Last month, Stan Lee passed away at the age of 95. Lee was likely the most famous comic book creator in the history of the medium and he was the Editor-in-Chief for Marvel Comics for a remarkable three decades stint from the Golden Age through the launch of the Marvel Age of Comics. Working with iconic creators like Jack Kirby, Steve Ditko, John Romita, Joe Maneely, John Buscema, Don Heck, Wallace Wood, Dick Ayers, Gene Colan and many more, Lee either co-plotted and scripted or simply scripted some of the most famous stories in the history of comics. We asked you to vote for your picks for the top comic book stories that Lee either scripted or co-plotted and scripted. Here are the results!
15. "The Sinister Six!" Amazing Spider-Man Annual #1 (1964)
This classic Stan Lee and Steve Ditko epic introduced the Sinister Six, who were formed by Doctor Octopus as a way of slowly wearing Spider-Man down so that Doc Ock can finally take him out himself.
The fascinating aspect of the story is how it is laid out. Short battles between Spidey and each of the members of the Sinister Six (Electro, Mysterio, Kraven, Sandman, Vulture and Doctor Octopus) punctuated by an absolutely stunning full page splash of Spider-Man taking out the villain in question. Like so...
The comic is worth it just for those full-page smashes. Ditko really cut loose on them. You'll also notice that the book guest-stars the rest of the Marvel Universe. Amusingly, though, they just pop in and out of the story without ever helping Spider-Man. It was just Lee and Ditko's way of using the momentous occasion of Spider-Man's first annual to spotlight the rest of the Marvel Universe.
14. "The Fantastic Four!" Fantastic Four #1 (1961)
When Marvel decided to get into doing superhero comic books again, they had been doing short stories in anthologies for so long and had gotten so good at it, that when Stan Lee and Jack Kirby got together to do a full-length story for Fantastic Four #1, the creators basically told three full stories in one issue. The first story introduce the fascinating new heroes known as the Fantastic Four, who were unlike typical heroes of the time as they felt more HUMAN.
Then, the second story showed their iconic origin...
And finally, the third story saw them defeat the Mole Man on Monster Island.
It's a wonderful yarn and a great introduction for Marvel's new brand of superheroes.
13. "The Mangog Saga" Thor #154-158 (1968)
As noted earlier in the countdown, one of the "Tales of Asgard" back-ups had introduced the idea of Ragnarok and also the fact that Odin had a gigantic "Odinsword" that could only be lifted out of its insanely big scabbard by Odin, but if he unsheathed it, it would destroy Asgard itself!
In Thor #154-157 (by Jack Kirby, Stan Lee and Vince Colletta), those ideas came up again for a major event where the evil Mangog escaped from a prison he was trapped in by Odin. The problem is that Odin was in his Odinsleep, so all of Asgard teamed up to give their lives if needed to stop the evil Mangog. It seemed Ragnarok was truly upon us!
Luckily, Odin woke up in time to stop Mangog, but the heroes of Asgard didn't know that that was going to happen!
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12. "The Coming of the Avengers!" Avengers #1 (1963)
Stan Lee, Jack Kirby and Dick Ayers came up with one of the more outlandish origins for a superhero team that you'll likely ever see, well, at least when it comes to a superhero team that is still being published today and has inspired a billion dollar movie. And yet, this tale of Iron Man, Thor, Ant-Man and the Wasp being manipulated against the Hulk by Loki has just enough spark in the interactions between the various characters that it really does work. It gave no hint as to what this title would eventually become, but it ends up being a delightful story in and of itself (and any comic that involves the Hulk pretending to be a robot clown has got to be a classic, right?).
11. "Parable" Silver Surfer #1-2 (1988)
Jean Giraud, also known as Moebius, was one of the greatest comic book artists of all-time. He met Stan Lee at one point and the two decided to do a miniseries together. The result was a fascinating tale called "Parable," which was released into two oversized miniseries issues and then collected into a hard cover (back in the days when that was relatively rare - but everyone knew how special this story was).
The concept is that Galactus shows up on Earth, wanting to destroy it, but he vowed not to years earlier. Instead, Galactus decides to get the Earth to destroy itself by setting himself up as their new god. Earth buys into easily and soon, only the Silver Surfer can stand between the humans and their new god...
Lee had long been using the Silver Surfer stories as sort of little parables, so it was great to see him just outright embrace the concept with this classic tale.