Stan Lee, pappy to such comic creations as Spider-Man and the X-Men, launched his new site, StanLee.net, this week featuring weekly three-five minute episodic superhero adventures. The company hopes these "Webisodes" will be the comic books for the Y2K generation.

With a celeb-studded gala opening in Raleigh Studios, kid-at-heart Stan and his cohost, eternal teen Dick Clark, presented the site's initial offering, The 7th Portal, a group of costumed heroes and heroines. Featuring characters with colorful monikers like Vultura, Imitatia, Conjureman and Oxblood, the new Stan Lee creations could prove to be as incomprehensible to parents as Pok�mon.

Made up of a team of Web-surfers, the heroes are beta-testers sucked into an alternate dimension, where they all develop super powers. The international cast includes a shape-changer from India, a wind-wielding Native American, and a mystical South African, making the team quite pleasing to the politically correct Internet audience. Future shows will feature characters with surprisingly uninspiring names like the Accuser and the Drifter.

But StanLee.net's true powerhouse, the Backstreet Project, which features the Grammy-snubbed boy band, won't be launching until June. Co-created by Backstreeter Nick Carter and Lee himself, the hope is that the online bimonthly comic will make the girl-demographic-heavy band more palatable for boys as well.

Each pinup popster gains his own unique set of powers from his mystical alien necklace. Nick receives stealth and ninja abilities, A.J. wields laser blasters to deadly effect, Howie mentally projects illusionary images, Brian gains fantastic leaping and agility abilities and Kevin develops unearthly strength. After a fabulous wardrobe change, the accessory-endowed boys then embark on dual careers of pop singers and protectors of the planet.

The toy industry has seen a move from licensing of comic book, television and film properties to more and more video-game based characters over the past couple of years. Will online content be the next big thing for action figure licensing? As kids spend increasing amounts of time with their computers and video games systems they are spending less time in front of the television, reading comics, or going to the movies.

Toy companies are already looking towards the Internet as a source for their next hit action figure property. Columbus, Ohio-based ReSaurus recently announced they would be producing an action figure of Whirlgirl, whose adventures can be viewed exclusively online. Can characters from Stan Lee Media, or Warner Bros. Entertaindom be far behind?

Action Ace.com will soon be launching the online adventures of Virtex in their Neoglyphx site. Virtex is a character, created by Casey Lau, that was originally a tradional print comic book published by the now-defunct Oktomica and is finding a second shot at life online. Virtex was also originally slated to become the first in a line of action figures based on Oktomica properties. The figure made it as far as the prototype stage when Oktomica closed it's operations. Will Virtex's online adventures provide a new opportunity for this figure to get made? Time will tell.

As more and more content is developed exclusively for online distribution, and as these characters gain popularity it seems inevitable that they will make their ways to toy stores.

[Updated 3/09/2000]