If you want not only a comprehensive biography of Stan Lee but also a history lesson, check out Stan Lee: The Man behind Marvel by Bob Batchelor. Batchelor weaves rich history with Lee’s life story to give the reader a comprehensive and memorable biography. Stan Lee is renowned as the most important person in comic book history. Although there is a bit of controversy in Lee’s title this book covers it all, from Lee’s Great Depression childhood, the Cuban Missile Crisis, to Lee’s long marriage to Joanie. While Stan Lee has experienced his fair share of criticism, drama, and controversy, you cannot help but respect the man after reading this book. His influence and impact is undeniable. He is inarguably one of the most influential creators of pop culture of all time. Stan Lee is an American icon and hero. Stan Lee: The Man behind Marvel is a must-read for all comic fans, Marvel or otherwise. Aesthetically speaking, the book includes spider webs as chapter headers and adorable little Spider-Man spiders and chapter spacers. I will be purchasing a physical copy of this book eventually and if you love comics, I suggest you do too. This book is easily the best Stan Lee biography currently available.

Who doesn't love stan lee? It's lovely learning more about him

This book was interesting My one complaint is that the I wished the photos had been distributed throughout the book to break up the heavy text, rather than added in at the end.

Who doesn't love a story about a person coming from humble beginnings, persevering and making an indelible mark in contemporary history.

Stan Lee, born Stanley Lieber, the manic mouthpiece, the mad maestro of Marvel (some good old alliteration) has lived an interesting life from when comicbooks were on the fringes of society, deemed reading material for adolescents and underachieving young adults, to becoming a global phenomenon entrenched in cool popular culture.

Stan Lee is a brilliant self promoter and may have taken more credit than was his due, but with his unique style and voice, he has undoubtedly made a massive contribution to his industry finding itself at the forefront of a cultural zeitgeist.

A well researched and fascinating biography into the life and times of a fascinating man.

Stan Lee’s biography is wonderfully put together by Bob Batchelor who was able to put together a truly thoughtful novel that gives more insight to a master than I ever thought possible.  

Stan Lee has been a very popular figure within the world of publishing and comics who gave birth to Marvel Comics.  He is a man who has been in the public eye and who has been very open book about himself that it would seem impossible to find any new information about the legend but Batchelor has really outdid himself.  

Delving into his beginnings and really investigating his childhood and upbringing opens your eyes to the history of Stan Lee like never before.  This is an honest and heart felt biography that really does the subject justice.  This is a story of a man who succeeded in every way possible from his rough beginnings to respectable name that people can look up to and admired.  

The history of Marvel and his creations is a real added bonus.  Batchelor is able to entwine all this information into a real bonus and has written it so it enjoyable and thought provoking.  This is definitely a true sign of a real writer writing about a subject that he loves.  Someone with lesser talent would most definitely approached the subject less successfully.

This is an informative and entertaining biography that was insightful.  It keeps the reader involved and is a real page turner.  This is one of those biographies that you can cherish and want to share with your friends and family.  This is an open book biography and with the extra bonus of reference notes, bibliography and index surely makes this book a winner.  This is a definite five star book.

I first became aware of who Stan Lee was when he narrated Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends and other Marvel cartoons in the 80's.  I wondered who this guy was behind all of Marvel's greatest creations.  Bob Batchelor answers this question well.  Batchelor details Lee's life as a child, his parents struggling to make ends meet.  Moving on, we find out about how he was hired as a gofer for Joe Simon and Jack Kirby at the age of 17 to work at Timely Comics.  We see his years working at Marvel all the way through 2016 and appearing in his 29th superhero movie.  It's a great look at the guy who "Made Mine Marvel".

Any comic book fan should read this wonderful bio about our beloved comic book master.

There are very few people who have lived their lives more in the public eye than Stan Lee. He himself has never been shy about media attention and, from his teenage years has been involved in the publishing world, publicity and comics.

