Why Marvel’s Stan Lee Wasn’t a Huge Fan of X-Men: The Animated Series

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You can debate long and hard about who’s part of the delay Stan Lee’s Legacy as the Mastermind of Marvel Comics is deserved. However, he has definitely become a face of the Marvel brand as much as Spider-Man. All of his cameos in the Marvel movies helped solidify thatbut when he wasn’t at work filming movies or on red carpets, what did Lee think of the adaptations?

The biography of Stan Lee 2021 “True Believer” by Joséphine Riesman quotes Lee’s former business manager, Keya Morgan, and her bodyguard, Gaven Vanover, as saying that Lee hated superhero movies. (Morgan was accused of mistreating Lee after Lee’s death in 2018, but was authorized in 2022.) But it wasn’t just the movies, apparently.

Eric and Julia Lewald, husband and wife showrunners of the 1992 “X-Men” cartoon, noted in a 2016 interview that Stan Lee wasn’t much involved with their show, nor a fan of his direction. Eric Lewald had kind words for Lee’s creative spirit: “Stan loves to be involved creatively. He wants to be a part of everything. He’s a tireless and voracious guy.”

However, the “X-Men” comics – written by Chris Claremont from 1975 to 1991 – had changed a lot since the days of Lee and artist Jack Kirby in 1963. “I was told that [Lee] I never liked the direction the books were going since 1975, and since we liked the newer books, he fought us on the tone and direction of the series,” Lewald continued. Given the outcome of the series, it seems Lee didn’t fight hard enough.

The composition of the animated “X-Men” team was similar to that of Claremont (with a few exceptions), and the series adapted its greatest stories: “The Dark Phoenix Saga”, “Days of Future Past” etc. If you weren’t Stan Lee, this was all obvious.

1975 was the year of the X-Men reboot, thanks to issue #1 “Giant-Size X-Men” by Len Wein and Dave Cockrum. The original run of “X-Men” generated little interest and was even semi-canceled in 1970; issues #67-93 were simple reprints of earlier stories. When Wein breathed new life into “X-Men,” it was with an almost entirely new cast of characters – the most famous, Wolverine, with whom Wein made his debut in a previous issue of “The Incredible Hulk”. After “Giant-Size X-Men,” Claremont took over as writer for the new “X-Men” series.

With a blank canvas to draw the stories and characters, Claremont made “X-Men” a book in its own right. Claremont ultimately wrote “X-Men” for 16 years and nearly 200 issues. He would have stayed even longer (and I had crazy plans for Wolverine), but left abruptly in 1991 due to conflicts with Marvel editor-in-chief Bob Harras. Claremont staying on “X-Men” for so long wasn’t just because he got comfortable; the book was acclaimed and a bestseller. Alongside collaborating artists like Dave Cockrum, John Byrne, Paul Smith, Barry Windsor-Smith and Marc Silvestri, Claremont transformed “X-Men” from a failure into Marvel Comics Heavyweight (pun intended).

I don’t mean to speak ill of the Dead, but if Lee really didn’t like Claremont’s “X-Men,” then this tastes like sour grapes. I understand a creator’s innate possessiveness, but the fact is that “X-Men” never thrived under Lee’s pen. It wasn’t even his most inspired concept, but just him and Kirby trying to recapture the magic of “Fantastic Four.” The cover of “X-Men” #1 boasts that it is a comic “in the sensational Fantastic Four style,” the X-Men wear uniform outfits like the FF, and the characters fit the same broad archetypes.

Professor X and Cyclops split the difference between Reed Richards as team leader. Jean Gray is the Invisible Girl, the symbolic (and often distressed) woman. Iceman is the Human Torch, the young prankster with elemental powers. The Beast, far from the latter Lord Tennyson quoting Hank McCoy, is a Brooklyn worker like the Thing. If the first X-Men is a wannabe FF, then Lee and Kirby’s Magneto is a pale imitation of Doctor Doom. The tragic villain that Claremont made Magneto is not found. The Master of Magnetism wants world domination, not mutant security.

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Compare this Magneto to the animated one, which, from its beginnings, speaks more of a “war for [mutant] This is also where the myth that Lee based Xavier and Magneto on contemporary black civil rights activists Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm this comparison by Rolling StoneLee only claimed he was “unconscious.”)

The only provocative image in the first issue of Lee/Kirby “X-Men” comes from the winged mutant Angel, the only one without a clear FF analogue. Thanks to his immense wings, Angel does not “pass” like his comrades do; he must bandage his wings under his clothes when he goes out. When he lets go of them, he says he “feels like himself again.” Compare this to the way transgender people bind or fold certain body parts to feel like themselves. It’s no surprise that “X-Men” evolved into a strange allegory, but like Claremont’s run and the 1990s cartoon, it just shows that the mutants have grown beyond what Stan Lee anticipated.