PBS高端访谈:别了漫威之父斯坦·李

JUDY WOODRUFF: Now: remembering a man who had a big impact on the movies by the legendary¹ comic book characters he helped create. William Brangham has the story.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: He's credited with bringing to life some of the biggest, baddest, most iconic superheroes of the 20th century. Stan Lee, as the head of Marvel² Comics, helped revolutionize comic books 40 years ago, and, more recently, helped turned those characters into a worldwide movie juggernaut that's grossed over 20 billion dollars globally. Bob Batchelor wrote the biography Stan Lee: The Man Behind Marvel.

BOB BATCHELOR, Author, Stan Lee: The Man Behind Marvel: Stan Lee had a part in creating or co-creating some of America's and the world's greatest popular cultural figures.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Back in the 1960s, Lee was a writer and editor at Marvel Comics, a company being eclipsed by the much bigger D.C. Comics, which had the sturdy franchises³ of Superman and Batman. Lee was asked to come up with something, anything, to compete. His next project, done with his partner, artist Jack⁴ Kirby, was The Fantastic Four, and it was a surprise hit, particularly because its oddball characters had weird⁵ powers, could never seem to get along, and defied the superhero archetype. This more complex hero was something Lee repeated, with great success, with his subsequent characters, like the Amazing Spider-man, the Incredible Hulk, and the Avengers series. In a 2002 interview, at the premiere of the first Spider-Man movie, Lee described just how hard it was to convince his editor decades ago to approve the story line.

STAN LEE, Comic Book Creator: I said, I want to do this guy called Spider-Man. He's a teenager. He's got a million problems. Everything goes wrong. My publisher said: Stan, you have lost it. He said: First of all, nobody likes spiders. You can't call a hero Spider-Man. Secondly⁶, a teenager can't be a hero. He can only be a sidekick. And lastly, he said: You say he's got all kinds of problems? Don't you understand, Stan? He's a hero. Heroes don't have problems. That's why they're heroes. So, it shows what I knew.

BOB BATCHELOR: Stan's real power was capturing this kind of everyday superhero mentality⁷ that people were really attracted to. It wasn't the godlike speaking of a Superman or the stilted⁸ language of Batman. It was a language that people could really relate to and understand on a deeply personal level.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: While there were lingering questions about whether Lee shared the proper credit with his collaborators over the years, his influence on the comic book industry was indisputable. Lee later tried to turn his characters into live action, like in the 1980s TV series The Incredible Hulk. But it wasn't until The X-Men and then Spider-Man in the early 2000s did the Marvel movie enterprise really take off. Since then, its over a dozen films have resurrected and interwoven the stories of over 20 individual characters, many of whom were first drawn⁹ almost 50 years ago. Last year's blockbuster Black Panther struck many firsts, a black superhero, a largely all-black cast, numerous strong black female characters, all done by a black director, Ryan Coogler.

BOB BATCHELOR: One of the most important things that Stan did is, he always pushed the boundaries of what comic books would publish.

Stan saw that comic books and superheroes should represent what we see in everyday life. And so he was ahead of the curve on many of the issues that we take for granted today or that we are still grasping with today.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Despite his success, the last years of Lee's life were riven with stories of financial mismanagement and painful, drawn-out legal fights with members of his family. But die-hard fans will still look for him in the films, where he regularly made cameo appearances.

STAN LEE: You know, I guess one person can make a difference.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Like here, when he appeared in Spider-Man 3, talking to the young Peter Parker. Stan Lee was 95 years old. For the PBS NewsHour, I'm William Brangham.

JUDY WOODRUFF: And thanks for that remembrance.

朱迪·伍德拉夫：大家还记得有一个人对一系列电影产生了重大影响吗？而这些电影中的传奇漫画中的人物正是他自己曾经参与创作过的。下面请听我台记者威廉·布兰汉姆发回的报道。

威廉·布兰汉姆：世人皆知他为观众呈现了20世纪最伟大、最让人动情的超级英雄典型形象。他就是斯坦·李，是“漫威”的负责人。他助力颠覆了40年前的漫画书。而最近，他又帮忙将这些漫画人物变成了电影世界的主宰，创造了200多亿美元的价值。鲍勃·巴彻勒曾写过一本传记，名为《斯坦·李：漫威背后的男人》。

鲍勃·巴彻勒，《斯坦·李：漫威背后的男人》作者：斯坦·李曾制作或参与制作过美国乃至世界最知名的一些文化人物。

威廉·布兰汉姆：上世纪60年代的时候，斯坦·李是“漫威”的作家和编辑。这家公司当时正要被更大的DC漫画收购，后者手握《超人》、《蝙蝠侠》等枪手好片专营权。有人要求斯坦·李创作一些东西跟DC漫画竞争，哪怕粗制滥造也好。斯坦·李的接下来的一个项目是跟伙伴一起完成的。他的伙伴是艺术家杰克·科比。他们合作的作品是《神奇四侠》。令人意外的是，这部漫画一炮而红。尤其是考虑到这部漫画里古怪的角色却拥有着奇异的力量时，就更觉得这部漫画不会受到热捧，因为其角色颠覆了超级英雄的固有形象。斯坦·李一直在创造复杂性不断提高的英雄角色，而且总是好评如潮。他在那以后创作的作品，比如《神奇蜘蛛侠》、《绿巨人》、《复仇者联盟》系列。2002年他接受采访时正值《神奇蜘蛛侠》首映，斯坦·李讲述了几十年前的背景下说服自己的编剧同意他的故事线有多么难。

