Shekhar Kapur tells BT what a marvel Stan Lee was, and how knowing him has enriched his life
As told to Purba Dutt (BOMBAY TIMES; November 16, 2018)

I met Stan Lee several times, and that was because I had a comic books company and used to, and still, write comics. The original company was formed between Deepak Chopra, Richard Branson, Sharad Devarajan and myself. Every time I met Stan, we used to discuss stories and share ideas on superheroes. He was very keen to do things in China and India. He was convinced that ultimate mythology exists in these two countries, and Stan used to draw a lot on mythology to create his superheroes.

I showed him my film Mr. India, and after watching it, he said to me, ‘You’ve got it right, Shekhar! You created a superhero out of an ordinary man’. He used to always say that a superhero is formed out of an ordinary person, and when the superpowers are taken away from him, one must remember that he’s an ordinary person. I have my short take on this. Whenever writers approach me with stories on superheroes, my one question to them always is — what’s his kryptonite? What is it that makes him weak? What is it that can break him down? You cannot have a superhero without his kryptonite. That kryptonite is what can take away his power, and keep him ordinary. So, a superhero has to be someone who even when devastated by his kryptonite fights beyond his vulnerabilities. Stan and I used to have long discussions on this.

He wanted to create superheroes from other cultures. Stan was really, really, really ahead of his times. And he never stopped. Every time we met, we’d bounce ideas of each other, and he was forever asking, ‘What do you think of this idea? What do you say about a superhero like this? How about doing this?’ He was unstoppable. I once told him that the world was fast changing, and we needed to have superheroines like Wonder Woman, and he readily agreed. ‘Yes, Shekhar, yes, yes, we need superheroines.’ He said when he had started writing his comic books, his audience was mainly in America, but now every culture needed to have its own superheroes. I am now even more inspired to make a superhero movie. Superheroine, really. The only superhero movie coming out of India that has stood the test of time is Mr. India. It’s about time I made the next. The last time I met Stan was four years ago, and he told me about the stories he was working on. I believe he sold a few of those stories to China. We had talked of the possibility of creating an Indian superhero, and there’s already a lot of work that has been done on this. So, work on that continues, though right now I am totally taken in with the idea of launching India’s first superheroine, Devi, based on the character in my comic book with Graphic India.

I’d say that I am very inspired by Stan to make a superheroine film in India.