Could the Nicest Newsmaker of 2015 (as voted by Ye Olde Blogge) be forced to trade in his Christmas stocking for a lump of coal?
According to the Daily Mail, Stan "The Man" Lee, the Walt Disney of super heroes, is accused of groping nurses and (SHUDDER!) demanding oral sex in the shower of his $20,000,000 Los Angeles home,but he has sent a "cease and desist" letter to the nursing company employing those women insisting he is the victim of a shakedown.
The nurses claim he wants to be seduced in his bedroom and drops the F-bomb in their presence.
That does NOT sound like the Stan I know and love! Granted, he DID make a little inside visual joke at the expense of the late Hugh Hefner in the first IRON MAN movie, (Nuff said!) and his STRIPARELLA adult cartoon starring Pamela Anderson could hardly be confused for wholesome family entertainment, but, to be quite honest, the #MeToo train has gone off the rails, and anybody, and I DO mean, ANYBODY, with a beef against a former employer who, in their opinion, MAY be a little too huggy, can just hop on social media, call the local press, or do anything they dang well please, to scream bloody murder and drag the lousy son of a bench's name through the mud.
MY Stan is a nice guy who never hesitates to take time out of his busy schedule to talk comics with the fans who helped him prove wrong the naysayers who said super hero comics were just Pablum with wooden, too-good-to-be-true characters. MY Stan, the one who coined the imperishable phrase, "With great power there must also come great responsibility!", has never forgotten his own words, and takes HIS responsibility as a leader in the entertainment world seriously. He turned a publishing company noted for pulps and rip-offs of Playboy and Mad into Marvel Comics, the gold standard in the industry, famous for reflecting real life while simultaneously transporting the reader to worlds beyond their ken. (Once upon a time, WAAAAY before Marvel's merchandising deal with McDonald's, I sent Stan a Mickey D's gift certificate for the holidays, and a friend of mine at the Marvel Bullpen doubted Stan would know a Big Mac from a Whopper, but a picture of Spider-Man (along with a veritable plethora of Marvels) came swinging my way, and the balloon issuing forth from Spidey's mask said, "Hi,Steve! Thanks for the McDonold's (sic) gift certificate!" In addition, MY Stan is a devoted husband to novelist and actress Joan Comstock Lee and father to Joanie, as well as proud parent of Spidey, the Hulk, the Fantastic Four, Black Widow, and more heroes (and villains) than I can possibly name here. The icon who made these names household words could not POSSIBLY be the old man sources for the nursing company claim to be a doddering shadow of his former magnificent self.
Don't get me wrong, I believe Donald Trump, Matt Lauer, Kevin Spacey, Russell Simmons,and,of course, Harvey Weinstein, are guilty of any possible wrong doing and deserve to be punished as the courts see fit (in the Donald's case, impeachment, and not a moment too soon), but the Stan I know, the Stan of "EXCELSIOR!", the Stan who created so many beloved characters, would never commit such a heinous crime, and deserves to have his name cleared. Hollywood, I appreciate your concern, but, to quote the brilliantly talented Shel Silverstein, "Some helping is the kind of helping that helping's all about/And some helping is the kind of helping that we can do without."
FREE STAN LEE!
FREE STAN LEE!
FREE STAN LEE!
Steve
And while you're at it, what about Al Franken? I like your list of people who deserve to be punished. You are right about the MeToo train going off the tracks!
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