STAN LEE

An analysis that goes deeper than most into the metaphysical vision of comics pioneer Stan Lee (1922-2018).

In the latest volume in the publisher’s Jewish Lives series, Leibovitz necessarily focuses on Lee’s essential Jewishness and indicates that his life and legacy deserve academic scrutiny. As an author and commentator who works closely with many Jewish media outlets (he is a senior editor at Tablet) and who has previously published on Jewish subjects, he has the right credentials for the subject. Most importantly, however, Leibovitz brings to the project a deep love for—and knowledge of—the comic-book world that Lee created and how that world impacted popular culture and vice versa. With Marvel Studios now dominating the movie industry, one is less likely to underestimate the popular reach of Spider-Man or the Avengers, but Leibovitz argues that most are missing the big picture, that even serious scholarly attention has been “focusing on history and sociology but rarely on philosophy and theology.” The author’s analysis is not exactly an introduction or a primer, and it will most satisfy those who are already well versed in the Marvel universe, the Talmud, and the cultural and political upheavals that so profoundly impacted the thematic progression of Lee’s empire. Leibovitz wants readers to recognize the cultural parallels between comic books and rock ’n’ roll, to see Lee as a kindred spirit with “another gnomic Jewish artist, Bob Dylan,” and to see how “his comic books, like Dylan’s songs, have become vast cultural canvasses onto which anyone interested in the art form can paint his or her own interpretations, an ongoing dialogue with the artist that mirrors the ancient Talmudic logic of constant conversation and disputation.” The author also touches on Lee’s gift for self-mythologizing and the charges that, as a collaborator, he has taken more credit than is his due.

Another solid addition to the series in which the author brings the seriousness his subject deserves.