'm not a trivia expert, a collector, a die-hard-see every movie person. I recommend this as a really interesting overview of the various industry giants, how artists were treated, how the industry evolved, and why Marvel (as of now) has triumphed in movies produced since 2008. If you have already read a lot on the topic, I would still recommend this as a fairly concise and interesting read. It gathers a lot of information without being boring.

For me Stan Lee's been this always smiling funny old dude making brief cameos in Marvel inspired comicbook movies. I knew he was one of the creators of the most well-known Marvel superheroes, but that was it.

I picked up this book to learn more about this interesting man. And I was not disappointed. If anything I learned more than I expected. About the comicbook publishing industry, its history and the importance of self-promotion..

If you're Stan Lee's stan and comicbooks are your obsession, this book might not be for you because you probably won't learn anything new. But if you're someone like me, a casual MCU fan who once in a blue moon reads a comicbook, you'll most find it an informative and satisfying read.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with an ARC!

This Stan Lee biography is rightly titled Stan Lee: How Marvel Changed the World. The author tells the interconnected story of Stan Lee's life and the story of Marvel. As a reader, you can tell Mackinder's affinity with comics.

Personally, I became familiar with Stan Lee while watching the MCU movies. Other than the Kamala Khan Ms Marvel comics by G. Willow Wilson, I haven't picked up any Marvel comics. It was an interesting read to learn more about the man behind the cameos. As a fan of the MCU, I especially enjoyed the chapter on the movies.

I would recommend Stan Lee: How Marvel Changed the World to more avid comics fans and the Stan Lee completists.

There has been a plethora of Stan Lee’s bios to choose from since his passing. The main reason Is elected this was its brevity. I figured 192 pages should tell me just enough about The Man and Marvel. And it actually did just that. It was very informative, accessible and fun, obviously well researched and fascinating, but…biased. Granted I’m not a frequent biography readers, but the ones I’ve read have all been either neutral or very fond of their subjects. Not the case here. In fact, from the beginning the author seems downright contemptuous of his subject and frequently throughout the book he chose to go with the worst possible explanation of a situation or a behavior.
It didn’t color my opinion of Stan Lee overall, because I’m a huge fan and have a tremendous amount of respect for The man, his talent, his legend and his legacy. Just wasn’t sure the author shared that. At any rate, it didn’t preclude him from being able to present facts of life and doing so in a fun and engaging manner…second reason I chose this bio was Mackinder’s past comedic career, figured it’d be a fun read. It was. Also, opinionated.
Jack Kirby, another Marvel luminary, was presented in a surprisingly kind light, considering the amount of nastiness he has spewed Lee’s way over the years. In fact, it’s kind of amazing the two have ever managed to work together, let alone for so long. Toward the end of his life Kirby has bitterly accused Lee of all sorts of things, Trumpstyle blatant untruths about easily verifiable facts. But anyway…Lee was in business for ages, has been essential in making Marvel the powerhouse it became, however that trajectory has ebbed and flowed over the years. The two are inseparable with Stan Lee having been the face and image of the company for decades. You don’t get to a place like that without stepping on some toes, without resorting to some shameless self promotion (something the author of this book seems especially begrudging about).
And the thing is it doesn’t really matter, not in the grand scheme of things. Spoken like a fan? Sure. Why wouldn’t you be one? Stan Lee was the embodiment of the American Dream, a son of impoverish Eastern European Jewish immigrants who attainted success in every possible measure. A talented writer, a wily promoter, an intuitive businessman, an imaginative luminary, a devoted family man and eventually a very, very wealthy one. Stan Lee created legends and in the end became one.
Nothing in the book has made me admire The Man any less, despite the author’s occasionally snippy tone. Plus I learned a bunch of things about Lee and Marvel and the comic industry in general, from bitter rivalries to grand successes. These days Marvel Cinematic Universe has made the entire world aware of Lee’s (and others’) creations. I’m not actually a huge fan of traditional superhero comics, but some things are just impossible not to appreciate, if only for their tremendous entertainment value. And so In loved the behind the scenes look at the origin stories of some of the greatest, greenest, grandiose, gravity defying and grooviest gangbusters out there. That attempt at grandiloquence was to honor Stan Lee, the alliteration king par excellence.
Overall, this was a very enjoyable read. The infusion of author’s personality might work to a different degree for different readers, but the stories within these book are too great to fail, irrespective of perspectives. Recommended. Thanks Netgalley.

