By Sam Weller

In 1962, Stan Lee dreamed up a new comic book hero. The co-creator of such spandex-clad stalwarts as the Fantastic Four and the X-Men wrote a story about a web-slinging crime-fighter in Amazing Fantasy 15. Boasting on the cover that the world "will soon marvel at the awesome might of Spider-Man," that comic book sold for 12 cents. Forty-five years later, the world does indeed marvel at Stan Lee's arachnid superhero. Released in early May, Spider-Man 3 wrapped its web around $148 million during its opening weekend.

At 84, Stan Lee is an undeniable pop culture icon. Born in New York City in 1922, he fantasized of being a writer even as a kid. Still in his teens, Lee went to work for the Timely Comics Company in 1940, where he began writing Captain America stories. He changed his last name from Lieber to Lee and, over the next three decades as writer and editor, became the most recognizable face the comic book field has ever known.

Throughout the early 1960s, Lee, along with a cadre of artists (most notably Steve Ditko and Jack Kirby), co-created a plethora of groundbreaking characters: Spiderman, the Fantastic Four, the X-Men, the Hulk, Daredevil and many more. By the early 1970s, Lee became the brand identity of Marvel with his tinted shades, his mustache, his ubiquitous glowing tan and his silky shirts buttoned-down a couple notches. He hung out with rock stars, partied with Hef at the Mansion, made the rounds on television talk shows and wrote his own monthly column in every issue of Marvel Comics.

That period was dubbed the "Marvel Age" of comic books, thanks in large part to Lee's surprisingly vulnerable superheroes. Peter Parker had as much trouble with girls as he did with Doctor Octopus. The Hulk had Herculean, gamma-radiation-induced strength, but his alter-ego, Dr. Bruce Banner, didn't want those powers. The X-Men were as angst-ridden as any misfit high-schooler.

With television and the movies adapting more and more comics, Lee eventually went Hollywood. There were a number of animated shows, the occasional television series and, finally, a foray into movies that led to 2001's Sam Raimi directed mega-blockbuster Spiderman, which grossed more than $400 million domestically. Lee has since had a number of consultant gigs on the X-Men films, Fantastic Four and The Hulk.

Today, Stan Lee is the chairman of the board and chief creative officer of POW! Entertainment (Purveyors of Wonder), where he oversees myriad film, television and video game projects. Playboy.com caught up with Lee via phone for a wide-ranging chat that ran the spectrum from the genesis of Spider-Man to the hottest babes in the Marvel Universe to the war in Iraq.

Stan Lee: Just my luck, I get an interview from Playboy.com and it has to be a guy. And you're probably fully dressed.

Playboy.com: I am fully clothed, my friend. So, how does the big-screen Spidey, who just did booming business this weekend, compare to how you imagined him?

Lee: Spidey on the big screen is just the way I imagined him. In fact, he's even better, because I would never have dared to imagine such breathtakingly wonderful special effects.

Playboy.com: Why did your superheroes, like Spider-man and the X-Men, become so popular?

Lee: To me, the only thing that makes any fictional work interesting is if you care about the characters. When I was a kid, I loved Sherlock Holmes. I enjoyed the mystery, but I found him so fascinating. I found Tarzan fascinating. I think the interplay -- the relationship between the various X-Men characters -- is like a continuing soap opera. People are always bad-mouthing soap operas, but basically they are fascinating because you care about the characters. And today the equivalent are things like Desperate Housewives or Lost.

Playboy.com: Did you think of the X-Men as a soap opera when you created them in 1963?

Lee: No, I never thought about it that definitely. I had already created The Fantastic Four and it sold very well. My publisher at that time said, "Let's do another group of superheroes." I thought it would be fun if I made them teenagers. The most difficult thing is to figure out where they get their superpowers. If I had to have a whole bunch of teenagers and create different ways in which they got their powers, I would have gone nuts. So I took the cowardly way out and said, "Hey, they're just mutants. They were born that way." I had them at a school, but nobody on the outside world knows that it is a school for mutants. I was trying to make them interesting and give them colorful powers and make them different than anything anybody had read before. But no matter if you're Charles Dickens or Victor Hugo, if you're writing about people you try to make them compelling so the reader wants to know more about them. That's what I mean by the soap opera thing.

Playboy.com: Your characters deal with day-to-day issues regular people struggle with, whereas Superman, outside of a nasty allergy to Kryptonite, is just about perfect. Talk about developing the human side of characters.

Lee: Superman was a brilliant creation, but the rest of the competition for the most part was one-dimensional. They were good guys who fought the bad guys. Each character had a different power and that's about it. There were exceptions, of course. Even before I got into the business, Carl Burgos had done the Human Torch and Bill Everett had done the Sub-Mariner. Those characters had real personality. Aside from that, there are very few examples where the characters weren't cardboard cutouts. After a few years, I wanted to quit. I didn't like the idea that my publisher didn't want me to use words of more than two syllables because he thought only young kids or stupid adults read comic books. He didn't want me to waste time on dialogue or characterization. He just wanted action. My wife said, "Why don't you do at least one book the way you would like to. The worst that could happen is you get fired and, so what, you want to quit." So I did The Fantastic Four, and I tried to play up their relationships and make it more three-dimensional -- and it worked.

