Stan Lee Wiki

Stan Lee is an American comic book writer, editor, publisher, and producer born Stanley Martin Lieber. He rose from a family-run business to a primary creative leader of Marvel comics. He led the progress of marvel from a small publishing house to a huge multimedia enterprise dominating the Comics industry.

Stan Lee Biography

He attended DeWitt Clinton High School in the Bronx.  As a child, he was influenced by books and movies, particularly those with Errol Flynn playing heroic roles. He enjoyed writing and had ambitions of writing the “Great American Novel” one day. In his youth, he worked part-time jobs in writing obituaries for a news service and press releases for the National Tuberculosis Center and also delivered sandwiches for the Jack May pharmacy to offices in Rockefeller Center

He entered a high school essay competition sponsored by the New York Herald Tribune, called “The Biggest News of the Week Contest.” He won the prize for three straight weeks, forcing the newspaper to write to him and ask him to let someone else win. The paper then suggested he look into writing professionally which, as he says, probably changed his life. He graduated from high school early in 1939 and joined the WPA Federal Theatre Project.

He started off as an assistant in the timely comics division in 1939 with the help of his uncle. At first, he only did the smaller tasks like making sure the inkwells were filled, bringing lunch, proofreading and erasing pencils from finished pages. He then first wrote his first comic-book, Captain America Foils the Traitor’s Revenge in May 1941. This story introduced Captain America’s Trademark.

Stan Lee then rose to write actual comics with Headline Hunter, Foreign Correspondent, and later he co-created his first superhero The Destroyer, in Mystic Comics. He also co-created the characters in those times was Jack Frost in 1941 and father Time. After the withdrawal of two of his creative partners, he was given the position of temporary editor although at the time he was under 19 years old. He stayed as an editor for much of the time until 1972 where he became a publisher.

In 1942, he entered the army and worked as a member of the signal corps. He was later transferred to the training film Division where he would write manuals, training films and slogans and sometimes cartooning. He returned from his World War II military service in 1945. While in the army, He received letters every week from Timely detailing what they needed to be written and by when so he still kept writing.

By the end of the 1950s, Lee started hating the comic-book writing and was considering quitting.

Stan Lee Marvel

In the late 1950s, DC comics was facing significant success. This made Publisher, Martin Goodman, assign Lee with the role of creating a new superhero team. His wife, Joan, gave him the idea of creating with his own preferences and since he wanted to switch careers he believed he had nothing to lose. He created Superheroes with flawed humanity like bad tempers, bickering amongst themselves and even melancholy fits among others.

He first created the Fantastic Four together with Jack Kirby. The team was an absolute success leading to the creation of Thor, The Hulk, Iron Man and the X-men with Kirby. He created daredevil with Bill Everett and Doctor Strange and Spiderman with Steve Ditko. He and Kirby put together their characters in a team called ‘The Avengers’ and would later revive some of their older characters like Captain America and The Sub-Mariner.

DC got a creativity drought in the late 1950s and early 1960s, this gave Marvel the chance to grow as it was introducing new concepts to comic-book writing which inspired not only kids but teens and grown-ups as well as the people who wanted to write their own comic-books. He introduced the practice of crediting writers and editors in the splash page bringing a friendship between fans and creators.

Throughout the 60s he wrote, directed and edited most of Marvel’s series. In writing a comic he first Brainstormed a story with the artist, then write a brief synopsis which the artist would use to fill the pages by drawing the panel to panel storytelling. After this, Lee would write word balloons and captions and then oversee the lettering and coloring.

After Ditko’ left Marvel in 1966, John Romita became Lee’s collaborator on the Amazing Spider-Man and before long it overtook the Fantastic Four and became the company’s best seller. Together, they focused mostly on the social and college lives of the characters as they did on his adventures. Their stories became more topical addressing particular issues. Working with Kirby, they produced a lot of well-known characters like Inhumans and The Black Panther, the first black superhero.

‘The Fantastic Four’ story was many times credited as their greatest work which began in The Fantastic Four #48 which was placed at number 24 in the 100 greatest Marvels of all time in 2001. According to Robert Greenberger, an editor, during the fourth year of the Fantastic Four, Lee and Kirby were just getting started and there was more to come. This was one of their most fertile periods during the Marvel Age. He, along with artist John Buscema launched the Silver Surfer series in 1968.

