Stan Lee: The Life Story Behind the Marvel Creator
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Stan Lee said Excelsior, which means ever upward, and he lived that word for almost a hundred years. He was born Stanley Lieber in New York, he started work as a teenager in a comic book office, fetching coffee, filling inkwells, proofreading, and he ended his life as the most famous name in comics, the man who, with artists Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko, created Spider-Man, the Fantastic Four, the X-Men, the Hulk, Iron Man, Thor, the Avengers, Black Panther, Daredevil, Doctor Strange, and dozens of other heroes who are now known, in films, in television, in toys, in games, all over the world, by billions of people who have never read a comic book in their lives.
Lee did not invent comics, and he did not invent superheroes. What he did, in the early 1960s, was to change them completely. Before Lee, superheroes were perfect, they were gods, they did not have problems, they did not argue, they did not worry about money, about school, about love. Lee’s heroes were different. They were teenagers who were bullied, they were scientists who were angry, they were blind lawyers, they were rich men with a bad heart, they were mutants who were hated for being different, they were, in short, human beings with powers, not powers with human beings attached. That change, that simple idea that a hero can have problems, made Marvel Comics different from every other comic company, and it made Lee, in time, a legend.
He lived to ninety-five, he worked until the end, he appeared in cameos in Marvel films, waving, smiling, saying a line, and audiences in cinemas around the world would cheer when they saw him, because they knew, even if they did not know his name, that this old man with sunglasses was the man who had started it all. This is his story, from a small apartment in Manhattan to the centre of popular culture, from a boy who loved stories to a man who told stories that changed the world.
Manhattan, a Small Apartment and a Boy Who Loved Stories
Stanley Martin Lieber was born on 28 December 1922 in New York City, in Manhattan, the son of Jack Lieber, a dress cutter, and Celia Solomon, a homemaker, both Jewish immigrants from Romania. The family lived in a small apartment, first in Manhattan, then in the Bronx, during the Great Depression, a time when money was scarce, when jobs were scarce, and when a boy learned, early, that life was hard, and that stories, books, films, were a way to escape, for a few hours, into a better world. Stanley loved to read, he loved adventure stories, he loved the novels of Mark Twain, of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, of H.G. Wells, he loved films, he loved Errol Flynn, and he dreamed, as many boys do, of writing a great novel, of becoming a famous author, of making a living by telling stories.
He went to DeWitt Clinton High School in the Bronx, a school known for its bright students, and he was, by all accounts, a clever, energetic boy, who wrote for the school magazine, who won prizes, who was, in his own words, a dreamer, a boy who wanted to be a writer, but who did not yet know how. He graduated at sixteen, in 1939, and he began to look for work, in a city that was still in the Depression, in a world that was about to go to war, and he found, through a family connection, a job at Timely Comics, a small comic book company run by Martin Goodman, who was married to Stanley’s cousin, Jean. It was not a glamorous job. He was an office boy, he fetched lunch, he filled inkwells, he proofread, he did, in his own words, whatever needed doing, but it was a job in publishing, it was a job that paid, and it was, in time, a job that would become his life.
He changed his name, for his writing, to Stan Lee, a name that was shorter, that was catchier, and that he thought sounded like a writer’s name, though he kept his real name, Stanley Lieber, for legal purposes, and he later said, with a smile, that he had always planned to write a great novel under his real name, and to use Stan Lee for comics, a plan that, in the end, he reversed, because Stan Lee became the famous name, and Stanley Lieber became the man behind it. It was a small decision, made by a teenager, and it would, in time, become one of the most famous names in popular culture.
He worked at Timely through the early 1940s, writing stories for comics about superheroes, about westerns, about romance, about horror, and he learned, quickly, how to write a comic, how to tell a story in pictures and words, how to make a reader turn the page, and how to work with artists, who drew the pictures that his words described. It was a practical education, not a university education, but it was, for Lee, the right education, because it taught him to write fast, to write clearly, and to write for an audience, not for himself alone.
Timely Comics, the Army and Learning to Write Fast
In 1942, Lee joined the United States Army, during the Second World War, and he served, for three years, in the Signal Corps, in the United States, writing manuals, writing training films, writing, in short, whatever the army needed written, a job that, in his own words, taught him to write quickly, to write clearly, and to write for people who did not want to read, but who had to. He was, by all accounts, a good soldier, though not a combat soldier, and he returned to Timely after the war, in 1945, to a company that was changing, that was moving away from superheroes, that was publishing romance comics, western comics, horror comics, and that needed a writer who could write anything, quickly, and well.