I grew up in a comics loving household. (My paternal grandfather taught himself English using comic books, a love he passed on to my dad, and to me). Since I lived near a major metropolitan city (Pittsburgh, Pa) and not impossibly distant from NYC, I got involved in the large and vibrant fandom in my area. I've met Mr. Lee on several occasions and every single time I met him I came away with an awestruck feeling at how much energy he has and how positive and gracious and accessible he is. I never fail to grin at his cameos in the comics films. I have never heard anyone say he had a bad day or was cranky or ungracious when they encountered him. He's a force of nature.

So, when I sat down to read this -meticulously- researched brick of a book (260 pages), I opened it with a little trepidation. Would the real man behind the phenomenon have feet of clay? Was he really just a man and not the cyclone of my formative years? He's a man who has never shied away from controversy, would the biography have an angle? An agenda?

Obviously there are many (many!) other biographies and biographical resources about Stan Lee. His life has basically been one continual open book, lived in the public eye. The question is really, does this particular book bring anything to the table in terms of new material or unique perspective? I believe it does. I don't recall ever reading much about his very early life growing up in the depression or his difficult early home life. The author suggests that as one reason for his incredible work ethic, it could be true. (Reminds me somewhat of the work-til-you-drop ethic of people in my grandparents' generation, which also had its genesis in the great depression).

There is a lot of content in this book. I think it will be a valuable resource for enthusiasts, students of ephemera, and future historians. I appreciated the incredibly detailed footnotes and reference sections. Amazingly thorough job.

Four stars
Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher.

This certainly gives a fascinating insight into the life of Stan Lee and Marvel.
It brings to life the super heroes that are now so much a part of our lives.

Stan Lee is the real hero. I make us dream and for that I thank's him a lot. This book is very interesting and interesting. I learn a lot of things. Thank you for this.

Mr. Batchelor offers us a book worth reading because he does more than distill Mr. Lee's many interviews.  Stan Lee teaches us that powerful writing comes out of adversity.  Without the restrictions and worries that surely influenced Mr. Lee's work, our shared cultural heritage would be different.

Perhaps most importantly, the author doesn't skimp on the parts of Stan Lee's life that you really want to know about.  We get detailed tellings of the creation of the Fantastic Four, of Mr. Lee's working relationship with Jack Kirby, and his somewhat unfocused later years.  (Where do you go when you become a living legend by your fifties and live into your nineties?)  Whether or not you're a comic book person, Mr. Batchelor's book is a worthwhile chronicle of a writer's life and offers other writers the opportunity to see what it's like to have your creative dreams come true in ways you didn't expect.

I'm not going to lie -- I didn't know a lot about Stan Lee before I got this book, but I know so much more now and wow, what an extraordinary man! This book was captivating and engaging. Well written, well researched. If you're a fan of biographies or memoirs I would recommend this book. Or just a fan of comics or graphic novels in general! 4,5 out of 5 stars.

As a comic collector and reader I was interested in reading this book. I am glad I did as I learnt more about how Stan got into comics, his work during the war and his disagreements with other comic creators and artists. Bob Batchelor has done a really good job taking the reader into the life of a comic legend. I enjoyed this biography immensely.

Unfortunately, as this books was listed under the 'Comics & Graphic Novels' section was I expecting an illustrated biography to pay homage to one of Comic's greats. The book was well written, and informative, however I couldn't get over my disappoint with Stan Lee's biography being in a traditional format.

I cannot wait to be able to share this book with my sons! It was absolutely AWESOME! I loved finding out more behind the scenes info on the creator of my families favorite super heroes.... It would be a great read for someone who loves biographies even if they weren't a comic book fan.

Stan Lee is a household name, an icon, a hero for those in the comic world that once was seemingly relegated to ‘nerds’ before the global world the importance and power that the written word combined with vivid imagery can convey. Lee has never been one to shy away from self-promotion if it meant finding a new way to bring his work and message to the world so there is no shortage of books about this man who has changed countless lives.

