If Stan Lee revolutionized the comic book world in the 1960s, which he did, he left as big a stamp — maybe bigger — on the even wider pop culture landscape of today.

Think of “Spider-Man,” the blockbuster movie franchise and Broadway spectacle. Think of “Iron Man,” another Hollywood gold-mine series personified by its star, Robert Downey Jr. Think of “Black Panther,” the box-office superhero smash that shattered big screen racial barriers in the process.

And that is to say nothing of the Hulk, the X-Men, Thor and other film and television juggernauts that have stirred the popular imagination and made many people very rich.

If all that entertainment product can be traced to one person, it would be Stan Lee, who died in Los Angeles on Monday at 95. From a cluttered office on Madison Avenue in Manhattan in the 1960s, he helped conjure a lineup of pulp-fiction heroes that has come to define much of popular culture in the early 21st century.</s>Actor Robert Downey Jr, Chris Evans, Winston Duke, and Seth Rogen among those who hailed the creator of Marvel comics

This article is more than 9 months old

This article is more than 9 months old

Tributes poured in from fans and celebrities hailing the comic creator Stan Lee on Monday, who died at the age of 95.

“There will never be another Stan Lee. For decades he provided both young and old with adventure, escape, comfort, confidence, inspiration, strength, friendship and joy,” Captain America actor Chris Evans said on Twitter. “He exuded love and kindness and will leave an indelible mark on so, so, so many lives. Excelsior!!”

Chris Evans (@ChrisEvans) There will never be another Stan Lee. For decades he provided both young and old with adventure, escape, comfort, confidence, inspiration, strength, friendship and joy. He exuded love and kindness and will leave an indelible mark on so, so, so many lives. Excelsior!!

Lee was the co-creator of characters including Iron Man, the Fantastic Four, Spider-Man, Daredevil and the X-Men.

“He felt an obligation to his fans to keep creating,” his daughter JC Lee said. “He loved his life and he loved what he did for a living. His family loved him and his fans loved him. He was irreplaceable.”

From X-Men to Deadpool: Stan Lee's Marvel movie cameos – in pictures Read more

The Iron Man actor Robert Downey Jr said of Lee: “I owe it all to you.” Mark Ruffalo, who plays the Hulk, was among a host of other Marvel actors who paid their respects, and tweeted: “You let us be extra human … superhuman even.”

Kevin Feige, the president of Marvel Studios, said: “No one has had more of an impact on my career and everything we do at Marvel Studios than Stan Lee. Stan leaves an extraordinary legacy that will outlive us all.”

Marvel rival DC Comics wrote on its Twitter account: “He changed the way we look at heroes, and modern comics will always bear his indelible mark. His infectious enthusiasm reminded us why we all fell in love with these stories in the first place.”

Lee created the Marvel Universe that stretched across comic books, movies and TV, and revitalized the comic industry with superheroes who had complex emotional lives to go along with their action adventures.

This video has been removed. This could be because it launched early, our rights have expired, there was a legal issue, or for another reason. Stan Lee's best Marvel cameos – video

Mark Hamill, who portrayed Luke Skywalker in the Star Wars films, wrote that Lee’s “contribution to pop culture was revolutionary and cannot be overstated. They say you should never meet a childhood idol. They are wrong.”

Director Joss Whedon, the creator of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, wrote: “Thanks for so much of my life. You’ll never not be in it.”

Another Marvel actor, Winston Duke, credited Lee with creating “characters that continue to stand the test of time and evolve with our consciousness”.

“You taught us that there are no limits to our future as long as we have access to our imagination. Rest in power!” he tweeted.

Winston Duke (@Winston_Duke) THANK YOU, @TheRealStanLee. You gave us characters that continue to stand the test of time and evolve with our consciousness. You taught us that there are no limits to our future as long as we have access to our imagination. Rest in power! #EXCELSIOR #StanLee #rip pic.twitter.com/hnSmnHIDln

“Thank you Stan Lee for making people who feel different realize they are special,” wrote actor Seth Rogen.

Wolverine star Hugh Jackman weighed in: “We’ve lost a creative genius. Stan Lee was a pioneering force in the superhero universe. I’m proud to have been a small part of his legacy and .... to have helped bring one of his characters to life.”

Hugh Jackman (@RealHughJackman) We’ve lost a creative genius. Stan Lee was a pioneering force in the superhero universe. I’m proud to have been a small part of his legacy and .... to have helped bring one of his characters to life. #StanLee #Wolverine pic.twitter.com/iOdefi7iYz

“Damn... RIP Stan. Thanks for everything,” said Deadpool actor Ryan Reynolds.

