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That too is a second chance. Lee had a lifetime contract, which made him a salaried employee--"high salaried," he grants--without ownership of the lucrative characters he created. But when Marvel went into bankruptcy in 1996 (it emerged in 1998), his contract was voided, and associate Peter Paul--Stan Lee Media's co-founder--helped him cut a new deal. Today Lee is Marvel's chairman emeritus ("Whatever the hell that means") and devotes about 10% of his time to that company. He and Paul soon lined up partnerships with such firms as IBM and Macromedia, which supplies the webisodes' animation software. "Stan isn't creating comics for Stan Lee Media," Paul says. "He's creating animation franchises."
If the plan works, it won't be the first time Lee has remade his trade. Before Lee, being a superhero was pretty straightforward: good was good, evil was evil, and neither was very self-aware. But Lee conceptualized characters, like the Hulk and the Thing, who were literally uncomfortable in their own skins, reluctant superheroes who didn't always feel or act nobly. For his creations, being a superhero was a job; one Spider-Man found Spidey trying unsuccessfully to cash a check in his name (no id). With humor and an ear for the vernacular ("It's clobberin' time!"), Lee put the human in superhuman.
But can he win the kids over? Comics sales have slumped for years, and until high-speed connections become common, even the most skillfully done Web animation will tend to be jerky or slow. Superpowered boy bands or Web surfers kicking butt online (where Slyme's "magical shovel is one of the most feared artifacts throughout cyberspace," according to the website) may seem, well, lame. Today's comics tend toward dark, complicated stories, and although that's arguably an evolution of Lee's innovations, he complains that the new breed has "lost" youngsters. "I don't see any reason not to do a story that an entire family can enjoy," he says.
Lee is working overtime to do just that. Besides his Web work (Still waiting for that pun! --Ed.), he's developing a new incarnation of Mighty Mouse for Viacom and executive-producing a summer movie based on the X-Men. But Lee has a bigger target still. "I know it sounds silly," he says, "but I hope we can make Stan Lee Media so big and prosperous that we can eventually buy Marvel." Silly? Last week his company's stock hit an all-time high, its market capitalization of $311.7 million eclipsing Marvel's $197 million. If The 7th Portal doesn't make people believe there's magic in cyberspace, Stan Lee's equity just might.