Lee became, in the late 1940s and 1950s, the editor of Timely, which became Atlas Comics, and he wrote, or edited, hundreds of comics, in many genres, working with artists, meeting deadlines, and learning, day by day, how the comic book business worked. It was not, in those years, a glamorous business. Comics were seen as cheap entertainment for children, they were criticised by parents, by teachers, by politicians, and Lee himself, at times, was embarrassed by his work, and thought about quitting, about writing a novel, about doing something more respectable. He stayed, partly because he needed the money, partly because he loved the work, and partly because, in 1947, he married Joan Boocock, a British woman he met in New York, a woman who would become his wife for seventy years, his partner, his supporter, and, in many ways, the person who made it possible for him to keep going when he wanted to quit.
Joan Lee was, by all accounts, a remarkable woman, intelligent, funny, strong, and Lee often said that she was the reason he did not quit comics in the late 1950s, when he was tired, when he was bored, when he felt that he had written everything there was to write about superheroes, and when he was ready to leave. She told him, in effect, to write one more comic, the comic he wanted to write, the comic he would be proud of, and to do it his way, without worrying about what the publisher wanted, and that advice, given by a wife to a husband who was ready to give up, changed the history of comics, because the comic Lee wrote next was the Fantastic Four, and the Fantastic Four changed everything.
The Fantastic Four and the Marvel Revolution
In 1961, Martin Goodman, the publisher of Atlas, which was now called Marvel Comics, asked Lee to create a new superhero team, to compete with the Justice League, a team published by DC Comics, which was, at the time, very successful. Lee, who was, by then, in his late thirties, who was tired of writing the same kind of comics, and who had, with Joan’s encouragement, decided to write the comic he wanted to write, created, with artist Jack Kirby, the Fantastic Four, a team of four people, Reed Richards, Sue Storm, Johnny Storm and Ben Grimm, who go into space, who are hit by cosmic rays, who gain powers, and who, unlike other superheroes, argue with each other, worry about money, have family problems, and are, in short, a family, not a team of perfect heroes.
The Fantastic Four was a success, and it was different. The heroes did not wear masks, they did not have secret identities in the usual sense, they lived in New York, they were famous, they were, in Lee’s words, superheroes with super problems, and readers loved them, because they were human, because they were funny, because they were, in many ways, like the readers themselves, ordinary people who had been given extraordinary powers, and who did not always know what to do with them. Lee and Kirby followed the Fantastic Four with the Hulk in 1962, a scientist, Bruce Banner, who turns into a green monster when he is angry, with Thor, a Norse god who comes to Earth, with Iron Man, a rich industrialist with a bad heart who builds a suit of armour to stay alive, with the X-Men, a group of mutants, young people born with powers, who are hated and feared by ordinary people, and who are taught, by Professor Xavier, that they can use their powers for good.
In 1962, Lee and artist Steve Ditko created Spider-Man, a teenager, Peter Parker, who is bitten by a radioactive spider, who gains the powers of a spider, who is, at first, selfish, who lets a criminal go, who learns, when that criminal kills his Uncle Ben, that with great power there must also come great responsibility, a line that has become one of the most famous lines in comics, and in film, and that sums up Lee’s whole philosophy: that power is not enough, that you must use it responsibly, that a hero is not defined by his powers but by his choices. Spider-Man was a success, a huge success, and he became, in time, Marvel’s most popular character, a boy who was bullied at school, who was poor, who worried about money, about girls, about homework, and who was, in short, a teenager, like the readers who bought his comics.
Lee created these heroes with Kirby and Ditko, and the question of who created what, of who deserves credit for which character, has been argued about for decades, and it is important to say, plainly, that Lee did not create them alone. Kirby, a brilliant artist who had been drawing comics since the 1940s, who had co-created Captain America, who drew with a power and an energy that no one else could match, and Ditko, a quiet, talented artist who drew Spider-Man and Doctor Strange with a strange, beautiful style, were, in Lee’s own words, essential to Marvel, and Lee himself, in later years, acknowledged their contributions, though the argument about credit, about money, about who owned what, would continue, and would, in time, become bitter, especially for Kirby, who felt, rightly or wrongly, that he had not been given enough credit, or enough money, for his work. That argument is still going on, and it is a reminder that creation, in comics as in other arts, is often a collaboration, and that collaboration can be complicated, especially when money and fame are involved.
