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Biography
Stan Lee, original name Stanley Martin Lieber, (born December 28, 1922, New York, New York, U.S.—died November 12, 2018, Los Angeles, California), American comic book writer best known for his work with Marvel Comics. Among the hundreds of characters and teams that he helped to create were the Fantastic Four, Spider-Man, the Avengers, and the X-Men.
After graduating from high school at age 16, Lieber was hired as an editorial assistant for Timely Comics, and in 1942 he was promoted to editor. By that time he had begun writing comic-book scripts for Timely as Stan Lee, a pseudonym that eventually became his legal name. In the 1940s and ’50s—during which time the group, later named Atlas, struggled financially—Lee created several comic-book series, including The Witness, The Destroyer, Jack Frost, Whizzer, and Black Marvel.
In 1961 Lee and artist Jack Kirby created The Fantastic Four, about four astronauts who gain superpowers after a cosmic incident. The series made him and Atlas—now known as Marvel—major forces in the comics world. One year later Lee and artist Steve Ditko created Spider-Man. Lee, Kirby, and Ditko adopted a collaborative workflow that came to be known as “the Marvel method.” The technique gave artists significantly more input on story plotting, and it allowed Marvel to produce new content at a dizzying rate. The books joined a roster of increasingly successful series that also included The Incredible Hulk. Lee and Kirby added another winner to the group when they created The X-Men in 1963. A distinctive feature of Lee’s comic-book heroes is that they combine superhuman powers with human insecurities and emotions. Marvel continued to prosper, and in 1972 Lee became publisher and editorial director of the group.
After working for Marvel in an official capacity for nearly 60 years, Lee began to pursue other projects, and in 1999 he formed Stan Lee Media, an Internet entertainment company built around his creations. Eventually his role at Marvel became that of chairman emeritus. Lee’s new firm did well with its first project, an animated online series called 7th Portal, which featured aliens who enter Earth through a “7th portal”—the Internet. After this initial success, however, the company was beset by a number of lawsuits and corruption charges. It filed for bankruptcy in February 2001. In 2004 Pow Entertainment was established for Lee’s various new characters and franchises.
Film adaptations based on the series that Lee cocreated were highly successful. X-Men (2000) and Spider-Man (2002) launched blockbuster franchises that earned billions of dollars in box-office revenue worldwide. Other Lee creations to receive the Hollywood treatment were Daredevil (2003), Hulk (2003), and Iron Man (2008). Lee was often featured in cameo roles in those films, a tradition that continued after Disney purchased Marvel in 2009. A flood of Marvel films followed the purchase, including those based on Lee-Kirby creations such as Thor (2011), the Avengers (2012), and Ant-Man (2015). In November 2002 Lee filed a $10 million lawsuit against Marvel after failing to receive any profits from the first Spider-Man movie, and in 2005 the court ruled in favour of Lee.
In addition to his work in other media, Lee wrote books on comics and on his own life. His published works include Origins of Marvel Comics (1974), Excelsior!: The Amazing Life of Stan Lee (2002), and Stan Lee and the Rise and Fall of the American Comic Book (2003). In 2008 he was awarded a National Medal of Arts.
Facts
1. HIS WIFE WAS ALSO HIS BARBER.
As a bit of a throwaway fact, Stanley Martin Lieber (Stan Lee) revealed the secret of his slicked back mane on the second page of his memoir. “My whole adult life, I’ve never been to a barber,” he wrote. “Joanie always cuts my hair.”
2. HIS CONFIDENCE CAME FROM HIS MOTHER.
Lee wrote that as a child he loved to read books by Mark Twain, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Jules Verne, H.G. Wells, and others, and his mother often watched him read: “I probably got my self-confidence from the fact that my mother thought everything I did was brilliant.”
3. YOUNG STAN LEE WROTE OBITUARIES.
Before writing about the fantastic lives of fictional characters, Lee wrote antemortem obituaries for celebrities at an undisclosed news office in New York. He said that he eventually quit that job because it was too “depressing.”
4. CAPTAIN AMERICA WAS HIS FIRST BIG BREAK.
A week into his job at Timely Comics, Lee got the opportunity to write a two-page Captain America comic. He wrote it under the pen name Stan Lee (which became his legal name) and titled it "Captain America Foils the Traitor’s Revenge." His first full comic script would come in Captain America Issue 5, published August 1, 1941.
5. HE WROTE TRAINING FILMS FOR THE ARMY WITH DR. SEUSS.
After being transferred from the army’s Signal Corps in New Jersey, Lee worked as a playwright in the Training Film Division in Queens with eight other men, including a few who went on to be very famous: Pulitzer Prize-winning author William Saroyan, cartoonist Charles Addams (creator of The Addams Family), director Frank Capra (Mr. Smith Goes to Washington [1939] and It’s a Wonderful Life [1946]) and Theodor Geisel, better known as Dr. Seuss.
6. HE DEFIED THE COMICS CODE AUTHORITY WITH AN ANTI-DRUG COMIC.
In 1971, Lee received a letter from the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare asking him to put an anti-drug message in one of his books. He came up with a Spider-Man story that involved his best friend Harry abusing pills because of a break-up. The CCA would not approve the story with their seal because of the mention of drugs, but Lee convinced his publisher, Martin Goodman, to run the comic anyway.
7. AN ISSUE AT THE PRINTERS TURNED THE HULK GREEN.
The character was supposed to be gray, but according to Lee, the printer had a hard time keeping the color consistent. “So as of issue #2,” Lee wrote, “with no explanation, he turned green.”
8. HIS WIFE DESTROYED HIS PRIZED TYPEWRITER.
According to Lee, during an argument, Joanie destroyed the typewriter he used to write the first issues for characters including Spider-Man and The Fantastic Four. “This happened before eBay," he wrote. "Too bad. I could’ve auctioned the parts and made a mint.”
9. A FIRE DESTROYED HIS INTERVIEWS AND LECTURES.
When Lee moved his family to Los Angeles, he set up a studio in Van Nuys where he stored videotapes of his talks and interviews, along with a commissioned bust of his wife. The building was lost to a blaze that the fire department believed was arson, but no one was ever charged with the crime.
10. HIS FAVORITE MARVEL FILM CAMEO WAS BASED ON ONE FROM THE COMICS.
Beginning with the first Spider-Man film in 2002, Stan Lee has made quick cameos in Marvel films as a service to the fans. He said that his appearance in Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer (2007) was inspired by the story of Reed and Sue Richards’ wedding in Fantastic Four Annual Volume 1 #3, in which he and artist/writer Jack Kirby attempt to crash the ceremony but are thwarted.
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