Stan Lee Picks Out a Virgin
One of the big NYCC announcements from this past weekend was that Lee will be making a new superhero universe” for Richard Branson’s Virgin Comics, which I had totally forgotten existed until this news. So why didn’t I bother to post on this yesterday? Well, because I’m reasonably confident Lee’s new superheroes will be totally lame.
I’m not ragging on Stan Lee. The dude is awesome. There’s a reason Marvel is beating DC, and it’s all Lee’s superheroes. But I think the dude is finished; his biggest work in the last decade has been Stripperella, and none of his comic stuff has been interesting at all. That’s fine?he’s done more than enough already?but just listen to this quote from Lee about his new work:
“What a dream assignment!” enthused the always-ebullient Lee. “I can’t wait to start pitting my newest, most exciting superheroes against comicdom’s most powerful, diabolical super villains and then have the fun of tossing them into far-out, thrill-a-minute adventures to challenge the readers’ imagination! And who better to share in the fun, creating wondrous new worlds without limit, than the incredibly talented and dedicated guys at Virgin Comics!”
That quote is not from someone with his best work ahead of him. It’s fine, Stan; we all love you. Just relax.
About The Author
Robert Bricken is one of the original co-founders of the site formerly known as Topless Robot, and its first editor-in-chief, serving from 2008-12. He brought the site to prominence with “nerd news, humor and self-loathing” as its motto, raising it from total internet obscurity to a readership in the millions, with help from his savage “FAQ” movie reviews and Fan Fiction Fridays. Under his tenure Topless Robot was covered by Gawker, Wired, Defamer, New York magazine, ABC News, and others, and his articles have been praised by Roger Ebert, Avengers actor Clark Gregg, comedian and The Daily Show correspondent John Hodgman, the stars of Mystery Science Theater 3000 and Rifftrax, and others. He is currently the managing editor of io9.com. Despite decades as both an amateur and professional nerd, he continues to be completely unprepared for either the zombie apocalypse or the robot uprising.