Stan Lee explains the science of super heroes

updated 11:25 a.m. ET April 10, 2006

LOS ANGELES - If comic books are, as Stan Lee believes, nothing more than modern-day fairy tales, then the creator of Spider-Man, the X-Men and the Incredible Hulk is the Aesop of his time.

Working with a team of artists at Marvel Comics, Lee has envisioned some of the most memorable superheroes and villains of the past 45 years.

Now those characters have leaped off the pages of their comic books and are on display at the California Science Center, a gleaming, futuristic glass-and-steel edifice just south of downtown Los Angeles.

Lee visited the museum days before the Marvel Super Heroes Science Exhibition opened late last month. Fittingly for the creator of heroes who are often physically or emotionally challenged, he arrived as technicians were frantically overhauling the Iron Man exhibit, trying to work out hydraulic-system kinks that kept visitors from lifting a 4,500-pound automobile.

As they struggled with the car, Lee, a friendly gray-haired man of 83, accepted a glass of tea and sat down to talk.

Question: What was the first of the characters you came up with?

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Lee: Oh, I wrote so many I don't even know. I wrote either hundreds or thousands of them. I started in about 1939 or 1940, but it wasn't until 1961 or '2 that I did the Fantastic Four, and that was the first of the Marvel characters. And after that I did X-Men, I think. No, I did the Hulk and then Spider-Man and then the X-Men and Daredevil and Iron Man and the rest of them. ... It was like there was something in the air. I couldn't do anything wrong. Every one of them worked out beautifully and, as you can, see, they're still around.

Question: Do you have a favorite?

Lee: I love 'em all. It used to be that whichever one I was writing was my favorite at that moment. And I'd really get into it. My wife would come in and say, "Who are you talking to?" And I'd realize that while I was writing the dialogue I was saying it out loud. "Take that you! You won't get away with it!" (laughing).

Question: A lot of your characters seem to have gotten their powers through radioactive mishaps of one type or another. Is there a reason for that?

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