On November 12, Stan Lee, the person responsible for most of the outstanding success of the Marvel universe, died at the age of 95. Find out more about Stan Lee movies and the rest of the glorious career of this incredible man.
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1. Life before Marvel
Even though Stan Lee is closely associated with Marvel, his career actually started well before that. He started working in the comics industry in 1939 by running errands for comics writers. In 1941 he fulfilled his dream of becoming a comics writer himself, publishing a Captain America story.
From 1942 to 1945 Stan Lee served in the US Army, and later continued working in the comics industry. However, he then admitted that he wasn’t too happy with his career and even considered quitting in the 1950s. It’s hard to imagine what the world would have lost had Stan Lee followed his desire to quit!
2. Marvel revolution
By the late 1950s, superheroes were incredibly popular in America thanks to the works of DC Comics, who created such popular characters as Batman and Superman. However, those characters were rather straight-laced and barely had any flaws.
Stan Lee was determined to create more complex characters with human features. Lee began collaborating with the artist Jack Kirby, who previously worked for DC Comics. Their first creation was the Fantastic Four, which was based on the story previously done by Kirby.
The reception of the new characters was so overwhelmingly positive that Stan Lee and Jack Kirby created a whole universe of superheroes that consisted of Iron Man, Thor, Hulk, the X-Men, Daredevil, Doctor Strange, and, of course, Spider-Man.
The reason why this era became known as the Marvel revolution and why those characters became so popular with the public is simple: instead of one-dimensional superheroes, for the first time the public saw superheroes with their own flaws and issues, which was very refreshing at the time.
Stan Lee was particularly praised for his views on diversity in the comics industry: at the time when all of the superheroes belonged to just one race, he introduced such iconic black superhero characters as Black Panther, Luke Cage, and Falcon.
3. Later years
By the late 1970s Stan Lee stopped collaborating with Jack Kirby, and later the two had their share of arguments in the press. Lee continued to work for Marvel by developing films and TV shows, and even was briefly the head of the entire studio, although he quickly went back to being a publisher again.
Lee then founded his own company and had a number of business ventures, some more successful than the others. His most recent company was called POW! Entertainment. There were also plenty of Stan Lee animated movies and action films where you could spot his cameos, including Spider-Man, X-Men, Iron Man, and Thor.
4. Legacy
Many fans are wondering: did Stan Lee own Marvel? The truth is that Stan not only didn’t own Marvel, but also didn’t own any rights to the comics he created. Despite that, he will always be remembered as the man who created complex, multi-dimensional comics characters that we’ll never get tired of watching.
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