It’s hard to know where to begin in covering the ongoing drama surrounding 95-year-old Stan Lee. Harassment suits, business suits, robberies, strange tweets, embezzlement, videos that seem like hostage tapes, lost dogs. It’s as crazy as a comic book but it’s sadly real.
This week some fairly huge developments. Today Lee has filed a restraining order against Keya Morgan, who took control of Lee’s affairs after Lee’s daughter, J.C. Lee, ousted Max Anderson as Stan’s handler. Earlier this week Morgan was arrested on charges of filing a false police report, which, in turn, goes back to a prior report of two armed gunmen breaking into Lee’s home and threatening him, which is a lot for an elderly man in declining health to deal with. (That Lee is still going throgh all this is a testment to his stamina.)
Stan Lee on Wednesday filed for a restraining order against the man he said last week was the only person who was handling his affairs and business, Keya Morgan, a Los Angeles Superior Court media relations rep confirmed to The Hollywood Reporter.
The restraining order request was filed two days after Morgan was arrested on suspicion of filing a false report to police. Morgan was released from jail on $20,000 bail.
Days before Morgan’s arrest, a 45-second video was recorded of Lee and posted to Twitter in which Lee made it clear Morgan was the only person with whom he now worked and allowed to represent him. “My only partner and business manager is @KeyaMorgan, not all the other people making false claims,” the post read, along with the video.
I know some people thought Anderson was bad for Lee, but he’s Florence Nightingale compared to Morgan, whose shenanigans are alarming.
I know Lee had some bad karma coming his way, but I hope he gets to live out his last days in some comfort and dignity and not in this five ring circus.
It’s just been reported that the L.A.P.D. is investigating claims of elder abuse.
That last bit of anti-Stan crap you wrote. It was a dick move. Congratulations.
I agree with Tony. Thanks, Heidi, for being a … what’s the word for a female jerk? Way to go.
I believe the word for female jerk is jerk. (Not that it need be applied in this case.)
No, it wasn’t. Heidi is a journalist and nothing she stated was rude. Quite frankly, Stan has done some underhanded things for decades. Also for decades, the Writer-Editor collective of the Tony Isabellas, Danny Figeroths, and Roy Thomas of the world- all of whom have stated in print they have always been more inclined to side with writers than artists, etc.- have pushed a narrative of Stan as the sole creator, and so forth. Stan’s narrative lends itself to dramatic re-tellings- he was going to quit, his wife pushed him to do it HIS way- even if years and years of documented evidence show that this really wasn’t the case. Stan stole plotting money from artists for years. He isn’t all bad, and yes, he is extremely talented, gifted in collaborative efforts, genial and witty, very likeable. But he has gotten away with a LOT. That Peter David/Colleen Doran autobio graphic novel was beyond offensive in pushing that phony narrative. Stan created the foundation of what his life is like now. There is accountability. Tony Isabella is always going to be selective because it serves his whims. Ask Trevor.
It’s funny, but the same exact thing happened to Groucho Marx in the end of his life. And everyone loves Groucho, and everyone agrees he was a rare genius. But he did push people away, enabling the manipulators to come exploit him.
This is not the appropriate time to bring up Stan’s flaws or childishly say he has “bad karma” coming.
Alas, not everyone can be a flawless, infallible hero like Jack (“I created and wrote everything at Marvel alone”) Kirby or Steve (Ayn Rand is God) Ditko.
George, that’s the really sad part of ever talking about these things: you inevitably get people who are so Anti-Stan Pro-Jack or vice versa, they immediately go into those things. Not once did I ever bring up Kirby and Ditko being infallible. All I have said is what has been documented, which is that the Stan Lee narrative is literally and factually wrong and endlessly enabled because it serves a dramatic function, nothing more. Don’t bring up Kirby and Ditko. Bring up Wally Wood, Don Heck, Joe Orlando, Dick Ayers, or the countless dozens who explained it wasn’t fame Stan was trying to hoard- because it didn’t exist at that time- it was a deliberate and fraudulent method of getting paid more for story writing for stories he literally didn’t write. To enable his lifestyle and his wife’s expensive habits out on Long Island. Stan had tried for years, with no success, to sell humor books, syndicated newspaper strips with Joe Manleey and Dan DeCarlo, etc.- and hey, they weren’t bad, and Stan deserves all the credit for being proactive and trying to do things- but the point is, he was never going to “just quit” and he lived under Martin Goodman’s thumb. He has continued to hawk a false story because it flattered his wife and admittedly makes for a very dramatic, go-get-em’ success story. That can’t be argued.
Kirby and Ditko was far from flawless or infallible, as they would be the first to tell you. Welcome to the real world, George.
Heath,
You say you haven’t called Kirby and Ditko infallible, and yet you validate the “dozens” of artists who accused Stan Lee of ripping them off– which in turn, I guess, justifies the “bad karma” remark.
The problem here is that precisely because Lee did not write full scripts, there’s no proof as to how much he did or did not contribute to a given story’s contribution. Even in the one case where someone preserved a fragment of a FF#1 script-excerpt, Kirby was quizzed about it and claimed he never saw it. Was he lying, or did he just forget a part of the working-process that, for him in 1961, meant no more than another meal on the table?
True, Stan’s distortions should be acknowledged, but give him benefit of the doubt here.
Comments are closed.