Spiderman, The Hulk, The Fantastic Four, Daredevil and a host of other wisecracking, sexy, hip and charming costumed heroes teemed from his fertile brain. Suddenly the whole stable of DC comics, even such legends as Superman and Batman, were passé, stick figures of no personality, wired to plots creaking from age and dust.
When Hollywood, as it always does 20 years after other sentient life on the planet, caught up with the revolution a year or two ago, out shot such blockbusters as Spiderman, Daredevil, the not-so-successful Hulk, and for a few busy weekends the world was a Stan Lee carnival. Mr. Lee himself, as the crowds gathered and the money poured in, was given little credit, and at premieres or awards shows, if he was there at all, was but a social footnote. Just the guy who invented Peter Parker. Not like he was a special effects technician, or someone of real consequence like the "best boy" or "gaffer." Stan, we hardly knew ye.
Back to Mr. Manning. I don't know if he knows Stan Lee, and I suspect he is not a Daredevil fan. But I'd wager that Preston Manning, after hearing the cheers that went up from not a few editorial boards, and the unwonted susurrus of pundits purring over the wonderful idea of the Alliance and the Tories finally agreeing to put down their battle axes and meld into a single entity, felt very much like Stan Lee after Hollywood moved in.
Here we are, let's say, four or five months before Paul Martin seems likely to rack up a win that would possibly blot out of existence the two shards which called themselves the Alliance and the Progressive Conservative Party -- and the two leaders of those stalled rumps finally bend to mathematics and common sense and decide to merge.Brilliant. Selfless. Just what Canadian democracy needs.
Well, if it's brilliant and selfless on the eve of an electoral Armageddon, at one minute to midnight before the writ drops and the abyss yawns its welcome to Tory and Alliance alike, how much more brilliant, I wonder, was this same idea when -- with years to execute it, time to mature it, and leisure to persuade all of the parties to its sweetness and wisdom -- it was first proposed? By Stan Preston Manning Lee.
What was a great idea five years ago is a desperate lunge (can the sharpshooter cut the rope with his piercing bullet before the trapdoor is sprung?) and a reality-mugging at this stage of the game. What could have been done cleanly and openly years back when Preston Manning drew a bull's-eye on the necessary course for all conservatives to follow, is now done with a stage show of high party emissaries, a fanfare of double-dealing (Peter McKay, say goodbye to David Orchard) and guaranteed ructions from the loyalists of either party.
It causes a lot of people stomach cramps to agree with David Orchard, and I feel a pang myself, but he is right on one thing: Whatever the wisdom of this merger, whatever its prospective boon to the estate of Canadian democracy, this is no way to wind down a political party.
Card games played for matchsticks have more process than this merger. The great Progressive Conservative Party deserves a better funeral. And this is not just a matter of decorum. Something as serious as "providing an alternative" within Canadian democracy shouldn't be the product of democratic shortcuts itself. One deal done by undoing another deal is not an auspicious birth for restoring integrity and accountability to Canadian politics.
He who gives quickly, gives twice. This is an ancient tag, and might be seen as a corollary of another observation: The timing of the deed is part of its wisdom. Late is not always better than never.
But shortcuts and fast-talking past the difficult bits is the necessary mode of implementing an idea when oblivion is at the gate. Had the people involved, back when this notion of uniting the right was coolly and bravely put out for full debate by Preston Manning, exercised their foresight then, they would not have been put to shifts and evasions now.
Meanwhile, the one man with the gravity to shoulder this idea, and quite possibly the respect to underwrite its integrity, is the one with whom it originated -- and he is out of Canadian politics. He lectures at the University of Toronto as a distinguished visitor, while others with less distinction try to cobble at the last minute what he crafted for a decade.
Such are the almost sublime ironies of public life. Stan Lee would understand.
Rex Murphy is a commentator with CBC-TV's The National and host of CBC Radio One's Cross-Country Checkup.