Spider-Man, the X-Men and Heroes With Problems
The Marvel heroes Lee created in the 1960s were different from DC’s heroes in a fundamental way: they lived in the real world, in New York, in a city readers knew, they had real problems, they argued, they made mistakes, and they were, in Lee’s hands, human first and super second. Spider-Man worried about rent, about his Aunt May, about school, about Mary Jane Watson, and about being Spider-Man at the same time. The X-Men were hated for being mutants, for being different, a metaphor, in Lee’s telling, for prejudice, for racism, for anyone who has ever been hated for being who they are. The Hulk was a man who could not control his anger, a man who was, in many ways, a monster, and who was also, in many ways, a victim. Iron Man was a man who had built a weapon, who had profited from war, and who was trying, in his own way, to make up for it.
Lee wrote these comics with a voice that was, in itself, new. He talked directly to readers, in the captions, in the letters pages, in the Bullpen Bulletins, in a friendly, funny, enthusiastic voice, a voice that said, in effect, we are all in this together, we are Marvel, we are making something new, and you, the reader, are a part of it. He called his readers True Believers, he gave them a club, the M.M.M.S., the Merry Marvel Marching Society, he invented a language, Excelsior, Nuff Said, Face Front, and he made Marvel feel like a community, not a company, a place where readers and creators were friends, where everyone was welcome, and where the stories were, above all, fun.
He also, in the 1960s, began to address serious issues in his comics, in a way that other comics did not. He wrote about racism, in the X-Men, about drug abuse, in a famous Spider-Man story in 1971, about war, about politics, and he did it, not by preaching, but by telling stories, by showing heroes who had to make choices, who had to decide what was right, and who, sometimes, got it wrong. That willingness to tackle serious subjects, in a comic book, was, at the time, revolutionary, and it helped to make Marvel, and Lee, respected, not only by children, but by adults, by college students, by readers who had grown up with comics and who wanted comics to grow up with them.
By the end of the 1960s, Marvel was the most popular comic company in America, Lee was its editor-in-chief, its public face, its spokesman, and he was, in many ways, a celebrity, a man who was recognised on the street, who was invited to colleges to speak, who was, in short, the Stan Lee, the man who had created a universe, and who was, at the same time, a husband, a father of two daughters, Joan Celia, known as J.C., and Jan, who died as a baby, a loss that Lee and Joan felt deeply, and that, like many losses in Lee’s life, he rarely talked about in public, but that stayed with him.
Marvel Grows, Hollywood Calls and a New Audience
In the 1970s, Lee moved from writing comics every month to being Marvel’s publisher, its ambassador, its public face, and he began to think about taking Marvel’s heroes to other media, to television, to film, to a wider audience. It was a slow process, and for many years, Marvel films and television shows were not successful, or were, at best, modest successes, because the technology was not there, because Hollywood did not understand comics, and because Lee himself, though he tried, could not convince studios to spend the money needed to make a Spider-Man or an X-Men film properly. He worked on projects, he wrote, he consulted, he appeared in cameos, and he waited, patiently, for the time when Marvel’s heroes would be taken seriously by Hollywood.
That time came, in the late 1990s and early 2000s, with the X-Men films, with the Spider-Man films, and, in 2008, with Iron Man, the first film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, a series of films that would, over the next decade, become the most successful film franchise in history, earning billions of dollars, and making Marvel’s heroes known to people all over the world, in countries where comics had never been read, in languages Lee had never imagined. Lee appeared in cameos in almost every Marvel film, as a bus driver, as a librarian, as a barber, as a man in a crowd, and audiences would cheer when they saw him, because they knew, even if they did not know his name, that this was the man who had started it all, the man who had, in a small office in New York, in the early 1960s, created a universe.
He also, in his later years, created a company, POW! Entertainment, he wrote new comics, he appeared at conventions, he met fans, he signed autographs, he took photographs, and he was, in his eighties and nineties, as energetic, as enthusiastic, as funny, as he had been as a young man, a man who loved his work, who loved his fans, and who, in his own words, never really retired, because he did not want to, because work was, for him, fun, and because Excelsior, ever upward, was not only a slogan, but a way of life.
Joan Lee died in 2017, at the age of ninety-three, after seventy years of marriage, a loss that devastated Lee, who had, for seventy years, shared his life with her, who had relied on her, who had loved her, and who, in his last year, was, by many accounts, lonely, sad, and in poor health. He died on 12 November 2018 in Los Angeles, at the age of ninety-five, from pneumonia, after a period of illness, and his death was reported around the world, with tributes from actors, from writers, from fans, from people who had grown up reading his comics, watching his films, and who felt, in many ways, that they had lost a friend, a grandfather, a man who had, in his stories, taught them about responsibility, about courage, about being different, and about being human.
