10 Mind-Blowing Facts You Didn't Know About Stan Lee
5. He Once Tackled The Subject Of Drug Abuse
In 1971, The Amazing Spider-Man ran a three issue story known as the 'Green Goblin Reborn'. It was a simple enough premise - a broke Peter Parker moves in with Harry Osborn and takes a job working for Harry's Father, Norman. Peter knows that Norman is the Green Goblin, but thanks to a case of explosive amnesia Norman has forgotten that too, as well as the fact he knows Parker is secretly Spider-Man.
Even though he eventually regains his memory, hence the Green Goblin being reborn, that isn't what makes this story so intriguing. What does make it intriguing is that it's essentially a tale of Harry being hooked on pills.
This all came about after the United States Department of Health, Education and Welfare asked Stan if he could do a book that exposed the horrors of drugs and Stan, being Stan, readily agreed. Nowadays this wouldn't be a problem, but back then there was a small thing called Comics Code Authority, and they had the final say on all books that were going to be released.
As you can imagine, they weren't happy at all about the subject matter and refused to give their seal of approval to the comic, but Stan just went ahead and released it anyway.