Marvel’s Stan Lee gets hero worship at Hollywood memorial
LOS ANGELES — An Army bugler played a mournful taps at a Hollywood memorial for Stan Lee, and military bagpipers sent a solemn “Amazing Grace” into the air.
Standing respectfully around them was another group in its own impeccable uniforms: Lee fans dressed as Black Panther, Wolverine and other members of the X-Men and Avengers.
It might have been a ridiculous scene at the TCL Chinese Theatre Wednesday night had it not been a perfect encapsulation of the life of Lee, a World War II veteran who wanted to become a serious writer and instead grudgingly took a job in comic books, becoming the mastermind behind Marvel Comics and co-creator of many of the best known and most lucrative characters of the last century.
“This was a guy who spent his life dreaming of writing the great American novel, and he didn’t realize he was doing it, over and over and over again,” said the night’s host, filmmaker Kevin Smith, a friend and super-fan of Lee. “The world didn’t need another ‘In Cold Blood.’ It needed Spider-Man.”