Stan Lee

Host: Please join me in giving a big UCLA Extension welcome to our inaugural Icons of L.A. Award recipient, Mr. Stan Lee. Stan Lee: Thank you. First of all, I hate Dean Spouts.

He he said my whole speech. All the things he said, I was gonna say. So I sit here before you hopeless

Worried. What can I possibly do to make. I didn't really mean that, Dean. I spent quite a lot of time writing a 25-page speech that I could give you.

And as I looked at it, I said, "Would I wanna hear this speech?" So I tore it up. So I stand here now defenseless, with nothing except to tell you I think you're all great.

The fact that you're taking the courses you're taking, you're trying to help, to add to what you already know, to make yourselves better workers, better contributors, and I think that's great. I think also that I'm not gonna make a long speech, but I'm gonna tell you I was told to say an anecdote.

Anecdotes are easy. So I thought to myself, "What kind of anecdote can I tell these people, who really have more important things to do?" And I figured, I'm gonna tell you how Spider-Man came into being. It's, it's a true story, although sometimes it's hard even for me to believe it.

But we had already done the Fantastic Four, and I think maybe the X-Men, I can't remember the order. But my publisher came to me, and he said, "Stan, I want you to come up with another superhero." So I said, "Okay," you know, went home, and when my publisher said, "Do something," I'd better do it, 'cause I wanted to keep my job.

I thought, "What can I come up with now?" And the most important thing in a superhero, at first, is the superpower. Once you get that, everything else comes along.

So I thought, "What power will I give a new guy?" And I saw a fly crawling on the wall. And I said, "Hey, if I could get a superhero that could stick to walls and crawl on them, man, that would be cool."

And no, I'm lying to you. I don't think the word cool was in use then. I probably said, "It'll be groovy."

I'll never lie to you. So I thought that was good. Now I needed a name.

So I said, "Well, let's see. Fly Man, Mosquito Man." I got down to Spider-Man.

Spider-Man, it just sounded dramatic. So okay, I had my hero, I had his power, his name, and then I figured, just for fun, I'm gonna give him personal problems. 'Cause except for you people who are that your lives are perfect, but most other people have personal problems.

And I then I thought I'd make him a teenager, 'cause there were no teenage superheroes that I knew of at the time. So armed with all that wonderful material, those great ideas, I ran into my publisher's office and I told him. This was my reaction, the reaction he gave me: "Stan, that is the worst idea I have ever heard."

"First of all," and he started to give me his 'cause he a very logical man, very intellectual. "First of all, people hate spiders, so you can't call a hero Spider-Man. You want him to be a teenager?

Teenagers can only be sidekicks." "And you want him to have personal problems? Stan, don't you know what a superhero is?

They don't have personal problems." Well, I left the office disappointed, but obviously a much wiser man. And I couldn't get Spider-Man out of my system.

So we were about to kill a magazine, I think it was called Amazing Fantasy. It wasn't selling well, and we were sending the last issue to press. When you do the last issue of a magazine, nobody cares what you put in it, 'cause the book is dying.

Just to get it out of my system, I put Spider-Man in Amazing Fantasy, feature him on the cover, forgot about it. A month later, all the sales figures came in. My publisher came racing into my office.

"Stan, you remember that character we both loved so much, Spider-Man?" He said, "Let's do him as a series." Now, why am I telling you this?

Besides the fact that I have to kill a little time. If you have an idea that you genuinely think is good, don't let some idiot talk you out of it. Now, that doesn't mean that every wild notion you come up with is gonna be genius, but

If there is something that you feel is good, something you want to do, something that means something to you try to do it. Because I think you can only do your best work if you're doing what you want to do, and if you're doing it the way you think it should be done, and if you can take pride in it after you've done it.

No matter what it is, if you can look at it and say, "I did that, and I think it's pretty damn good," that's a great feeling. So don't let idiots talk you out of something that you think is good. By the same token, that doesn't mean every single thing you think is gonna, is good is gonna be, win a prize.

Gotta have a little judgment there. I've had other things that I thought were good that didn't work, but I'll save that for the next award you give me. I'll need something to tell you about.

And I wanna say, I cannot tell you how much I appreciate this award, and this college has meant a lot to me. I have spoken here many times over the years. It's one of the great institutes of learning.

And to get this award, the Icon Award, I am truly touched. So I wanna thank the staff and the, whoever it is that gave it to me. And I wanna wish all of you the best luck in the world.

Just do your thing. Do it as well as you. That's the important thing.

Don't shirk. Whatever you do, give it your best shot. You'll be glad you did. Host: Excellent. Thank you. Thank you.