If there’s one art form America’s developed better than any other nation it’s self-mythologising. The Greeks gave it a pretty good go with the likes of Homer but few nations have managed it on such an industrial scale. From carnival sideshows to Madison Avenue America can burnish anything with a golden tinge; any product, any actor, any sports star, hell they can even mythologise their dreams into an ideology. Whether the American Dream’s a healthy mythology’s another question entirely.

All of which leads back to Stan Lee. I grew up on Doctor Who and marvel, the simplicity of Terrance Dicks and the loquacity of Lee. I know it’s de rigeur to grant Kirby and Ditko more credit than they were given at the time (and rightly so) but for all the weird angularity of Ditko or the spectacle and energy of Kirby it was Lee’s words grabbed me. He was working with artistic genii, but dammit he sold their work. He was the salesman who got the punters rolling up and handing their nickels and dimes over. He sold each issue with apparent absolute, unbreakable self-belief, one arm around the shoulder and a fast tongue telling an exciting story you’d never see bettered. And he’d be sending you to the dictionary with his loquacity and fondness for grandiloquent language. The words were as much a thrill as the art for me, despite his cheap fondness for exclamation marks that surely caused a worldwide shortage of them in other literature. It was essentially a lesson that the lessons you were being taught about how to write were wrong; screw simplicity and using the shortest possible words, make the language exciting. And if the language matches the art, baby you’ve hit gold.

Doomsday reminded me of all that. Now I’m older I can see all the holes in the storytelling, the penalty of making things up as you go along (including the conclusion to the Doctor Doom story that forms the bulk of the arc basically happening off-screen). You probably didn’t need all those words, the way the industry’s developed has proved that, but Lee could take all those words and thrill your young soul to the core. Kirby’s art could sell the story by itself, but with Lee’s words… well, what you’ve got is a beautifully wrapped present. What’s inside isn’t necessarily so great, with well-intentioned racial politics bordering on the patronising, casual sexism towards Susan and the aforementioned wonky narrative, but it’s a fine reminder of what made Lee and Kirby a dream team as well as the flaws the creative hothouse conditions imposed. Like a lot of mythology though the style is unimpeachable, the substance less so. ( )