Those who’ve visited me at home know I’ve evolved into the opposite of a hoarder. I’m doing my best to live a stripped-down life. But I’ve made an exception for all the paperwork I collected at Marvel Comics in the ’70s, because I think it doesn’t really belong to me; it belong to you. And while digging through a file folder in search of something I’ve yet to find, I instead found something, well, marvelous.

Sometime during my years in the Bullpen I discovered a dozen or so carbon copies of descriptions of Marvel’s central superheroes buried in the back of a file cabinet, barely visible because the sheets had slipped between the drawers. And you know me—I made sure to keep my own copies, of course.

Because the pages only referenced the earliest of Marvel’s characters—the X-Men, the Fantastic Four, Spider-Man, etc.—and because all of the references as to which famous actors’ voices we should imagine coming out of their mouths were of a previous generation, I always assumed these were written by Stan Lee. The only other person I could possibly imagine having been responsible for these based on when they were discovered is Roy Thomas, but I’m pretty sure that if he had created these, he’d have come up with a more contemporary set of actors.

There’s also the fact that (though I’m no typography expert) these seem to have been written using the same typewriter on which Stan composed his Soapboxes for the Bullpen Bulletins pages.

I’ll reach out to old pals from my Marvel days to see if any of them can shine a light on the true identity of the author of these write-ups, but until I can find evidence to the contrary, I’d like to think that The Man himself wrote these, perhaps as a guide for the writers who’d follow him, perhaps so that the characters could be more effectively merchandised.

In any case, check out this early description of the X-Men.

That voice you hear in your head when you read Cyclops’ word balloons should be … Anthony Perkins? And Professor X is … Leslie Howard … without an English accent? (Whatever that’s supposed to mean!)

Now that you know this, the X-Men may never sound right in your head again.

And wait’ll you see who Captain America is supposed to sound like!

Any guesses?

UPDATE: It’s been pointed out—by someone who has a much better memory that I do—that I shared this info before … back in the ’70s when I was editing Marvel’s official fan magazine, FOOM. However, since it was buried in the midst of a fictionalized history of the X-Men, and segued into as follows—

Taking the file to his desk, Duncan started leafing through to refresh his memories when a yellowing sheet caught his eye. He smiled. It was the rundown on the X-Men that writer … what was his name … Stanley? … had written ten years ago …

—I have no idea whether anyone realized that what was being quoted was an actual Marvel historical document. But that still doesn’t answer the question of whether this was truly written by Stan or whether we merely assumed and/or pretended they were for the purposes of the narrative.

As far as I know (though after this, I wouldn’t be surprised if someone popped up to contradict me), none of the other character write-ups which I’ll share in the future have ever been published.

UPDATE #2: According to Rascally Roy Thomas: “I honestly have no memory of it, but I’m pretty sure you’re right and that it was written by Stan … though whether for himself, for me, or for Gary (less likely, I’d think), I’ve no idea.”