Meet Stan Lee who worked at Marvel comics!

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‘What is a superhero? What is a supervillain? What are the traits that define and separate these two? What cultural contexts do we find them in? And why we need them? Editors Robin S. Rosenberg, PhD and Peter Coogan, PhD collected a series of essays examining these questions from both major comic book writers and editors, such as Stan Lee and Danny Fingeroth, and leading academics in psychology and cultural studies, such as Will Brooker and John Jennings. The following essay by legendary comic book writer, editor, publisher, and producer Stan Lee* is extracted from What is a Superhero? and entitled “More Than Normal, But Believable”.

A superhero is a person who does heroic deeds and has the ability to do them in a way that a normal person couldn’t. So in order to be a superhero, you need a power that is more exceptional than any power a normal human being could possess, and you need to use that power to accomplish good deeds. Otherwise, a policeman or a fireman could be considered a superhero. For instance, a good guy fighting a bad guy could be just a regular police story or detective story or human-interest story. But if it’s a good guy with a superpower who is fighting a bad guy, it becomes a superhero story. If the good guy is doing something that a normal human being couldn’t do, couldn’t accomplish, then I assume he becomes a superhero.

Not surprisingly, then, the first thing I would think of when trying to create a character is, what superpower will I give him or her? I’ll make somebody who can throw fireballs and fly in the air. I’ll have somebody who can crawl on walls and shoot webs like a spider. So, automatically, those characters become superheroes. Of course, if they were evil, they would be supervillains, because the same rule applies: to be a supervillain, you have to be a villain, but you also have to have a superpower, just like a superhero has to. The word super is really the key.

But there’s no formula for creating characters. With Iron Man, I knew I wanted someone in an iron suit, and so his powers came from that. With Spider-Man, I knew I wanted someone with spider powers, so the name and costume came with that. It doesn’t matter whether you start with the character’s code name, his powers, or his costume; none of these conventions of the genre works better than the others as a starting place for creating a superhero. It just depends on whether you get lucky and what sells.

There doesn’t necessarily have to be a connection between the personality of the alter ego and the powers of the superhero. When we created the Fantastic Four, I knew that I wanted each of them to have distinct powers. Even though Reed is mentally bright and flexible, Johnny is a bit of a hothead, Sue is a shrinking violet, and Ben is a big lug—which fits with their powers—I could have made Sue go on and on and speak with big words, or made Johnny the intellectual, or given Reed a temper. The powers of the characters don’t necessarily have to reflect the personalities of the characters, and the Fantastic Four would have been just as successful if there had been no link between their personalities and their powers. It just depends on how it works out. That’s the way things were back then.

*Stan Lee’s name is practically synonymous with the word “superhero.” He co-created many famous superheroes during his time at Marvel Comics: The Incredible Hulk, the Fantastic Four, Thor, Spider-Man, Iron Man, and the X-Men, among many others. Stan imbued his characters and stories with an element of psychological realism, making it easy for fans to relate to the characters and their plights. Stan became an editor at Marvel when he was 19 years old and went on to become its publisher. Stan continues to create new superheroes under the banner of his POW! Entertainment company.‘ (Source)

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Start at the beginning – Let’s go to a Superhero convention!