Related story: Wisdom of Spider-Man to cling outside AG office

By Edward Fitzpatrick,
Journal Staff Writer

A couple of times in previous stories, we had mentioned that Attorney General Patrick Lynch planned to put a Spider-Man quote on a plaque outside his office building. For a while, I figured that would more than suffice.

But I kept hearing about it. First, Lynch prominently displayed the plaque during an interfaith event at the First Baptist Church in America to honor the living former attorneys general. Then Mike Stanton mentioned that Lynch had talked at length about how he'd called Marvel Comics to get permission to use the quote and how he wanted Spider-Man creator Stan Lee to come to town.

The clincher came at the Follies, when my wife and I talked to Lynch and he gave an animated recounting of his conversation with Marvel Comics -- how, at first, they didn't believe he was really the attorney general, and, after they confirmed his identity, they explained that some people call up saying they're the mayor of Metropolis or Gotham City.

So I figured I'd do a story. Lynch planned to put his plaque in place of the one installed by his predecessor. Sheldon Whitehouse was inspired by the early-19th-century English poet William Blake, and his plaque said: ``I will not cease from mental fight. Nor shall my sword sleep in my hand...'' Lynch, by contrast, was inspired by his 6-year-old son, a big Spider-Man fan, and his plaque said: ``With great power comes great responsibility.''

When I asked Whitehouse about the Blake poem, he recalled singing the lyrics as a member of the choir at an elite New Hampshire prep school. When I asked Lynch about the Blake poem, he said, ``I went to Brown. I may have read Blake, but I can't recall if I did.'' He joked, ``It might have been a morning after a frat party.''

In the end, I think the story told readers something about these guys that you wouldn't get in day-to-day stories. I kept putting it off because of more pressing stories. But afterward, Cathleen Crowley had some good advice: Make those stories a priority.