The following year, he, along with Gene Colan, created Falcon, comics first African American superhero in Captain America #117. In 1971, he helped in changing the comics code. He was then asked to write a comic-book story about the dangers of drugs by the U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare. He wrote a three-issue subplot in The Amazing Spider-Man #96-98 but The Comics Code Authority refused to grant its seal because it had drug stories, The anti-drug context was considered irrelevant.

They published the comic anyway, without the seal, and they won praise for their socially conscious efforts. The CCA loosened the code to permit other new freedoms for comic-book writers. He also supported using comics to provide some measure of social commentary about the real world. He stopped writing comics in 1972 and succeeded Goodman and became a publisher. His last comics were The Amazing Spider-Man #110 and Fantastic Four #125.

He became a figurehead and a public face for Marvel comics. He, with Romita, Launched Spider-Man newspaper Comic strip in 1977. His final piece with Kirby was The Silver-Surfer: Ultimate Cosmic Experience in 1978 and was Marvel’s first graphical novel. Together With Romita, they produced the first issue of The Savage She-Hulk in 1980 and made a Silver Surfer story for Epic Illustrated in 1980.

Stan Lee went to California to develop Marvel’s TV and Movie scenes in 1981. He was an executive producer and also made cameo appearances in the films. He occasionally wet back to comic-book writing with some Silver Surfer projects, The Judgement Day graphic novel, the Parable series, and the Enslavers graphic novel. Lee was placed as company president but after a short while he stepped down as the role was more about numbers and finance than it was about what he loved, the creative process.

After Marvel

He stepped away from the regular activities in Marvel and began a new internet-based superhero creation, production, and marketing studio with Peter Paul. In 1999, it went public but in 2000, investigators found proof of illegal stock manipulation by Paul and corporate officer Stephan Gordon. Paul pleaded guilty to violating the SEC rule 10b-5 in connection to trading his stock in Stan Lee Media. Lee was never implicated.

After the success of various characters Lee co-created, he sued the company for not paying his share of the profits from movies featuring characters he had co-created. Lee and the Company finally agreed in 2005 for an undisclosed amount.

He announced a superhero program that would feature former Beatle Ringo Starr as the lead character in 2004 after the publicizing of POW! Entertainment. He also launched Stan Lee’s Sunday Comics in the same year hosted by Komikwerks.com. From 2006-07, he hosted,, co-created, executive-produced, and judged the reality television game show competition Who Wants to Be a Superhero? on the Sci-Fi Channel.

Lee wrote humorous captions for the political fumetti book Stan Lee Presents Election Daze: What Are They Really Saying? in 2008. The same year Brighton Partners and Rainmaker Animation partnered with POW! to produce a CGI film series, Legion of 5. In his later career, his contributions continued to expand outside the style that he helped bring about. This is shown in his first work for DC Comics in the 2000s, launching the Just Imagine… series, in which he used in making the DC superheroes Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, and The Flash.

Manga projects involving Lee include Karakuri Dôji Ultimo, a collaboration with Hiroyuki Takei, Viz Media and Shueisha, and Heroman, serialized in Square Enix’s Monthly Shōnen Gangan with the Japanese company Bones. Lee started writing a live-action musical, The Yin and Yang Battle of Tao in 2011.

In collaboration with Marvel’s co-writers, Lee created a lot of fictional characters including superheroes Spider-Man, the X-Men, Iron Man, Thor, the Hulk, the Fantastic Four, Black Panther, Daredevil, Doctor Strange, Scarlet Witch, and Ant-Man. With his works he brought new ways of writing comics that challenged the Comics Code Authority, forcing it to change some of its aspects in order to cope with the changes inflicted. He then went on and broadened Marvel to take on other media with mixed results.

After his retirement in the 90s he remained a public figurehead for the company and in some occasions made Cameo appearances in the scenes. These cameo appearances earned him credits as an executive producer while he still continued with independent ventures on the side until his untimely death on the 12th of November, 2018.