Being an avid Marvel fan I couldn't wait to get stuck into this & it didn't disappoint. Fantastic book about the legend & creator of the comics & movies Stan Lee.

As far as the world of comics goes, Stan Lee was probably the most important person to have ever lived. Born to a Romanian-Jewish family in New York in 1922, young Stanley Lieber became involved in the world of comics early. An office boy in the 1930s, by the end of a frustrating 1950s, Lee came close to quitting the world of comics forever until his Newcastle-born British wife suggested he create a new crop of comic superheroes to challenge the near monopoly then enjoyed by Superman and Batman creators, D.C. In a remarkably short space of time, Lee created Spider-Man, The Fantastic Four, Iron Man, The X-Men and The Avengers essentially establishing Marvel as the incredibly profitable global media powerhouse that it remains to this day. Happy ever after?
Well, no. Partly because, as Adrian Mackinder explains, the extent to which Lee can really claim complete credit for creating all these amazing characters remains hotly disputed. This is not a hagiography and while Lee was careful to cultivate a loveable avuncular image amongst Marvel's armies of 'True Believers,' Mackinder, though clearly a big fan himself, does not shy away from exploring the less desirable elements of Lee's character.
In short, Mackinder not only does a commendable job of detailing the highs, lows, creative explosions, fallings out and film cameos which made up Lee's almost 96 years on Earth but also does a commendable job of explaining the cultural context in which they occurred. In addition to Lee's life, we also learn a lot not only about the history of Marvel comics, but also get much on how vaudeville declined in the teeth of competition from radio and cinema in the 1920s and 1930s and much of interest about ALL comic adaptations on TV and film over the decades, not just the Marvel ones. It is easy to forget, despite the renaissance in comic book based films in the 21st century,, just how many flops there also were (Daredevil, Elektra, Ghost Rider, to name but a few).
I must admit: I have sometimes written about the history of comics myself. But ultimately, I must put aside any feelings of professional jealousy and concede: Adrian Mackinder really has done an exceptional job here.
Nuff said.

I received a copy of this ebook in exchange for an honest review
Stan Lee is a fascinating person. He created a world that has enjoyed a long history and still continues to thrive.

I'm not a fan of MCU movies, I find a lot of their plots leave me absolutely cold. I really like comics though, and more than that, I like books that are about the origin stories of those comics-most of them have fascinating backstories. 'The amazing adventures of Kavalier and Clay', for instance, is a book I absolutely love for its fictional setting in the Gold Age of comics. This was a fascinating non-fictional account, tracing not just Stan Lee, but the context he started in, right from the Golden Age of comics, and the origins of DC Comics, apart from Stan Lee's illustrious co-creators, Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko. Stan Lee has been accused of overstating his role in the creation of Marvel's iconic characters, and this book attempts o present an objective view, with competing perspectives. For a work as collaborative as a comic, that requires an entire team to bring it to life, assigning credit is very difficult-a writer might have the idea, but is his contribution more valuable than the artist's, who actually brings it to life, and adds in his contributions as well? The obvious solution is to list all the contributors, but Stan Lee seems to have been the only one who realized the importance of getting your name on a byline! It's not a hagiographical account by any means, but it's not entirely cynical either-Stan Lee played a part in the foundations of a comic empire that to this day holds sway over the imaginations of millions. Stan Lee seems to have worked tirelessly to promote ( also self-promote) Marvel, going on the lecture circuit and fan conventions long before they were huge showcase events, all contributing to his myth as founding father. I really liked the book for focussing on the comic book business, and how Marvel has sustained as a company, and as a medium of entertainment, despite the competing avenues of entertainment coming up every generation: radio, television, the Internet-people are still buying and reading comics. It's not always been smooth sailing for Marvel, but they've managed to sustain through multiple changes of ownership and even bankruptcy at one point Stan Lee, however, has always been retained as an employee and 'The Face of Marvel' ( I'm not entirely sure how he managed to stay so relevant well into the 21st Century).
As i said, I may not like most of the cinematic output of Marvel ( apart from Sam Raimi's Spiderman and Black Panther) , it's astonishing to see how popular the movies are, given that they're just tweaked a bit from comics written nearly 4 decades ago. This is a fun, insightful read into a cultural behemoth, and I would recommend it even for people who aren't comics fans.

