Steven's Last Night in Town
I’m so mad that my friend Steven Attewell won’t get to see the rest of X-Men 97.
He was really into it, as he often got really into things, with an infectious fannish passion that was one of the many qualities that made him a joy to be around. A few weeks ago, he got our mutual friend, Elana Levin, to hurry up and record a podcast about it when only two episodes had dropped. Their discussion was longer than the combined runtime of those episodes. This was typical: Steven was the kind of guy who could talk for an hour about one panel of a comic book and make you lean into every syllable. He was a master pontificator, in the best sense of that word.
Steven had cancer for years, on and off, with complications as well as recurrences. In the first round, it took one of his legs, and he reacted to that loss with a combination of grace and frustration. On April 10, 2024 – yesterday, as I write this – the cancer returned for the rest of him like Dr. Romano’s bloodthirsty helicopter from E.R. I don’t know if Steven would get that reference, but I can think of a dozen conversations it could have sparked after I served it up to him. Steven liked the sound of other people’s pontification at least as much as his own.
Even before Steven got sick, he wrote and podcasted with a blend of meticulousness and urgency that wasn’t paradoxical at all if you knew him or his work. His prolific and thoughtful analyses of George R. R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire, in particular, earned him a significant cult following on the internet. Folks on Tumblr called him Maester, out of respect not only for his boundless expertise, but for his generosity and enthusiasm in discussing his work with anyone who asked. Easy as it was to sit back and let the master pontificator do his thing, what Steven really seemed to want was the exchange of ideas, the opportunity to refine what he knew and discover questions he hadn’t considered. This insatiable delight in engagement made him excel in his day job as well, as a college professor.
In every respect, the hardest part of Steven’s death is that we don’t get any more Steven. No more of his insights or his research binges, but also no more of the caring, awkwardly charming guy that I was honored to have as a friend. The guy who really got into it in the friend Discord when the rest of us were laying out our issues with Saltburn, and he just liked the movie. The guy who gamely tolerated his friends’ theater-kid roleplaying in Dungeons & Dragons when all he wanted to do was smash monsters with swords. The guy who always made time to see me when I visited New York, despite fluctuating health and limited social energy, usually to do something like hang out in a diner and delve into the sociopolitical implications of Deadpool 2. The last conversation we had was a brief exchange of texts about how much we’d both enjoyed Hazbin Hotel, such a perfect denouement to our friendship that I’ll spend the rest of my own life wondering if he planned it.
Like me, Steven was Jewish, both of us more in an ethical and cultural sense than a spiritual one. I don’t know what his beliefs about death were; we didn’t have those conversations. But I’m comforted and motivated by the Jewish idea that the living extend the lives of the dead by speaking their names and sharing their stories. Among other things, it gives us purpose and direction when we feel powerless and turns remembering into a mitzvah, a divine work of good. Steven made it easy for us to keep saying his name, with his frequent contributions to Lawyers Guns & Money (including his People’s History of Marvel series), his Race for the Iron Throne blog and associated Tumblr, and his frequent podcast guest appearances. I hope that for years to come, new readers discover and binge Steven’s work. If anybody should get to pontificate forever, it’s him.
Steven loved having his own platforms for his writing. Although he published a couple of books and the occasional higher-profile article or interview, he usually preferred to publish on his own website or his friends’ sites. Making money from his writing, or drawing the attention of a wide audience, didn’t motivate him; he just wanted to get his work out into the world where people could find it if it interested them. I’ve wrestled for a long time to accept that his mindset is most satisfying for me, too. I think he’d be happy that I’m resuscitating my newsletter to memorialize him. I’m happy that every time I beat back my insecurities and update this, I’ll think of Steven.
Tonight, I watched the latest episode of X-Men 97. Steven, you would have loved it.
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Yep, it's back! Business as usual in future issues: Batman, favorite movies, sports feelings, and cat photos, plus a music countdown project that Bluesky sucked me into.