斯坦·李，漫画作者：我说，我想做一个叫做神奇蜘蛛侠的角色。他是一个少年，有着数不清的烦恼，似乎全世界都在跟他作对。我的出版商说：斯坦，我现在就可以告诉你不可能成功。他说：首先呢，没有人喜欢蜘蛛，所以你不能将一个英雄称为蜘蛛侠。其次呢，少年是不可能做英雄的，做多做个伙伴而已。最后他还跟我说：斯坦你还说他有无数的烦恼，对不对。你不明白吗，斯坦。他是英雄啊。英雄是没有烦恼的。这样才可以称之为英雄啊。这些都是我知道的。

鲍勃·巴彻勒：斯坦真正的强大之处在于他能在当时的大背景下捕捉到日常生活中超级英雄的心态，这是大家着迷之处。斯坦不是从上帝视角去死板地讲述超人或者蜘蛛侠的故事。而是从每个平凡人都能找到共鸣并能发自内心理解的角度。

威廉·布兰汉姆：虽然近年来关于斯坦是否跟合作伙伴以公平的方式分享成功，但斯坦对漫画业的影响是毫无争议的。后来，斯坦尝试将漫画人物放在实景中，比如上世纪80年代的电视连续剧《绿巨人》。但直到2000年初《X战警》和《蜘蛛侠》上映后，漫威公司才开始成名。从那时起，漫威的十几部电影和其中包含的20多个独立人物才逐渐浮出水面。而其中的很多人物都是大概50年前创作的。去年的大手笔《黑豹》揽获多项第一名。这部影片讲的是一个黑人形象的超级英雄。参演演员大部分都是黑人，而且其中很多女性黑人角色都力大无比，而且这部影片的导演也是黑人——瑞恩·库格勒。

鲍勃·巴彻勒：斯坦做的最重要的一件事情就是——他总是在拓宽漫画领域的疆土。斯坦认为，漫画和超级英雄应该能体现我们的日常生活。所以，他在很多问题上都是走在前沿的，他超越了我们视为理所当然的东西，突破了我们走不出去的牛角尖。

威廉·布兰汉姆：虽然斯坦大获成功，但他的晚年生活充满了财务管理不善的问题，而且跟家人打了很久的官司，痛彻心扉。但斯坦的死忠粉还是会专心关注他的影视作品，而且斯坦总是会以配角的身份出现给人惊喜。

斯坦·李：我一直认为，每个人都能为世界带来不同。

威廉·布兰汉姆：比如在这里，当斯坦出现在《蜘蛛侠3》中，跟彼得·帕克说话。那时候他已经95岁了。感谢收听威廉·布兰汉姆发回的《新闻一小时》。

朱迪·伍德拉夫：感谢威廉带我们回顾斯坦·李的一生。

1 legendary   

adj.传奇（中）的，闻名遐迩的；n.传奇（文学）

参考例句：

• Legendary stories are passed down from parents to children.传奇故事是由父母传给孩子们的。
• Odysseus was a legendary Greek hero.奥狄修斯是传说中的希腊英雄。

2 marvel   

vi.(at)惊叹vt.感到惊异；n.令人惊异的事

参考例句：

• The robot is a marvel of modern engineering.机器人是现代工程技术的奇迹。
• The operation was a marvel of medical skill.这次手术是医术上的一个奇迹。

3 franchises   

n.（尤指选举议员的）选举权( franchise的名词复数 )；参政权；获特许权的商业机构（或服务）；（公司授予的）特许经销权v.给…以特许权，出售特许权( franchise的第三人称单数 )

参考例句：

• TV franchises will be auctioned to the highest bidder. 电视特许经营权将拍卖给出价最高的投标人。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Ford dealerships operated as independent franchises. 福特汽车公司的代销商都是独立的联营商。 来自辞典例句

4 jack   

n.插座，千斤顶，男人；v.抬起，提醒，扛举；n.（Jake）杰克

参考例句：

• I am looking for the headphone jack.我正在找寻头戴式耳机插孔。
• He lifted the car with a jack to change the flat tyre.他用千斤顶把车顶起来换下瘪轮胎。

5 weird   

adj.古怪的，离奇的；怪诞的，神秘而可怕的

参考例句：

• From his weird behaviour,he seems a bit of an oddity.从他不寻常的行为看来，他好像有点怪。
• His weird clothes really gas me.他的怪衣裳简直笑死人。

6 secondly   

adv.第二，其次

参考例句：

• Secondly,use your own head and present your point of view.第二，动脑筋提出自己的见解。
• Secondly it is necessary to define the applied load.其次，需要确定所作用的载荷。

7 mentality   

n.心理，思想，脑力

参考例句：

• He has many years'experience of the criminal mentality.他研究犯罪心理有多年经验。
• Running a business requires a very different mentality from being a salaried employee.经营企业所要求具备的心态和上班族的心态截然不同。

8 stilted   

adj.虚饰的；夸张的

参考例句：

• All too soon the stilted conversation ran out.很快这种做作的交谈就结束了。
• His delivery was stilted and occasionally stumbling.他的发言很生硬，有时还打结巴。

9 drawn   

v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的

参考例句：

• All the characters in the story are drawn from life.故事中的所有人物都取材于生活。
• Her gaze was drawn irresistibly to the scene outside.她的目光禁不住被外面的风景所吸引。