Playboy.com: You grew up in New York during the Great Depression. How did that era affect your creative development?

Lee: The one thing I always wanted was a steady job. My father was a dress cutter and he was mostly always unemployed. I used to feel so sorry for him. He wanted to work and he was very competent but he couldn't get any work. Our biggest worry was, "Can we pay the rent on our apartment from month to month?" When I finally got the job at Timely Comics, I felt very lucky, and that's why I stayed there all those years. I was there 20 to 25 years. Today, people always ask, "Why didn't you ever try to get ownership of some of these characters you created?" That never occurred to me. I just felt like the luckiest guy in the world that I had a job and that I was getting a fairly good salary and, boy, how can life be any better than that?

Playboy.com: You've told the story that you once saw a fly crawling up the wall of your office and that that was the moment you invented Spiderman.

Lee: I've told that story so many times, for all I know it might be true, but I can't swear to it.

Playboy.com: How about the genesis of the Incredible Hulk?

Lee: I wanted to do a heroic monster, as silly as that sounds. I always liked the movie Frankenstein with Boris Karloff. I had always felt that the monster was really the good guy. He didn't want to hurt anybody, but he was always being chased up the hills by those idiots carrying torches. I wanted to create a character that didn't want to hurt anybody, but because of the way he is, the way he looks, people think he is a menace. I thought it's kind of dull following a monster around all the time, and I remembered Robert Louis Stevenson's Jeckyl and Hyde. I thought it would be cool -- well, I didn't think "cool," in those days, I probably thought "groovy" -- if he could be a normal guy who turned into a monster. The Hulk was really Frankenstein and Jeckyl and Hyde and I put them together.

Playboy.com: Talk about creating Spiderman.

Lee: I wanted to go against type. All of the heroes [at the time] were really big, strong, handsome guys. I wanted to create a guy who was shy, who was not muscle-bound, who would be picked on all the time. It occurred to me, why not a high school kid? I wasn't picked on in high school but I knew kids who were. At the time, there weren't too many smart comic book characters. Why not get a nice role model for the readers, a guy who is good in school? In fact, he's got a science scholarship, and the other kids don't particularly like him; they consider him a nerd. Then he gets a superpower. The thought process was something like that.

Playboy.com: Peter Parker was responsible for the death of his Uncle Ben. The X-Men are these misunderstood outcasts. The Thing is this horrendous aberration of orange rock. Was this a formula you had, of the tragic hero?

Lee: It was a formula in this sense: Nobody's life is perfect. The one thing I didn't like about Superman was that I never worried about him. He had no personal problems except he liked Lois Lane and for some reason he wouldn't tell her he was Clark Kent. I always wondered why he kept his identity a secret. If I was Superman, I'd want the world to know. "Hey! Look at me! I'm Superman." Of course, I'm a little bit of a show-off, and most people are. Can you imagine if you were the greatest person in the world and you didn't want anyone to know? [Laughs] You'd be crazy! He never had to worry about money. He dressed beautifully. There was a villain in every story, and by the end he had beaten the villain. I thought, there has to be more to storytelling than that. The more problems you give a character, the more you care and the more you empathize. Iron Man had a weak heart. Daredevil was blind. Right down the line, they all had something.

Playboy.com: If you were writing the script to Spider-Man 4, where would you take the character next?

Lee: If I were writing the script for Spidey 4 I might be inclined to go back to one villain, very possibly The Lizard -- especially since we've already established his alter ego in the previous movies. He's a truly great character -- as well as a sympathetic one. With the Lizard as Spidey's chief adversary, there'd be a lot of room for compelling human interest.

Playboy.com: You created many of these characters in the 1960s during a very turbulent time politically and socially. You introduced black characters and strong, independent female characters that were equal to their male counterparts. What was the response from readers?

Lee: The responses were all great. With The Fantastic Four, I think it was the first time that a girl was not needing to be rescued all the time but was an integral part of the team; and she had her own power. With the black characters, it always seemed ridiculous that there weren't any. There are so many black people in the world; why not have black super heroes?

Playboy.com: Comedian Norm MacDonald has joked about the Fantastic Four, acknowledging three of the members have names that reflect their powers and appearance: The Human Torch, the Invisible Girl, the Thing. But the stretchy leader guy gets the lofty title of Mister Fantastic....

Lee: Mister Fantastic, as he modestly calls himself. [Laughs] I don't know why the hell I called him that! Oh, I know why! I guess I thought that because the group was called the Fantastic Four, for some reason I'd call him Mister Fantastic. It was like, "Fantastic's Four," like "Gilligan's Island." [Laughs] It was a stupid thought. I'm not proud of it. I love the name, "The Fantastic Four." But I really should have called him something like "Stretcho."

Playboy.com: Speaking of Reed Richards -- Mister Fantastic -- he is a very capable scientist, as is Peter Parker. You seem to have a connection to science with your characters. Why is that?

