Stan Lee and Matt Reynolds sit down to talk about Matt's character Backdraft. (Photo Courtesy of Matt Reynolds)

WARRENSBURG, Mo.-- You don’t have to be a comic book fanatic to recognize the name Stan Lee, well-known creator of Spider-Man, the X-Men and Iron Man, just to name a few. But the name Matt Reynolds may not ring as many bells, at least not yet.

Reynolds is a freshman illustration major at UCM, but he is already putting his education to good use.

This past semester, Chris Lowrance, instructor of art and design, introduced a challenge issued by the legendary Lee.

The challenge? Stan Lee’s Time Jumper Challenge, calling on creative minds everywhere to imagine and illustrate an original character.

Time Jumper is a Disney digital production about a 20-year-old college student, Terry Dixon, who travels through time with the help of a device created by his father.

Entries into the competition had to be characters that would encounter Terry during a significant time period. Each person could submit up to 10 entries, but all had to be accompanied by information explaining who the character was, what happened when they ran in to Terry and the time and place of the run in.

Despite only hearing about the competition two days prior to the deadline, Reynolds created five characters for the contest including “Thraseus ‘The Titan’ Maursus,” “Soaring Red Eagle the Mohawk Warrior,” “Captain Richard ‘Buck’ Parkes,” “Sergeant James C. Parkes,” and “Backdraft—Master of Flames.”

“[Backdraft] was my favorite one, and he was actually the first one I put in,” Reynolds said.

“Originally, he was the only one I was going to put in, but I got a comment from another person on the site and they were like, ‘Since it’s a time-jumping thing, going back through time, I don’t know that a futuristic character fits the description.’ ”

Lee didn’t seem to think so. Backdraft grabbed Lee’s attention and of 175 submissions, Backdraft was named the winning character.

“He’s a college student that makes a mechanical bodysuit that gives him fire powers,” Reynolds said. “As far as inspiration goes, I just come up with different things and throw stuff together and see what it turns out as.”

So what could be better than having your creation chosen by Lee? How about being flown to California to meet and have lunch with him?

A friend of Reynolds was following the contest closely and called him asking if he would bring a postcard back from California. That’s when Reynolds realized he had won.

“I flipped out. I screamed and ran down the hall,” Reynolds said. “It was funny. I was really excited; I couldn’t contain it for several days.”

Lowrance said he was surprised when Reynolds won.
“I didn’t know about how this contest would work. I was really happy and excited for Matt,” Lowrance said.

Reynolds, who is from Harrisonville, Mo., said it felt good to be from a small town and accomplish such a large feat.

“It was really neat because when I was out there [in California], Stan was really interested and excited that I was from this little town that nobody has ever heard of,” Reynolds said. “He’d never met anybody who lived on a cattle farm before. I thought that was just hilarious.”

So what was it like winning a paid trip for two to Los Angeles and lunch with Lee?

“It was a blast. He was so cool,” Reynolds said. “For an 80-something-year-old guy, he was so energetic and everything with him was a joke. He was really funny.”

Reynolds took his good friend Ben Price, fellow Harrisonville native and UCM freshman, with him to L.A.

“I was so excited when I found out that Matt had won the contest,” Price said. “I wasn’t surprised however, because Matt is an amazing artist.”

While there, the two got the opportunity to tour the Disney Studio lot.
“[The lot] is not usually open to the public and it’s really cool because you have to be a VIP to tour it,” Reynolds said. “I’ve never been a VIP before and that was kind of cool.”

However, Reynolds walked away with far more than just a full stomach and a trip to no-man’s land. He took away some valuable advice.

“To give others advice, I’m going to give some that I was given by Stan Lee: Live dangerously,” Reynolds said. “You gotta go for it. If you think you can, just do it.”

Reynolds added that he couldn’t have asked for a better experience.

“It was a really good opportunity and the fact of winning a contest and Stan Lee picking my stuff as his personal favorite looks awesome on a resumé, especially in my field,” Reynolds said. “I just think that is the best brownie point you could possibly get.”

After conquering this endeavor, Reynolds is on his way to achieving more of his goals.
“I love comics. I like reading them, I like looking at them, just admiring the art,” Reynolds said. “I really want to make comics for a living, maybe even do cartoons.”

Lowrance said he thinks getting this reaction to his work will help Reynolds in the future.
“I think just getting this kind of encouragement early on and seeing what happens in a professional field will help,” Lowrance said. “It’s the experience and the exposure.”
Price said he thinks winning the contest will mean good things for Reynolds.

“I think this contest will certainly motivate Matt to continue working as hard as he does on his illustrations,” Price said. “He is a very talented individual and the advice he received from Stan was very beneficial. Matt will most definitely know what to do for his career when the time comes.”

As for Backdraft, his next journey is to be on the bonus features menu of the Time Jumper DVD.

“All of the finalists of the contest are going to be in the special features of this DVD, which is really neat. I get to be on a DVD,” Reynolds said.

Who knows, maybe one day comic book fans will be talking about the renowned Matt Reynolds.