Bruce Prichard Discusses Stan Lee's Influence On Pro Wrestling, WWE's Failed Undertaker Comic

Legendary comic book writer and Marvel creative leader Stan Lee passed away on November 12, leading to an outpouring of memories and love from the people whose lives he touched through his work. Former WWE producer Bruce Prichard recently paid homage to Lee on an episode of his Something To Wrestle podcast and he also explained Lee's influence on professional wrestling.

In its essence, pro wrestling is a story of good vs. evil, heroic characters vs. villains. Prichard, who met Lee once, compared the creation of wrestling characters to the creation of comic book heroes. Lee was known for creating heroes that weren't perfect and also villains that weren't completely evil, thus making them feel more relatable.

"It was a huge influence. I had the pleasure of meeting Stan Lee one time and it was at one of those Comic Con deals. It was a quick hello, how are you, nice to meet you. I didn't get a chance to sit and chat with him, but to watch him and seeing him, he was very humble and God he was great with his fans," Prichard said. "But I believe that the creations of Iron Man, Spider Man and all the way down the line were larger than life characters that people can identify with because they had their flaws. So, it's the same thing in wrestling. It is creating characters. If you create a character that has his flaws and people can relate to him then you have created a pretty good hero and I think Stan Lee was a genius in creating anti-heroes."

Prichard also revealed that there was once a plan for a comic book about The Undertaker. He said that plan was scrapped because it wasn't good at all. It reminded him of The Ultimate Warrior's comic book, which he said was not produced by WWE.

"First of all, it wasn't very good. I remember it wasn't very good," Prichard said. "We didn't do The Ultimate Warrior comic book; that was something that Warrior did and we just agreed to promote and publicize it for our magazine subscription for the inaugural issue and I just think that Vince McMahon was–the publishing side of business wasn't real lucrative and was trying to get away from it at the time and didn't think that anyone read comic books."

If you use any of the quotes in this article, please credit Something To Wrestle with Bruce Prichard with an h/t to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.

Source: Something To Wrestle with Bruce Prichard

Peter Bahi contributed to this article.