I am a die-hard Marvel fan and absolutely love Stan Lee. However, I struggled with this book. It really didn’t give me anymore information about Stan and Marvel that the other books give. The author wrote this book in a fun, chatty way and at times it was very hard for me to follow. I would have to reread sections just to understand what was being told. It was almost written like my 12 year old son would tell a story. Wordy, too much detail, randomness, and ongoing. Don’t get me wrong, I liked this book but didn’t love it. It was interesting and a very detailed look at Stan Lee and his role in pop culture. If you have read other Stan Lee books and want to read something new, then this would be perfect. But, to pick this up as a fan without any context, I think would bring confusion.

Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC to facilitate my unbiased review.

This is a fascinating read that takes you through the birth of Marvel and interweaves its story with others like DC. The author obviously has a great interest in the genre.
The book shows the development of Marvel its problems along the way and how Stan Lee made himself the face of the comic.
This really is a great read if you are into the genre or not.

First sentence (from the prologue): Face Front, True Believer! Of all Stan Lee’s many catchphrases, this one is perhaps the most revealing. During his time as editor-in-chief of Marvel Comics, back in the 1960s, he used it wherever he could. Be it in a caption within the pages of a comic book story itself, or as part of regular editorial feature ‘Stan’s Soapbox’; ‘face front, true believer’ was a rallying cry for the ages.

First sentence from chapter one: To understand what makes a person tick, you need to wind back the clock. Our past informs our present, and what came before illuminates who we really are. Ask any storyteller. To relate to a character, you need to understand where they’ve been. There’s a reason we talk about life’s ‘defining moments’. There’s a reason we think the struggles and challenges we’ve endured in life ‘build character’. One of the reasons the recent Marvel Cinematic Universe franchise has proved so successful is because the filmmakers took their time introducing their central characters before they became who they were destined to be.

Premise/plot: This book is a biography of Stan Lee. It focuses a bit more on his career than on his personal, private life. (But I don't have a problem with that.) The subtitle really says all you need to know: How Marvel Changed the World.

It is one part biography of Stan Lee. And probably two parts the history of comic books, super heroes, and the translation of comic book super heroes onto television, film, and product lines (toys, etc.) It isn't just Stan Lee's story. It is the story of multiple publishing companies--including DC--over DECADES. It is the story of writers and illustrators. It is a story of collaborations and disagreements. It is a story of the fans--the readers and collectors. It is a story about public relations. Stan Lee marketing himself from a very young age as the face (and sometimes voice) of MARVEL. The last few chapters do focus on the Marvel Cinematic Universe. It is a story of ups and downs. It wasn't only happy-happy-good times behind the scenes. Mackinder does a good job (in my opinion) of presenting multiple sides of an issue.

Do you need to be a super-dedicated fan to enjoy reading this biography? I wouldn't say SUPER fan as a requirement. But I think some interest in the Marvel Universe probably is a must.

It is detailed. But it is not as detailed as it might have been. It isn't marketing itself as an encyclopedia. I thought it gave enough information and detail to always provide context for understanding the bigger picture.

My thoughts: I definitely found this a compelling read. It isn't a traditional biography perhaps. I would say at least two-thirds of the book focuses on MARVEL--those who worked there, the characters created both heroes and villains, the story arcs, etc--and Marvel's place within the world. It seeks to provide not only an origin story for Stan Lee himself (Stanley Martin Lieber), but to provide an origin story for COMIC BOOKS and their place in publishing history. It is hard to imagine a world without super heroes--whether Marvel or DC.

I didn't find it dry. As I mentioned earlier, I found it compelling. I wouldn't be surprised if some chapters held more interest than others for readers. But overall, I do like this one! I learned so much!