What do Stan Lee and Homer have in common?

Today comic book nerds and superhero movie fans mourned the passing of Stan Lee. They knew this day would come. I first saw this meme years ago:

I don't consider myself a comic nerd, but I have seen most of the Marvel films and watched for the inevitable cameo. As an ancient historian with an interest in ancient pop culture, I've often enjoyed drawing comparisons between mythology and comic book movies, and I have appreciated the similarities between them.

So what do Homer and Stan Lee have in common. Sure, Stan's eyesight was failing (he was legally blind), and Homer was thought to have been blind, but that's not what I'm getting at.

No, their commonality to me is the attribution to them of characters which went on to be reimagined by numerous storytellers afterwards. Yes, Stan Lee created brilliant characters, but they became the prototypes for various retellings of stories by numerous comic book writers and screenplay writers afterwards, much as the Homeric cycle was rewritten throughout antiquity time and time again (I've written on this theme before here). Stan Lee had no problems with his creations being reimagined for new audiences, and if Homer existed as an individual (yes I know a big if) as his work was thought to have been composed as an oral epic, I like to think that he too would have enjoyed seeing his characters reworked by others over time.

The reports on Stan Lee's death on Australia's ABC television made a huge point that his his heroes were deliberately made imperfect and more human, and each time I heard that phrase today, I was immediately drawn to the idea that these characters shared this in common with Greek gods and heroes. I have always seen Iron Man as Prometheus for example. I don't know if this was deliberate, but I do know that the world Stan Lee created in which to place his heroes was influenced by the classical world: consider the evil organisation, Hydra for example. I also think that a family tree of the Greek gods and heroes would be as confusing as an X-Men family tree; they are both confusing and have variations depending on which retelling of the stories you focus on.  Stan Lee also seems to have been a fan of the Latin language. Excelsior (more noble) was one of his favourite words, and at least one of his "Stan's Soapbox" rants from 1968 (it was widely shared today on social media addressing bigotry) was signed off with pax et justitia "peace and justice". 

Stan Lee created characters which inspired writers over decades to rework these into new times for new audiences, just as the Homeric epics did. I do wonder whether in a couple of thousand years time we will be comparing a wealth of later literature to a small portion of Stan Lee's original comics just as we currently compare Greek and Latin poems and plays to the Iliad and the Odyssey. It wouldn't surprise me if people were writing blogs doing so right now. Given the nature of the characters he created, I also wouldn't be surprised if they were still being reimagined for new audiences just as Greek heroes still are today. I also think Stan Lee would have loved that.

Excelsior, Stan Lee (1922-2018).