Stan Lee Birth and Death

Stan Lee was born on the 28th of December, 1922 in New York City, New York. He died on the 12th of November, 2018 in Los Angeles, California. He died at the Cedars-Sinai Medical Center after being rushed in earlier. Before, he revealed to have been suffering from Pneumonia after being rushed to hospital in February. His medical report stated that he had died of cardiac arrest with respiratory failure and congestive heart failure. It also indicated that he also had aspiration Pneumonia. His body was cremated and his ashes taken to his daughter.

Stan Lee Family

He was born to Romanian-Jewish immigrant parents, Cecilia Lieber and Jack Lieber in 1992. His father was a dress cutter. He had one younger brother, Larry Lieber.

Wife

He was married to Joan Clayton Boocock on the 5th of December, 1947. After 69 years in marriage, Joan died due to a stroke.

Kids

They bore two children, one of them, Jan Lee died three days after delivery in 1953. They remained with only one daughter Joan Celia Lee, born in 1950.

Stan Lee Accomplishments

• National Academy of Video Game Trade Reviewers for Performance in a Comedy, Supporting in 2017
• Lifetime Achievement Award in 2012
• Vanguard Award in 2012
• Inducted into the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2011
  Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation in 2009
• Scream Awards’ Comic-Con Icon Award in 2009
• National Media of Artis in 2008
• Saturn Awards’ The Life Career Award in 2002
• Inducted into the Jack Kirby Hall of Fame in 1995
• Inducted into the Will Eisner Award Hall of Fame in 1994
• Inkpot Award in 1974

Marvel Characters

• Spider-Man. A young man who gets spider abilities after suffering a bite from a radioactive spider.
• The Hulk, a green-skinned, hulking and muscular person possessing a huge amount of physical strength.
• Iron Man, a rich scientist who creates a suit and uses it to protect the world.
• The Punisher, a vigilante, driven by the deaths of his wife and two children wages a war on all violent criminals.
• Black Panther, King, and protector of the African nation Wakanda.
• Doctor Strange, sorcerer supreme and protector of the earth from all mystical and magical threats.
• Groot, a foreign, sentient tree-like creature.
• Black Widow, a spy, and an agent of S.H.I.E.L.D.
• Wanda Maximoff, also Scarlet witch, is a powerful sorceress who alters reality in unspecified ways.
• Loki adopted and often the enemy of his brother Thor.
• Chris Barton, also Hawkeye, is a master archer and member of the avengers.
• Galactus is a cosmic entity who originally consumed planets to sustain his life force.
• Daredevil, a man blinded by a radioactive substance, the substance also heightens his other senses.
• Kingpin, a New York Crime lord.
• Gwen Stacy, a student who had a love affair with spider-man until she was killed by the Green Goblin
• Mary Jane Watson, Spider-Man’s main love interest and later wife.
• Pepper Pots, a girl loved by Tony Stark (iron man)
• Red Skull, the archenemy of Captain America.
• Professor X, the founder of the X-men and an exceptionally powerful telepath.
• Juggernaut, the step-brother of professor x and a giant.
• Magneto, an enemy of the X-men and can generate and control magnetic fields.
• Doctor Doom, an original enemy of The Fantastic Four.
• J. Jonah Jameson, in spiderman,  he is the publisher of the daily bugle magazine and is trying to belittle spider-man
• Thor is the Asgardian god of thunder who possesses the enchanted hammer, Mjolnir, which grants him the ability to fly and manipulate weather amongst his other superhuman attributes.
• Others are: Mister Fantastic, Spider-Ham, Mysterio, Jack Frost, Adam Warlock, Jean Grey, Spider-Man 2099, She-Hulk, Green Goblin, Dr. Otto Octavius, Karen Page, Dormammu, Peggy Carter, Edwin Jarvis, Hela, Annihilus, Ronan, Yondu, Flash Thompson, Captain Marvel, Prowler, Thunderbolt Ross, Ben Parker, Wasp, Sam Wilson and Hank Pym

Stan Lee Show

He created a show ‘Superhumans’ in which he and Daniel Browning go around the world searching for people with special abilities.