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This excerpt fromTrue Believer: The Rise and Fall of Stan Leeoriginally ran February 12, 2021.
Were republishing now it alongside the release of the books paperback edition.
A half smile crawls up the side of his silver-bearded face.
I ask him why he would do such things.
He trails off, then starts up again: the notion of the surreal being incorporated into political action.
These are the people who populate his self-professed personal chronicles.
Who knows how much of it is true?
And thats exactly what Stan Lee did, in 1998.
Paul claims the Marvel Comics legend knew about the felonies early on in their friendship.
He couldnt believe it, Paul recalls.
Like Id do with anything I say, I showed him all the facts and everything about it.
It didnt affect our lives.
In the mid-90s, the company went bankrupt, putting Stans future in jeopardy.
The proposal was simple.
And it did, for better and very much for worse.
Paul says he planned to make a move on Spider-Man et al.
eventually, but that Stan didnt want to do it right away, out of residual loyalty to Marvel.
Stan signed the document.
At the same time, Stan was also in negotiations with Marvel to establish a new contract withthem.
He was even allowed to compete with Marvel.
In Marvels eyes, this meant an extra layer of reinforcement.
They had three employees and just $1 million in seed money.
Paul sent Stan on a media blitz.
Heres another chance for me to get in at the beginning.
Their stock symbol became SLEE.
On the first day of trading, the price per share shot up 40 percent, to nine dollars.
Pauls felony convictions meant he couldnt legally be an officer of the company.
Instead, he was listed as a consultant.
(Aside from the protagonist, who was given the odd talent of super-powerful breath.)
The staff expanded to roughly 40 people within a matter of months.
And I stopped coming up with new ones after meeting Peter.
Now I wanna start it all over again.
Stan was hardly worried about any of that on February 29, 2000.
Dick Clark emceed the gala.
Chaka Khan did a song.
There was a satellite simulcast of an audience watching in Japan.
In mid-2000, the companys share price climbed ever upward.
No goal was too lofty in those days.
An ex-staffer recalls Stan doing one such mass-autograph session and asking, befuddled, Who are all these for?
That sort of confusion was, it seems, deeply ingrained at SLM.
None of them had any clue what the overall corporate direction was.
Stan was as charming and energetic as ever.
And they were all either suspicious or terrified of Paul.
I used to walk around that office and say We dont sell anything.
We have no product.
There was always a deal pending, but the deals never materialized.
Writer Buzz Dixon was brought onboard as creative director and abruptly promoted to vice-president for creative affairs.
The grandiosity of the corporate vision at SLM astonished him, and not in a good way.
Or Scuzzles Most Adorable Agent of the Week!
You get the idea.
He goes on to describe a litany of ways in which SLM was dropping the ball.
I logged on myself last night; after a few minutes I got bored and went away!
The list of complaints went on and on.
And yet, in the face of these issues, Stan saw only chaos at the upper echelons.
Another problem is who the hell is responsible for things???
According to those who worked with him, that appeared to be the case.
I think there were wheels within wheels that Stan may not have been aware of.
Paul longed to bring greater prestige to SLM.
It was decided that Paul would enter the fundraising arena.
I hear youve got a lock on it.
Photos were taken of the grinning Clintons posing alongside Paul and his wife.
I mean, I wasnt hiding anything, Paul says.
I was testing her to see how far Id go with her.
On August 12, 2000, a 1,300-person tribute fundraiser took place on a $30 million estate.
The Hollywood Gala Salute to President William Jefferson Clinton was officially identified as a production of SLM.
Nothing stays the same.
Is Hillary Clinton soft on crime?
he asked, rhetorically.
Word spread in Hollywood and the Beltway.
Pauls invitation to the final state dinner of the Clinton presidency was rescinded.
But, as it turned out, he didnt have much time to worry about a welched deal.
He had more pressing concerns.
What came next remains a matter of great dispute between Paul and, well, virtually everyone else.
As 2000 wore on, the dot-com bubble was rapidly contracting, putting SLM in a perilous position.
The next day, it fell to $1.75.
The financing was cut off, throwing the company into a sudden, horrifying panic.
And as loud as the panic was downstairs, there was a tremendous silence coming from upstairs.
Soda delivery stopped; the delivery company hadnt been paid in months.
Rock bottom arrived on December 15.
Emails went out informing everyone that there would be a meeting at 2 p.m. in the bullpen.
It was a crushing blow to Stan, recalls Dixon.
An employee later said Stan literally collapsed when he heard the news.
By sheer coincidence, a life-size Spider-Man statue was being delivered to the offices that day.
Employees presented it to the devastated man whose name was on the building.
Apparently investigators had been curious about why the SLM stock had so abruptly dropped off a cliff.
They said they found alarming evidence of fraud at the top levels of SLM.
Paul claims everything he did was perfectly legal.
Paul and Gordon were also accused of trying to save the company by writing checks from empty accounts.
It was that final act that triggered the stock collapse and all that came after.
The Department of Justice indicted Gordon and Paul, though the latter was still in Brazil.
Stan, on the other hand, has always pleaded ignorance.
He was investigated and cleared of wrongdoing.
But an anonymous high-level SLM staffer I spoke to is adamant that Stan lied to investigators and prosecutors.
Interpol picked up Paul in Brazil.
Entertainment, and Marvel from behind the scenes.
Years later, he commissioned a comics-format memoir.
Seemed like a good idea at the time.
I wanted to turn Stan into a lifestyle brand, he says.
Kind of divorced from who he really was, I say.
From the book TRUE BELIEVER: The Rise and Fall of Stan Lee by Abraham Riesman.
Copyright 2021 by Abraham Riesman.
Published this month by Crown, an imprint of Random House, a division of Penguin Random House LLC.
