ANOTHER COMEBACK AGAIN, PART ONE

Stan Lee, 88, is at it again. Alex Dobuzinskis at Reuters reports that POW! Entertainment, Lee’s current company, is invading the Internet hoping to make money at it with a YouTube project called “Stan Lee’s World of Heroes,” which will feature short, live-action videos and animation. "The Internet is so much bigger,” Lee said in a phone interview, “and it's so all encompassing and everybody is involved in it. Years ago, it was just getting started. This is the perfect time for us to dive in with both feet."

Of the characters he is planning to unleash, Lee said, “there will be some with super power, and there will be some that are just good stories of people doing good things.” The time is ripe for superheroes on the Web, Lee thinks. "I am hoping everything we're doing at POW! will be as good or even better than what I did at Marvel because I'm more experienced now," he said. "I know more now than I knew then."

Us old and faithful fans recognize in such ringing assertions the Soap Box hype of yore. And most of us, including Dobuzinskis at Reuters, realize that “so far, none of the characters Lee has dreamed up at POW! have come close to achieving the worldwide fame of the heroes he helped create in over five decades at Marvel Comics.”

Most of the comic book creations he has launched in the last decade or so have expired after a few issues. No one can doubt that Stan Lee revitalized a moribund comic book industry five decades ago, but, sad to say, the concepts that worked so well for him then are not working these days.

But Lee is still riding high on his reputation of yesteryear, a deserved reputation but for accomplishments that have lost their pertinence in today’s popular culture. And despite his recent record, he seems oblivious of any prospect of failure.

“I don't feel I'm working,” he enthused to Dobuzinkskis. “I feel as though I'm playing. There are guys 100-years-old who can't wait to get to the golf course. I can't wait to get to the office."

More power to him, I say. If you enjoy it, keep right on playing. And he is.