Marvel Comics legend Stan Lee passed away Monday at the age of 95, after living a remarkable life, creating incredible worlds that entertained countless children and adults for decades. His passing was marked with tributes from across the political and entertainment spectrums.
But as is now customary with social justice warriors, Lee’s death became an excuse for the Left to excoriate the late comic book magnate for his perceived “sexism,” “racism,” and general lack of social-justice-y-ness.
According to journalist Ian Miles Cheong, “woke Twitter” pounced almost immediately, to remind, well, mostly each other, that, in life, Lee had been unwilling to bow to their endless demands.
all stan lee did was steal ideas from dc to create his own characters. he was racist, sexist, a homophobe and he also assaulted a woman. y’all can be thankful he created your favorite characters but stop acting as if he was an incredible person who did something extraordinary
— alicia is a whole new level of fake woke (@valkyriescarol) November 12, 2018
Her claims of assault seem to come from a lawsuit filed last year, but the Hollywood Reporter’s own investigation seemed to find no evidence that Lee committed assault (in fact, the Hollywood Reporter allegedly uncovered a bizarre situation, almost too complicated to readily explain).
But that didn’t stop Lee’s critics from taking to Twitter to air their grievances.
“[E]verybody is quoting this saying “y’all always tweet this shit after somebody dies” we were tweeting it when he was alive too bitch! y’all just didn’t listen or care. but now that he’s dead suddenly y’all wanna stuck up for him? okay. you’re transparent,” wrote one critic who later deleted his Tweet.
“Look I don’t have time for this s**t. White people, in the big ass majority are racist. Most white famous people are disgusting. White people literally invented racism. Go suck Stan Lee’s dick if you support him so much, ok? I have better things to do like celebrate his death,” wrote another.
Most of the critical tweets have since been deleted, after Twitter users pushed back.
Lee’s critics seem to lack a basic understanding of his viewpoint, particularly when it comes to creating heroes for his comic books. Lee often cited the existence of “hatred” and “bigotry” as some of his driving forces.
for anyone that’s saying #StanLee was racist or anti-LGBT or anything like that, may i suggest you do some quick research? here, i’ll even give you all this, just to help you get started: pic.twitter.com/GrIZcJBhu9
— Moabm (@Moabm1) November 13, 2018
One of Stan Lee’s most memorable written pieces had to do with his open repudiation of anti-Semitism, and his embrace of the Civil Rights movement.
Stan Lee in 1968: “Racism and bigotry are among the deadliest social ills plaguing the world today … The only way to destroy them, is to expose them — to reveal from the insidious evil they really are.” pic.twitter.com/oJnAFpe1ET
— Philip Lewis (@Phil_Lewis_) November 12, 2018
In more modern times, yes, Lee resisted changing the gender and ethnicity of Spider-Man, but was clear that it wasn’t because he was sexist, racist, or homophobic, but because he’d written Spider-Man a specific way, and there always exists room to create new, modern superheros, who are ethnically diverse and who aren’t locked into specific relationships.