Thread by @ebonstorm

Oh hell. Death is bloody inconvenient, isn't it? There you are, cruising along, doing your thing and then... BAM. Someone drops dead. And no it's not a surprise. You knew it was coming. You treasured every day. Smiled every time you saw that person acting in anything.

#StanLee

And then one day, you wake up, just like any other day, get out bed; groan, take a shit, shower, shave, drink your coffee. And hear your idol is dead, while you walk out the door, not quite dry from your shower.

Where were you when you heard, Stan Lee died?

#StanLeeRIP

Do you stop, look at the time, and realize there is nothing you need to be doing at this particular moment.

Nothing more important than listening to the news. Learning nothing and imagining instead what it must have been like for Stan Lee to die.

#Marvel #Bombastic #StanLee

Stan Lee couldn't just pass away in his sleep like the rest of us. That's not his style. Here's how I imagined him moving into the great beyond.

Figure cloaked in shadow strides into the room. It's dark, the room filled with the scent of death.

The cloaked figure is intimately aware of that scent, smelling it on the battlefield more than once.

"Damn, Stan. You look like hell." The words belie the tone.

Once there might have been rancor between these two men, but Death makes one more forgiving than in life.

"Jack? I thought I'd never have to hear your voice again." Stan sits up, and for the first time in a long time, feels no pain. He hasn't felt this good, this clearheaded in years. The veil of dying's been lifted.

He felt great. If this is what being dead was like, give me more.

"This isn't Heaven, Stan. We have to get on." Jack, just the way Stan remembered him leaned over him and offered him a hand. "There is a bit of a marathon from dying to the good part of the afterlife. There's a bit of resistance. You might want to gear up."

"What are you talking about, Jack? Feeling this good, I can only assume I'm dead. What's the rush? Where's Joan? I thought I was supposed to be met by loved ones. I'm not even sure I like you half the time."

"Be quiet, you old bastard." Kirby froze raising his metal shod hand.

The wall to Stan's mental representation of his house exploded as if it had been hit by a bomb. Stan is knocked off his feet as Kirby draws his green cloak around him. "This old man look isn't going to cut it Stan. You need to catch up. Get young, put on something new."

Kirby reaches into his hooded cloak and pulls forth the mask of Victor Von Doom, and his cigar, which he promptly puts back into his grinning mouth.

Stan looks at him, awestruck by the face of his friend in the armor of a signature villain they created.

"Okay, how do I get one of those?" Stan points at Kirby's classic doom suit.
"You can't. There can be only one Doom." Kirby's voice dropped in tone and rose correspondingly in menace."You have to see yourself as something more than you are. It won't be a stretch for you, Stan."

"Bite me, Jack. So how does this work?"

"Think back to when we were first making characters in New York in that shitty office with no air conditioning. Focus on what you want, think about it, make it real in your mind and then visualize it. Keep it simple, Stan."

An explosion lands outside. Kirby puts his mask back on, flicking his cigar into Stan's former bed, which promptly catches fire. "I'm going to entertain our guests while you get your shit together. Even Heaven ain't a free ride, kid." Kirby/Doom blasts a giant Brood warrior.

Stan walks over to a mirror, while explosions and Kirby/Doom's rants about there not being enough of them echoes around the house in his mind. He sees himself in the mirror, but its fuzzy, at first.

"Am I me? Does it matter?" Stan's face from sixty years ago appears.

"Did I do that?" Stan thought about how good it would be to stand up. And he did. Then he imagined how nice it would be to be strong enough to do whatever he wanted. And he was.

Then he imagined he could climb on the walls. So he did.

Excelsior! "I've got it, Jack!"

"Yeah, I've heard that before. Funny, I remember being the guy doing all the work after you finished running your mouth and scribbling on some napkins. Here I am again, doing all the work. You going to fight for your own way into Heaven, or what?"

Stan looking at Kirby out the window, seeing his friend in the suit of Doctor Doom, and more alive than he ever remembered him, he realized what Heaven was.

"Hold on, Jack. I'm on my way." Stan fell from the wall and hits the ground a thousand pounds heavier. And green.

Getting up he walks through the wall and the house falls down behind him. No going back. Then he sees his friend working harder and being surrounded. It was only then that he looked out into the distance and realized they were surrounded.

"This is Heaven?" Stan stared.

"Did I say that? I said I came to get you TO Heaven. I didn't say anything about our actual location, did I? Did you even read "The Death of Captain Marvel? That's not going to be enough."

Stan looked down at himself. Not enough? Then he looked at the legions around them.

"Mjolnir, I have need of thee." Stan intoned, surprised how good it felt.
"Better." Kirby laughed and pointed skyward. "To me, my board!"

The two old enemies and older allies stood side by side as their deliverance arrived from on high. Lightning crackled around them.

Doom began to glow with an inner light, suffused from within from the Power Cosmic. He rises to greet the surfboard.

Mjolnir crashed into the monsters still surrounding them after the lightning storm, brushing them away like lint. It flies to Stan's green hand.

"King Thor. Showoff."

"Doom with the Power Cosmic. Whose the showboat? Okay, I think I got the hang of this. Which way is Heaven?"

"That's the best part. Just like in a comic, Heaven is always in front of us. Pick a direction and start fighting."

"There's no Heaven, is there?" Stan knew that sound. The sound Jack made when he wasn't going to quit, just because he didn't like the odds.

"Ain't never seen it. Haven't stopped looking. Been gathering reinforcements. Now that you're here, we can get to clobbering things."

The legions parted, as forces, swords, will, psychic potential parted them like a sea. A flaming winged firebird formed above them, sweeping them away with a destructive scream. The heart of the Marvel Universe stood before them, Charles Xavier at their head. "To me, our X-men!"

"We're all here Stan. Heaven's that way. We have the biggest guns we ever made, right here with us."

"Nothing stopped us when we worked together." The two leapt into battle.

Galactus and the Watcher stood as the two Creators battled their foes with enthusiasm. And they smiled.

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