Stan Lee resurfaces 1968 ‘Stan’s Soapbox’ column to condemn bigotry

Marvel’s Stan Lee isn’t shy about speaking out against injustices facing society.

Today Lee tweeted a photo of one of his Stan’s Soapbox columns, a monthly piece that ran in Marvel’s Bullpen Bulletins news and information section between 1965-2001, from 1968. Lee’s tweet comes just days after a violent protest organized by white supremacists and neo-Nazis was held in Virginia.

In the 1968 column, Lee didn’t specify which act of bigotry and hate he was writing about, but it was an important year for the rights movement in America. The Civil Rights Act of 1968 was finally enacted and Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr. were assassinated just months apart.

It was a time of civil and social unrest and Lee, who lived through the second World War, wrote this piece condemning the hateful views of white supremacy groups.

“Racism and bigotry are among the deadliest social ills plaguing the world today," Lee said. "But, unlike a team of costumed supervillains, they can't be halted with a punch in the snoot or a zap from a ray gun. The only way to destroy them, is to expose them — to reveal from the insidious evil they really are.

“It's totally irrational and patently insane to condemn an entire race — to despise an entire nation — to vilify an entire religion.”

Lee, whose full name is Stanley Lieber, is also the son of Jewish parents and served as a soldier during the second World War. During his tenure at Marvel, Lee contributed to many stories, including multiple Captain America comics. Captain America, who was created by Jack Kirby and Joe Simon, was designed to quite literally defeat Nazis during the rise of Adolf Hitler and the events of World War II.