Stan Lee’s legacy lives on in Web3

Stan Lee is a comic book legend who made iconic characters like Spider-Man, The Hulk, Black Widow and more household names. Although he passed on in November 2018, his legacy lives on through posthumous projects, including those in the realm of Web3. Several of Lee’s former collaborators have linked up with the green NFT platform OneOf to bring fans of Lee – and Marvel Comics as a whole – into the metaverse.

In our latest episode of Behind the Drop, we spoke to OneOf founder Lin Dai – along with Art Director Will Meugniot and Slam Girl curator Shirrel Jones – about how their latest venture, Slam girlcould serve as an extension of Stan Lee’s legacy, potentially shaking up the comics industry in the process.

“Stan is the creator of the modern comics industry. Beyond his work as a writer and editor, the other thing he did for comics that shapes the business as it is today is that he turned comics into a cult of personality,” Meugniot, who worked on both Ornament from X-Men and the animated series from 1992, said in an interview with nft now.

When Slam-Girl was first conceived in the early 2000s, Meugniot recalls that it was a dark time for comics, with “no entry characters for new readers.” He teamed up with Lee to create Slam-Girl, a character “designed to be a parody of everything we thought was ruining the superhero industry,” Meugniot said. Unfortunately, the character lay forgotten in Marvel’s vast vault of unexplored IP for decades. Until now.

So how does Slam-Girl—an almost forgotten IP—hope to shake up the comics industry? It’s all about how she will make her debut. “As the media shifts, comics aren’t just going to be characters on pages anymore,” Dai said in an interview with nft now. The first drop from the Slam Girl collection comes with battle cards and animations introducing the characters. The unique thing about this decline is that holders will be rewarded for participating and engaging in NFT. They will have the ability to upgrade NFTs to higher rarities and receive 3D generative models of themselves as Slam Girl. In the future, the team is considering releasing merchandise, along with physical or phygital comics as well.

“When we started making comics, it was ink-on-paper. Now you see some digital comics and what have you. But it seemed to me that NFT is the real entry into the metaverse and into today’s communications, Jones said. “I think it opens up a whole new world of collectibles, […] storytelling, […] and visual presentations.”