Stan Lee's Comikaze Lashes Out Over Health Scare

While Stan Lee's Twitter page and the Stan Lee's Comikaze Expo Facebook page have both been operating fairly normally for the last few days, lending to a sense that everything is pretty much fine in Stan-land, the furor that was kicked up on the Internet over the weekend when the 89-year-old comics legend cancelled a pair of appearances in Ohio has yet to totally subside--and the while the Comikaze Expo page certainly seems put out by the whole thing, they don't seem to have completely decided where to focus their anger. The comments we reported on this morning, wherein Comikaze called out The Toledo Blade by name in calling concerns about Lee's health "nonsense," are still visible if you've got a direct link, but now appear to be hidden from the convention's newsfeed. Paul Hem of the Blade reached out to ComicBook.com via Twitter to inquire about the criticism, as he couldn't find it online. "It's really sad that the Toledo Blade had to go spread nonsense," reads the now-hidden post, in part. A few days ago, though, Comikaze was more charitable toward the Blade, directing most of its anger at the comics press. "Stan is fine," wrote the Comikaze administrators in response to an inquiry on Saturday. "We had our weekly milkshake today. Do not believe lies spun by blogs (Comics Beat, who BTW STOLE and used one of OUR photos with out permission) and then picked up unknowing Toledo Blade." Now, anyone who's spent any amount of time in the comics press knows that The Beat is not in the habit of "spinning lies." Reporting the news that's presented to them is the prerogative of a news organization, and nobody seems to be claiming that The Beat did anything but report the quotes that were presented to them by Wizard World and others directly involved with the story. Lashing out about the use of a publicly-visible photo taken from a commercial, promotional Facebook page seems a bit strange, as well, as that's fairly common practice, but that may be a question of policy or just born of frustration from dealing with this story all weekend. It's also worth noting that the difference in styles (particularly the correct use of capitalization and punctuation in the entry attacking The Beat, versus the much more casual way the piece blaming the Blade is written) likely suggests two different writers, both of whom were likely inundated with dozens of inquiries over the weekend. ComicBook.com has inquired as to the reason for hiding the Blade comment (as opposed to either deleting it or allowing it to stand), but have not yet received a response. The one thing that's been consistent throughout is reference to the Comikaze staffers having a milkshake with Lee. And that's something Lee will back up. "Can any taste truly top the first sip of a vanilla milkshake?" Lee tweeted. "Not in my book!"