Amazing man!No matter what age everyone likes a comic.
“If Shakespeare and Michelangelo were alive today, and if they decided to collaborate on a comic, Shakespeare would write the script and Michelangelo would draw it. How could anybody say that this wouldn’t be as worthwhile an art form as anything on Earth?” – Stan Lee
That's how comic books became an icon at the core of modern American mainstream culture.
The human face of the comics industry, Stan Lee has changed the course of American popular culture, has redefined the modern American Hero and pioneered the use of popular media as a platform for debate and discussion of real-life national issues.
Always signing off with “Excelsior!”, he claimed that meant “onward and upward to greater glory.”
Associating his name and his resemblance with Marvel’s products, interacting with readers on the letters pages and even writing a Marvel bulletin within the comics, Stan Lee made himself an integral part of the mythology of Marvel.
Without him we wouldn’t know Spider-Man, or the Incredible Hulk, or the Fantastic Four, or the Black Panther, or Iron Man, or the X-Men, or the Avengers, or any of the other heroes that became a dominant form of entertainment. Stan Lee’s 'Marvel Comics' launched all of them.
Stan Lee was a true believer, a creative artist who made his face synonymous with his heroes.
And it was the first time that a generation of readers took their comics with them to college, and Stan Lee became a popular great friend and speaker on college campuses.
Stan Lee’s self-aware combination of exaggeration and irony meant that older readers need not be embarrassed by the melodrama that dominated superhero comics. They were all of them - readers and creator – together in on the joke.
Stan Lee made fun of his own corniness, was a carnival poster who parodied carnival posters and an adult father figure who never grew up.
He raised the vision of a House of Ideas where the Marvel Bullpen lived and worked, readers knew Marvel creators by nicknames, as if they were old friends or family members.
“With great power there must also come — great responsibility.” Stan Lee will be remembered writing in a narration box in Spider-Man’s introductory 'Amazing Fantasy 15'.
Stan Lee grew to a position of power and wealth in the popular-culture industry, but like his Marvel superheroes, that achievement implied great, irreversible changes in his life and ultimately the sacrifice of his own identity.
The Marvel hero gains great power, but at the same time, loses his humanity and is transformed against his will into something larger than life.
Although Stan Lee had not fulfilled his ambition to write serious literature, he succeeded to rewrite the superhero genre as an epic tragedy.
The characters he created and co-created have propelled some of the biggest films, series, and franchises of the modern time, and inspired an ongoing series of new titles leading the way in the Marvel Age of comics.
Few people have shaped modern movie going ahead and TV-watching so much as Stan Lee.
And the same creative business model also applied to Marvel movies, where an “Easter egg” in the credits advertises an upcoming movie or new character.
This was both a creative decision, and a business decision, too. Those interconnections alerted fans that they would be missing out if they didn’t buy all the Marvel’s titles.
It was not difficult to do it, as in the early 1960s he was editing and writing the stories of every Marvel character, including the Fantastic Four, Thor and Spider-Man.
To be part of the Marvel community, you had to buy Marvel comic books, many of them. To make sure that readers will stay Marvel fans for life, Stan Lee developed the idea that different comic book titles were interconnected within the “Marvel Universe.”
Real-world issues like gender, race mental illness, women's rights dive into the stories Spider-Man, Black Panther, and Doctor Strange and that makes them so real.
His superheroes knew what it meant to fight for economic survival, Marvel’s Fantastic Four once went bankrupt and were driven out from their skyscraper headquarters. That made Marvel’s stories not only very good, but also real and authentic.
The very talented editor, writer and art director of the 'Marvel Comics Universe', not only created the unforgettable characters Iron Man, Thor, the Hulk and the X-Men, but also dealt with real-world financial challenges of the Great Depression.
Stan Lee shaped Marvel’s college-age readers into a community whose core identity was related to buying Marvel comics. He adopted innovative branding strategies, turning Marvel merchandise into must-have items, like T-shirts and celeb posters are.
So he decided that Marvel will try to create lifelong fans.
In the 1950s, the comic books were seen as uniquely a medium for children. Stan Lee heard from Columbia University students that Halk was their mascot, and he understood that older people do not loose their love for comics when growing up.
So Stan Lee took the job of doing publicity himself and in the process, completely changed how the comics business works.
In the 1960s, Marvel was a small company with two employees and no publicity means.
through the 'Iron Man', the 'Spider-Man', the 'Fantastic Four', the 'Incredible Hulk', among many others.
Much in the same way Walt Disney gave Mickey Mouse his character and personality, Stan Lee helped develop for 'Marvel' iconic characters deeply embedded with his incredible imagination, creative passion and personal identity, which will stay for many generations to come
The adolescent who dreamed of one day writing the Great American Novel has actually changed the American culture by creating new adventure worlds and inspiring heroes who entertained generations of readers, young and old.
From comics to innovative merchandising, from superheroes to Spider-Man, 'Marvel Comics' became a beloved central part of the pop culture, and it was thanks to Stan Lee that Marvel magically transformed from a second-rate publisher to a legend.
Throwing caution to the wind, Stan Lee created the 'Fantastic Four', the 'Spider-Man', the 'Avengers', the 'X-Men' and many other unforgettable characters that revolutionized comic books for many generations of readers.
A visionary writer who created many of most legendary fictional characters in the Pantheon of American pop culture, with huge talent and very hard work, Stan Lee decided to become the editor of 'Marvel Comics', while still being a teenager.
WOW...SIGNS OF THE TIMES...LEGENDS DYING;(
Also his most detrimental 'contribution' to society. May he burn in hell.