Lee: It's funny because I know nothing about science, although I love it. I wish I had studied science. I'll show you how scientific I am. I used to wonder, How does Superman fly? He has no visible means of propulsion. Even in the beginning when Siegel and Schuster did him, he could just leap over buildings. He didn't fly. As the series went on, they had him fly. I wanted to be more scientifically accurate. I wanted Thor to fly, so I gave him an enchanted hammer with a thong on it that he wears around his wrist. When he wants to fly, he swings the hammer around like a propeller. Then he lets it go and the hammer goes flying into the air, but it's attached to his wrist so it takes him along with it. So that is perfectly scientific and plausible -- and that is about the extent of my scientific knowledge. [Laughs]

Playboy.com: Talk a little bit about working in Hollywood.

Lee: Everybody said to me, "Jesus, you'll hate Hollywood, Stan. They're all a bunch of backstabbers and they're selfish and they're conceited and they're pompous," and I thought to myself, That's my kinda people! [Laughs] I couldn't wait to get here! Truthfully though, the people I've met have all been great. Maybe I'm lucky. I get to deal with actors and directors and screenwriters and producers and I love them. I've made a lot of friends.

Playboy.com: What screen adaptations of your Marvel Comics characters have been your favorites?

Lee: I'd have to say the X-Men series and the Spiderman series have been the best. I liked Fantastic Four and actually I liked The Hulk and, believe it or not, I liked Daredevil. I don't know why Daredevil didn't do better. I thought Ben Affleck did a good job. I don't know how he could have been any better.

Playboy.com: Turn your imagination to real world events for a moment. Where do you see things going for the world, say, in 10 years?

Lee: So much has to do with what's happening with the terrorists. It's almost turning into something like ages ago, when we had the crusades. It's almost turning into us versus them. We're gonna need some very wise people running this country who are going to be able to handle things. It's a serious problem. I don't think the U.S. has ever been as hated in the world as it is today. And I don't think it's our fault. It's not anything with a simplistic solution. I really think things will get worse before they get better. But let me add, I'm a lousy prophet. [Laughs] I hope I'm wrong.

Playboy.com: What are your opinions of the war in Iraq?

Lee: Personally, I think it was a mistake. We sent about 10 or 20 thousand troops into Afghanistan and over a hundred thousand into Iraq. We should have sent that hundred thousand into Afghanistan where we knew that Osama bin Laden was hiding. We might have been able to inflict real damage to Al Qaeda. But we're in Iraq now and things seem to be getting worse and worse. We've got to figure out a way to disentangle ourselves, to get our troops safely home without looking as though we didn't honor our commitment. Yet, it seems the longer we stay there the worse it gets. To sum it up, I feel we've got to get out of Iraq and the sooner we do, the better off we -- and the world -- will be.

Playboy.com: How about improving our image around the world?

Lee: The most important thing is communication. I've always felt that the president of the United States, his greatest talent, should be to be a great communicator. Ronald Reagan, when he made a speech, could win people's hearts and minds and not divide the country. And I don't blame this on Bush, but I can't remember any time when I felt the nation was more divided than it is today. The Democrats hate the Republicans; the Republicans consider all the Democrats pacifists and appeasers and soft on terrorists, and these people genuinely seem to feel this way about each other. Somehow I hope that whoever is going to be the next president can bring the country together. We're all Americans. We're all on the same side. We all want the same thing, but I've never known so much vindictiveness and so much hatred. Each group hates the other group so much.

Playboy.com: What do you see for the future of comic books?

Lee: Comic books are now thought of as a breeding ground for movies, television and toys. Today, when someone writes or draws a comic book, I think that in the back of his or her mind is the idea that "If I do a real good job and I'm lucky, some movie studio might pick this up and want to make movie of it." The artists are paying more attention; they're trying to make every drawing a masterpiece. The writers try to think of angles that would make a good movie, and they're not wrong because so many producers and movie studio people look at the comics, and they're looking for the next Superman or Spiderman or Batman.

Playboy.com: So how can the emphasis in the comics industry get back on the books themselves?

Lee: It isn't necessarily a contradiction in terms. Maybe this will make comic books better than ever. Maybe if a writer is thinking, "I want to write something that would make a great movie," maybe we'll end up with a better comic book story than if he was just trying to write a comic book story. I don't know. We have so many fine writers from movies and television who are now writing comics because they grew up with comics and they love them.

Playboy.com: Outside of your own projects, what movies do you like?

Lee: My tastes have changed recently. I've seen so many science fiction movies and horror movies and action-adventure movies that I've been getting a kick out of watching these so-called "date movies." You know, nice, little, funny romances. There's nothing to worry about, they always have a happy ending and there's a lot of laughs.

Playboy.com: Who do you think is the hottest woman in the Marvel Universe?

Lee: The idea was to make all of the women beautiful. I like them all. I like every one that John Romita did. I loved the way he did Mary Jane. The Black Widow was great. Sue Storm -- depending on who drew her -- was very beautiful.

Playboy.com: I've always had a thing for the Scarlet Witch.

Lee [Laughs]: Let me put it this way: If I were single again and a couple of years younger, I would not toss the Scarlet Witch out of my bed.