At a panel discussion sponsored by Archie Comics at the San Diego Comic-Con Stan Lee gave audiences a look at Super Seven, the first property from Stan Lee Comics, a venture backed by A Squared Entertainment and Archie Comics.  Super Seven, which features Lee himself as a leader of a band of alien superheroes that includes the likes of Lazar Lord and Kid Kinergy, was announced in February (see “Stan Lee and Archie Comics”).  The first issue of the Super Seven comic is due out by the end of the year.

 

In contrast to his role in the production of other contemporary comic lines such as the “Stan Lee” books being published by Boom Studios (see “Stan Lee’s Boom Titles Revealed”), which Lee characterized to the New York Times as “more like an overseer and executive editor,” with the Super Seven Lee is intimately involved as a creator for the first time since his Marvel days.  He told the Times: “They foolishly allowed me to create the characters and the concepts.  It’s the first time I’m doing what I used to do—deciding whether a concept is viable, picking the artists, trying to make it worthwhile.”

 

A Squared Entertainment, which was founded by Andy Heyward who was the CEO of animation and children’s programming powerhouse DIC Entertainment for 25 years, is anxious to exploit Super Seven across a range of media platforms, though no deals were announced at Comic-Con.  The second Stan Lee Comics property Air-Walker, a character who first appeared in Fantastic Four #120 in 1972, should debut in its new incarnation in 2011.