Excelsior, Cameos and the Last Years
Stan Lee’s last years were marked by fame, by love from fans, and by difficulties that are important to talk about plainly. He was, in his nineties, a very old man, he was in poor health, he had problems with his eyesight, with his hearing, with his memory, and there were, in his last years, reports of people taking advantage of him, of disputes over his money, over his care, and over who should look after him. Those reports are sad, and they are a reminder that even a man as famous, as loved, as rich as Stan Lee can, in old age, be vulnerable, and can need protection, and that fame does not protect you from the problems of ageing, from loneliness, from the loss of a wife, from the need for care.
Despite those difficulties, Lee kept working, kept appearing, kept smiling, kept saying Excelsior, and kept, in his own way, being Stan Lee, the man who had created Marvel, the man who loved comics, who loved his fans, and who, even at ninety-five, was still enthusiastic about stories, about heroes, about the future. His cameos in Marvel films, which continued until his death, and one, in Avengers: Endgame, released after his death, in 2019, in which he appears as a driver, saying, in effect, make love, not war, a line that was, in many ways, his farewell, a final, funny, kind message from a man who had spent his life telling stories about heroes, and who, in the end, wanted his audience to remember, not only the heroes, but the love, the kindness, the responsibility that made them heroes.
His legacy is not only the characters he created, though those characters are, in themselves, an extraordinary legacy: Spider-Man, the Fantastic Four, the X-Men, the Hulk, Iron Man, Thor, the Avengers, Black Panther, Daredevil, Doctor Strange, and dozens of others, characters who are now part of global culture, who are known by children in every country, who are, in many ways, the modern myths, the stories that our generation tells itself about good and evil, about power and responsibility, about being different and being accepted. His legacy is also the idea that comics can be serious, that they can be for adults as well as for children, that they can talk about prejudice, about war, about drugs, about love, and that a hero can have problems, can be human, can be, in short, like us.
Today, Marvel is a huge part of popular culture, its films earn billions, its comics are read by millions, its characters are on toys, on clothes, on lunchboxes, and Stan Lee’s name is still, today, spoken with love, with respect, and with gratitude, by fans who never met him, who only knew him from his cameos, from his comics, from his voice, and who feel, in many ways, that they knew him, because his voice, friendly, funny, enthusiastic, was, for so many readers, the voice of Marvel itself, the voice that said, welcome, True Believer, we are glad you are here, and Excelsior, ever upward.
My Take:
I think Stan Lee is the creator I admire most for a simple reason: he made heroes human, and in doing so, he made heroism possible for ordinary people. Before Lee, superheroes were perfect, they were gods, they did not have problems, they did not worry about money, they did not argue with their friends, they did not feel guilty. Lee’s heroes worried about everything, they argued, they made mistakes, they felt guilty, and they kept going anyway, and that is, I think, a much more useful idea of heroism than perfection. Perfection is not something any of us can achieve, but trying, failing, and trying again, that is something we can all do, and Lee taught millions of readers, especially young readers, that trying is enough, that a hero is not a person without problems, but a person with problems who does the right thing anyway.
What I admire most about Spider-Man is that he is a teenager, a boy who is bullied, who is poor, who is clever, who is, in many ways, like the readers who bought his comics in the 1960s, and who still buy them today. Peter Parker is not a billionaire, he is not a god, he is not a soldier, he is a kid from Queens who was bitten by a spider, who gained powers, and who learned, in the hardest way, that with great power there must also come great responsibility. That line is not only a slogan. It is a moral philosophy, a simple, clear statement that power, whatever power you have, whether it is strength, or money, or intelligence, or fame, comes with a duty to use it well, to help others, to not be selfish. I think that line has taught more young people about responsibility than a hundred lectures, because it is in a story, because it is earned, because Peter learns it by losing his Uncle Ben, by making a mistake, and by living with that mistake for the rest of his life.
I also think about the Fantastic Four, and about how different they were, because they were a family, not a team. They argued, they fought, they loved each other, they lived together, and they were, in Lee’s words, superheroes with super problems. Reed Richards was a genius who was, at times, a bad husband, Sue Storm was a woman who was, at times, taken for granted, Johnny Storm was a young man who was, at times, reckless, and Ben Grimm, the Thing, was a man who had been turned into a monster, who was angry, who was sad, who was, in many ways, the most human of them all, because he had lost his normal life, and he had to learn to live with a body that frightened people. That is a powerful idea, that a hero can be a monster, that a monster can be a hero, and that the difference is not in how you look, but in what you do.
