PORTAL
010 |
We remember the life of one of the most important
and beloved creators in genre and beyond
FEW PEOPLE CAN be said to
have created an entire universe,
but Stan Lee did just that. Along
with such legendary artists as
Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko, Lee
contributed more characters
and worlds to the pop culture
landscape than just about anyone
else. Spider-Man is his most
lauded creation, but that’s barely
scratching the surface.
Born in 1922 in Manhattan
and spending most of his
childhood in The Bronx, Stanley
Martin Lieber was the son of
Romanian Jewish immigrants.
Stanley was a voracious reader
who loved movies and dreamt
of being a serious writer – so it
was with some reluctance that
he took a job working for Timely
Comics at 17, later going
on to be a writer at
the company that
would eventually be
renamed Marvel. He
was so embarrassed
by the silly comic
book stories he was
writing that he adopted
a pen name: Stan Lee (he
would later legally change his
surname to Lee).
During the Fifties he became
disillusioned with his work,
bashing out thousands of
romances, westerns, adventures
and more. He was on the verge
of quitting when the editor,
Martin Goodman, asked him to
come up with a new superhero
team in response to DC’s hugely
successful revamp of The Flash
and Green Lantern and their
creation of the Justice League
of America. Deciding to fi nally
create what he wanted to create
- or get fi red trying – Lee worked
with Jack Kirby to create The
Fantastic Four. Launching under
the newly renamed Marvel
Comics in 1961, The Fantastic
Four was an immediate hit.
Encouraged by that success,
Lee was given more or less
free-rein over creating superhero
characters for Marvel. In 1962
Lee and Kirby created The
Incredible Hulk and Thor. Lee’s
brother, Larry Lieber, wrote the
script for Thor’s fi rst appearance
in ‘Journey Into Mystery’ as Lee
was too busy to write it himself- perhaps because Spider-Man
debuted in the same month as
Thor. Co-created with artist Steve
Ditko, Peter Parker fi rst appeared
in Amazing Fantasy before
getting a self-titled book when
Amazing Fantasy 15 became one
of Marvel’s best-selling issues.
Lee initially worked with Kirby
on Spider-Man, but found Kirby’s
ideas too heroic – Lee was
adamant that, behind
the mask, Spidey
should be a teenager
with normal teenage
problems, someone
readers could
actually relate to.
But Lee was far from
done – across the Sixties
he co-created the likes of Iron
Man, the X-Men, Doctor Strange,
Daredevil, Black Panther, Ant-
Man, Wasp and redefi ned the
old Fourties character, Captain
America, bringing some of them
together to form The Avengers.
The Sixties were no doubt
Lee’s creative heyday, and he
created a universe of superheroes
rooted fi rmly in our world
that commented on current
affairs (Tony Stark was initially
profi ting from the Vietnam War)
and presented very human
superheroes. Lee eventually
stepped down from writing
comics in 1972, when he became
publisher of Marvel – his fi nal
scripts were for Fantastic Four
and Spider-Man, although he
STAN LEE
1922-
WORDS ABIGAIL CHANDLER
© Rex FeaturesROBERT
DOWNEY JR
“I owe it all to you.
Rest in peace Stan.”SAMUEL L
JACKSON
“Thank you @TheRealStanLee
for the escape from this world
and great joy inhabiting the ones
you created! You made so many
believe in the good, the heroic, the
villainous, the exciting, most of
all, you were giving and
gracious to us all.”TOM
HOLLAND
“How many millions of us
are indebted to this guy, none
more so than me. The father
of Marvel has made so many
people incredibly happy. What
a life and what a thing to
have achieved. Rest in
peace Stan.”