Stan Lee: "I Tried to Sound Scientific" When Writing Character Origins

Marvel Comics icon Stan Lee, in the forthcoming PBS documentary series Superheroes: A Never-Ending Battle, discusses the science behind Marvel Comics superheroes, and why his lack of actual knowledge didn't stop him from at least attempting to make it work. He tells the interviewer in the video embedded below that Spider-Man and Hulk's radioactivity-driven origin stories are things that seemed to make sense at the time, even if he knew nothing about the actual science of radioactivity or gamma radiation. He also trots out one of his favorite things to differentiate himself from the DC Comics of the time: the idea that in the early days of Marvel, flying characters like Thor were always given some form of locomotion that seemed to make sense, giving them a way to be moving forward rather than just saying, "Well, he can do that." Check it out below. The documentary will air on PBS and be released on home video October 15.