The X-Men are the Marvel creation I think about most today, because they are, in Lee’s telling, a metaphor for prejudice, for being hated for being different, for being born different, for being a mutant, for being, in the 1960s, a stand-in for Black people, for Jewish people, for gay people, for anyone who has ever been told that they do not belong. Professor Xavier believes that mutants and humans can live together, Magneto believes that they cannot, that mutants must fight, and that argument, between hope and anger, between integration and separation, is still, today, one of the most important arguments in our world. Lee did not invent that argument, but he put it in a comic book, he made it accessible to children, and he made it, in a way, a part of popular culture, and that is a remarkable achievement for a man who was, at the time, writing comics that were supposed to be only for children.
I think about Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko a lot, and about the question of credit, because it is a complicated, sad story, and it deserves to be told honestly. Lee was the writer, the editor, the public face, the man who talked to readers, who gave Marvel its voice, and Kirby and Ditko were the artists, the men who drew the characters, who designed their looks, who, in many cases, plotted the stories, who, in Kirby’s case, drew with a power and an energy that made Marvel look like Marvel. Without Kirby and Ditko, there would be no Marvel as we know it, and without Lee, there would be no Marvel as we know it either. That is the truth: it was a collaboration, and collaborations are messy, especially when money and fame are involved, and Kirby, in particular, felt that he had not been given enough credit, or enough money, and he left Marvel, bitter, in 1970, and that bitterness stayed with him for the rest of his life. I do not want to take sides in that argument, because I was not there, but I do want to say that Kirby and Ditko deserve to be remembered, alongside Lee, as creators, and that any story of Marvel that leaves them out is incomplete.
Lee’s voice, the voice in the captions, in the letters pages, in the Bullpen Bulletins, is the part of Marvel I miss most, because it was friendly, it was funny, it was enthusiastic, and it made readers feel like they were part of something, like they were True Believers, like they belonged. In a world where comics were seen as cheap, as childish, as a waste of time, Lee said, in effect, no, comics are fun, comics are for you, comics are a community, and you are welcome here. That is a generous, inclusive vision, and it is one that helped Marvel to grow, to attract readers who had never read comics before, to attract college students, to attract adults, and to make comics, in time, respectable, in a way that they had not been before. That voice, that friendliness, is, I think, Lee’s greatest gift, greater even than Spider-Man, because it is a voice that says, you belong, and belonging is, for many young readers, the most important thing of all.
His cameos in the Marvel films are the part of his later life I love most, because they are small, funny, joyful moments, a man in a crowd, a bus driver, a librarian, a barber, saying a line, smiling, and audiences in cinemas would cheer, would clap, would point, because they knew, even if they did not know his name, that this was Stan, that this was the man who had started it all, and that his presence in the film was a kind of blessing, a sign that the film was, in some way, approved by the creator himself. Those cameos are, in many ways, Lee’s farewell to his audience, a farewell that lasted for twenty years, from the first X-Men film to Avengers: Endgame, and that ended, after his death, with a final cameo, a driver saying make love, not war, a line that is, in many ways, Lee’s whole philosophy in a few words: love, not war, kindness, not cruelty, responsibility, not selfishness.
I think about Joan Lee, his wife of seventy years, a great deal, because she is, in many ways, the hidden hero of Marvel. She told him, when he was ready to quit, to write one more comic, the comic he wanted to write, and that comic was the Fantastic Four, and the Fantastic Four changed everything. Without Joan, there would be no Marvel as we know it, and Lee knew it, and he said so, again and again, in interviews, in his autobiography, in his tributes to her after her death in 2017. That is a reminder that behind many great men there is a woman who believed in them, who encouraged them, who told them, when they were tired, to keep going, and that encouragement, that belief, is, in itself, a kind of creation. Joan Lee deserves to be remembered, not only as Stan’s wife, but as a co-creator, in the truest sense, of Marvel.
If I could show one Marvel story to a person who had never read a comic, I would show Spider-Man, the story of Peter Parker, of Uncle Ben, of great power and great responsibility, because it is short, because it is clear, and because it shows, in a few pages, what Lee could do: take a teenager, give him powers, and make him human. Then I would show the X-Men, because they are about being different, about being hated, about fighting for acceptance, and then I would show the Fantastic Four, because they are about family, about arguing, about loving each other anyway. That is not a long reading list, but it is a rich one, and it is a list that will, I think, change the way you think about heroes, about power, and about what it means to be human.