Batchelor has provided another to add to that ever growing collection about the Father of Marvel a beloved figure of our childhoods who has allowed us to take those moments with us as we become adults. Considering the immense body of work out there already by him and about him you’re probably wondering if you need to spend more money on yet another book especially since Lee is still ever creating and changing the world.

That question I really can’t answer for you because it depends on your level of fandom regarding Lee. If you’re a super fan who has the man and myth memorized you’re probably not going to get a lot from this book because Batchelor doesn’t bring anything new to the table that veterans don’t already know and can recite while in a coma. He does a great job with the obviously meticulously researched information he provides so if you’re something of a newbie to Marvel or don’t recognize him beyond his name and the cameos he makes in his movies then this would be a good book for you.

Fifteen years ago Stan Lee published his own autobiography, Excelsior!: The Amazing Life of Stan Lee, which is considered THE definitive work by his fans. Though since it’s by the great man himself there’s going to be some bias, maybe even a bit of coloring, of certain areas of his life so a work by someone more impartial might help give a greater understanding to the later years when Lee wasn’t the great success we know today. In that sense Bachelor does provide more information and a detailed look into the darker times of Lee’s life, the criticisms, legal issues, etc but it is tempered with the artistry of his life as well.

Bachelor is well-known for his unbiased analysis in cultural studies of popular works and figures so you’d be hard-pressed to find a better work done.

Though full of interesting information about Lee's life and role in Marvel, the writing style of this biography fell very flat for me. I felt like I was slogging through the timeline of Lee's life, with occasional anecdotes being reduced to a couple relatively uninteresting lines. With a person as vibrant as Lee, I was disappointed to see so little of his personality shine through. Batchelor would have done well to really dig into interesting stories rather than this bland presentation.

It used to be said that behind every great man there’s a great woman. Stan Lee’s wife, Joanie, certainly played a decisive role in making him, if not a household name, certainly one of the most important purveyors of modern popular culture, not only revolutionizing the comic book industry but ultimately inspiring a wave of films that continue to enthral moviegoers.

Stanley Leiber (as he then was) had drifted into the field in which he would make his mark by taking what he thought would be a temporary job as a general dogsbody at Timely Comics, aged 17. He soon began to fulfil his creative urges by writing for the comics, adopting the name ‘Stan Lee’, which he later made his legal name.

A significant break came when the departure of editors Joe Simon and Jack Kirby for DC Comics, left him in charge, although the next two decades, as editor and chief writer, were professionally unfulfilling as he fairly slavishly followed instructions to follow market trends. It was when he contemplated quitting after being instructed to emulate DC’s ‘Justice League of America’ in 1961 that Joanie fatefully intervened. Why not, she asked, create a comic book which conforms in outline with the brief given but actually make the contents as you’d truly like them to be, as the worst that could happen is that you could be sacked instead of quitting?.

What actually happened was that The Fantastic Four turned out to be a runaway success and over the next ten years Stan Lee followed success with success, revolutionizing comic books, creating a Marvel Comics superhero stable (assisted by talented artists such as Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko) which included The Incredible Hulk, the X-Men, and The Amazing Spider-Man (a character readers could crucially identify with, rather than just fantasize over), among many others. 

In 1972 Lee effectively began a new and equally successful career, leaving the comic book end of the business to oversee production of cartoons and films based on Marvel characters.

This is the story which Bob Batchelor tells in ‘Stan Lee’, a workmanlike no-frills rather than warts-and-all biography. Lee, like Steve Jobs, is often accused of a genius for self-promotion which resulted in him taking the credit for the work of others. Batchelor acknowledges this debate without addressing it in any great detail – although, to be fair, in the nature of comic book creation it is often difficult precisely to assess an individual’s precise contribution.

In short, Batchelor’s is the best available biography of Lee, although his efforts to assess the cultural significance of the comic book phenomenon and explain the enduring appeal of the superhero genre are not terribly profound.