Hero's Hero—Stan Lee
王中王——斯坦·李
In May 2005， MY HERO had the privilege of interviewing Stan Lee， the creative genius behind the superheroes of our imaginations： Spider Man， The Incredible Hulk， Iron Man， X-Men， Daredevil and The Silver Surfer， to name just a few. His name is synonymous with Marvel Comics where， at the age of seventeen， he became the youngest editor ever in the comic book industry.
In the interview， Stan Lee revealed who his heroes are and how they inspired him to become a writer. Although his dream was to write the great American novel， he became， instead， a dream maker in the minds of his readers through his legendary characters and their heroic adventures.
The word， hero， conjures up an image in Stan Lee's mind of a knight in shining armor on a white steed looking for good deeds to do， for figurative dragons to slay. When he was a young man， he loved the movies， and Errol Flynn was his knight in shining armor， his hero， because of the roles he played. Stan Lee had other heroes， too， who inspired his writing， like Franklin Roosevelt and Winston Churchill. As a heroic figure who led the nation in war time， Stan admired Roosevelt because he was an incredibly inspiring orator and because he looked and acted the way one imagines a president should look and act. When Roosevelt delivered his broadcasts， his “Fireside Chats” as he called them， and started by saying “My friends”， Stan felt like he was truly his friend. To Stan， Roosevelt was like everybody's uncle or father， and a true hero. Winston Churchill was equally inspiring to Stan Lee as one of the great writers and one of the Great War leaders of his time because he held the nation of England together during WWII. He kept the nation's morale up with phrases like， “We shall fight， we shall never surrender”， and “Blood， sweat and tears”. Although Stan did not know anything about Churchill's private life， he still saw him as a hero because he was somebody who not only did good things himself， but inspired others to do the same.
There were two people much closer to Stan who gave him self-confidence as a young man and a belief in his ability to realize his dream of becoming a writer. One was his mother， who he said thought anything he did was genius. If he read her four lines of a poem， she'd say， “John Barrymore couldn't have read it as well！” With that kind of support and encouragement， Stan said he had to be confident.
Another person who influenced his life when he was about 8 or 9 years old was a teacher named Leon B. Ginsburg. This teacher made Stan's classes fun， because not only did he teach， but he did it in a humorous， cheerful， and exciting way. According to Stan， he would every so often stop the class and tell a little story about Swat Mulligan， a legendary baseball player. Although Stan never knew if there was such a guy， or if the teacher had made him up， whenever Leon felt the class was getting a little too tense or the work was a little too hard for the kids， he'd say， “Let's take a break. Let me tell you about Swat Mulligan.” And for three or four minutes， Leon would tell the class an exciting， humorous Swat Mulligan baseball story. Because of Leon Ginsburg， Stan decided that whatever he did when grown up， he would try to make it fun for those who would read or listen to his work.