[The] interest of Stan Lee's anthology of the comics he himself writes, lies primarily in the light shed on the psychology of the comics producer. The spirit in which Lee discusses the evolution of his comics is similar to that in which he originally made them. He thinks of himself as mover and destroyer, god of the media and the childish imagination. With genial bluster and biblical phrases, he simultaneously regenerates, distorts and parodies ancient mythological material. The creative self-consciousness is manifested in the Marvel comics through various devices to establish esthetic distance between the product on the one hand, and its creators and consumers on the other. Narcissus withdraws, the better to jump into his own reflection. But this is accompanied by an extraordinary degree of self-deception. Lee candidly states his purpose (which is that of so many other comics producers), "to relieve the awesome affliction that...