What Stan Lee situation, you ask? Well I’ve been hearing rumblings for awhile but The Hollywood Reporter has it all laid out for your perusal, if not necessarily your conclusion:

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/features/stan-lee-needs-a-hero-elder-abuse-claims-a-battle-aging-marvel-creator-1101229

Long story short, there’s been a steadily worsening shitstorm around Stan pretty much ever since his wife died several years ago which is now coming to a head, mostly because people are starting to report that his indefatigable appearances at various comic conventions aren’t so indefatigable any more. I used to joke that advertising your convention would have a Stan Lee appearance was only as big a deal as there was a lack of conventions in your area, because at least around SoCal he’d show up at just about all of them.

Now honestly? The man is 95 years old and that’s a pretty damn good run. He lived to see his co-creations become famous and then even more famous, getting to share the big screen with them, and his name will probably echo as long as there are comics.

But man, the amount of drama surrounding him right now is beyond any amount of Secret Wars. Ugh, I probably shouldn’t joke about it. It’s all really gross.

Personally I feel Stan’s not the Saint some seem to want to make him out to be and wasn’t always the best guy to his creative partners, but the thing is even if the extend of his contributions to the creation of Marvel’s characters are debatable, he *did* have a hand in creating them and he absolutely worked tirelessly to promote the Marvel brand and get it to worldwide recognition. None of the people around him now had a hand in any of that. If this were a throw down between Stan and Jack Kirby, I’d have trouble picking sides, but as it is? Screw all these vultures and their fighting over the fortune of a man who isn’t even a corpse yet. One literally drew his blood and mixed it into ink for profit, and whether or not that was with Stan’s consent it’s still creepy as all hell.

Sad stuff. I just pray my own Autumn years are spent in the company of a lot more love, even if there’s a lot less money involved. And maybe having a lot less money will be exactly why.