I also think about his last years, and about the reports that people took advantage of him, that he was lonely, that he was in poor health, and I feel a sadness, because a man who gave so much joy to so many people deserved, in his last years, to be cared for, to be protected, to be loved, and, by many accounts, he was not always cared for as he should have been. That is a sad ending for a man who was, in many ways, a grandfather to millions of readers, and it is a reminder that fame does not protect you from old age, from loneliness, from the need for care, and that even the most loved man can, in the end, be vulnerable. I hope that, in his last days, he knew how much he was loved, how many people had grown up with his stories, how many people had learned, from Spider-Man, from the X-Men, from the Fantastic Four, to be responsible, to be kind, to be brave, and I hope that knowledge gave him some comfort.
In the end, I think Stan Lee’s legacy is simple, and it is large: he taught us that heroes can have problems, that power comes with responsibility, that being different is not a curse but a gift, and that stories, even stories in comic books, even stories about men in tights, can change the world, can teach children, can make adults think, and can, in the end, make us better people. He said Excelsior, ever upward, and he lived it, for ninety-five years, from a small apartment in Manhattan to the centre of popular culture, from an office boy fetching coffee to the creator of a universe, and he did it with humour, with enthusiasm, with kindness, and with a belief that stories matter. That is a legacy that will last, as long as children read comics, as long as people watch films, as long as a teenager, bitten by a spider, learns that with great power comes great responsibility, and decides, in that moment, to be a hero.
I also think about Lee’s early years, when he was embarrassed by comics, when he thought about quitting, when he felt that writing comics was not respectable, and I find that very human, because many people who do work that is looked down on, whether it is comics, or children’s books, or popular music, feel, at times, that their work does not count, that they should be doing something more serious, something more respectable. Lee felt that, and he stayed, and he proved, in time, that comics do count, that they can be art, that they can be serious, that they can change lives, and that is a lesson for anyone who does work that others dismiss: do not dismiss it yourself, do it well, do it with love, and, in time, the world may catch up with you, as it caught up with Lee, and with comics, and with Marvel.
There is a final thought about Lee and about age, because he worked until he was ninety-five, he appeared at conventions in his nineties, he signed autographs, he met fans, he smiled, and he did it, not because he needed the money, but because he loved it, because he loved his fans, because he loved stories, and because, in his own words, he never really retired. That is a wonderful way to live, to do what you love, for as long as you can, to keep going, to keep saying Excelsior, ever upward, even when your body is tired, even when your wife has died, even when the world has changed. Lee kept going, and that, in itself, is an inspiration, a reminder that age does not have to stop you, that you can, if you love your work, do it until the end, and that the end, when it comes, will find you doing what you loved.
Frequently Asked Questions
What characters did Stan Lee create?
With artists Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko, he co-created Spider-Man, the Fantastic Four, the X-Men, the Hulk, Iron Man, Thor, the Avengers, Black Panther, Daredevil and Doctor Strange, among many others, during the Marvel revolution of the early 1960s.
What does Excelsior mean and why did Stan Lee say it?
Excelsior is a Latin word meaning ever upward, which Lee used as his catchphrase and sign-off in Marvel comics, letters pages and public appearances, expressing his belief in always aiming higher and moving forward.
Who was Stan Lee’s wife?
He was married to Joan Boocock Lee from 1947 until her death in 2017, for seventy years, and she encouraged him, when he was ready to quit comics in the late 1950s, to write one more comic his own way, which became the Fantastic Four.
What is the famous Spider-Man line about power and responsibility?
When Peter Parker lets a criminal go who then kills his Uncle Ben, he learns that with great power there must also come great responsibility, a line that has become one of the most famous moral statements in comics and film.
Did Stan Lee create Marvel characters alone?
No, he created them in collaboration with artists, especially Jack Kirby, who co-created the Fantastic Four, the Hulk, Thor, the X-Men and the Avengers, and Steve Ditko, who co-created Spider-Man and Doctor Strange, and the question of credit for those creations has been debated for decades.
Why did Stan Lee appear in Marvel films?
He made brief cameo appearances in almost every Marvel film, as a bus driver, librarian, barber and other small roles, and audiences cheered when they saw him, because he was recognised as the man who had created the Marvel universe.
When did Stan Lee die?
He died on 12 November 2018 in Los Angeles, at the age of ninety-five, from pneumonia, a year after Joan died, and his final cameo, as a driver in Avengers: Endgame, was released after his death in 2019.