Singer Josh Groban said: “Thank you for making my childhood, teen years and adulthood so fun, especially during darker days.”

• This article was amended on 13 November 2018 to remove a quote that was incorrectly attributed to Scarlett Johansson.</s>LOS ANGELES, Calif.– Comic book genius Stan Lee, the architect of the contemporary comic book, has died. He was 95.

The creative dynamo who revolutionized the comics by introducing human frailties in superheroes such as Spider-Man, The Fantastic Four and The Incredible Hulk, was declared dead Monday at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, according to Kirk Schenck, an attorney for Lee’s daughter, J.C. Lee.

As the top writer at Marvel Comics and later as its publisher, he revived the industry in the 1960s by offering the costumes and action craved by younger readers while insisting on sophisticated plots, college-level dialogue, satire, science fiction, even philosophy.

Spider-Man, the Hulk and X-Men were among the Lee creations that went on to become stars of blockbuster films.</s>Stan Lee, longtime publisher and public face of Marvel Comics, died Monday at the age of 95.

On Monday morning, TMZ reported an ambulance rushed Lee from his home to the Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. He later died there, as confirmed by the Associated Press and the Hollywood Reporter.

Lee had weathered a number of recent illnesses over the last few years, including pneumonia.

The comic book mastermind got his start in comics in 1939, creating or contributing to the creation of iconic characters like Spider-Man, Thor, Iron Man, Black Panther, and others. When famed comic heroes were in more recent years adapted into film characters, Lee regularly made cameo appearances alongside them.

Alyssa Pereira is an SFGATE staff writer. Email her at apereira@sfchronicle.com or find her on Twitter at @alyspereira.</s>Marvel legend Stan Lee, who revolutionized pop culture as the co-creator of iconic superheroes like Spider-Man and The Hulk who now dominate the world's movie screens, has died. He was 95 years old.

Lee, the face of comic book culture in the United States, died early Monday in Los Angeles after suffering a number of illnesses in recent years.

"With a heavy heart, we share our deepest condolences with his daughter and brother," said Marvel Comics and its owner The Walt Disney Company in a statement.

"We honor and remember the creator, voice and champion of Marvel... Every time you open a Marvel comic, Stan will be there."

The New Yorker, known for his distinctive tinted glasses and impish grin, ended up in the comics business by accident, thanks to an uncle who got him a job when he was a teenager filling artists' inkwells and fetching coffee.

"I felt someday I'd write the 'Great American Novel' and I didn't want to use my real name on these silly little comics," Lee once said, explaining why he had forsaken his given name, Stanley Lieber.

Lee rose through the ranks to become a comics writer -- making millions of superhero fans dream of his fantastic universes and humans with extraordinary powers -- and eventually led the Marvel empire for decades as its publisher.

From Spidey to Black Panther to the X-Men and the Fantastic Four, Lee collaborated with other authors and illustrators to put his lively imagination on the page.

Iron Man, Thor and Doctor Strange would follow -- and today, all three heroes have multi-film franchises that rake in hundreds of millions of dollars.

"Stan Lee was as extraordinary as the characters he created," said Disney CEO Bob Iger. "A superhero in his own right to Marvel fans around the world, Stan had the power to inspire, to entertain, and to connect."

'The King' and 'The Man'

Lee has appeared in cameo roles in nearly every movie in the Marvel Cinematic Universe -- including as a bus driver in "Avengers: Infinity War," a film that united many of the indelible characters he brought to life.

"I used to be embarrassed because I was just a comic book writer while other people were building bridges or going on to medical careers," Lee said.

"And then I began to realize: entertainment is one of the most important things in people's lives. Without it, they might go off the deep end."

Born on December 28, 1922 to Jewish immigrants who migrated to the United States from Romania, Lee got that first assistant's job at age 17 at Timely Comics and began rising through the ranks.

After a stint in the US Army during World War II Lee returned to comics, teaming up with illustrator Jack Kirby in the 1960s to invent the Fantastic Four and Spider-Man.

It was a partnership for the ages -- Kirby, the artist, was "The King" and Lee, the writer, was "The Man."

Together they would pioneer new ways to tell stories, with deeply flawed heroes and serious themes -- all while maintaining the wonder of traditional superhero lore. Even villains showed complicated feelings.

"When the time came to create a teenaged hero for Marvel Comics, I decided to depict him as a bumbling real-life teenager who by some miracle had acquired a super power," Lee wrote in a 1977 column, "How I Invented Spider-Man."

"If you suddenly gained the muscle power of a hundred men and could outwrestle King Kong, it doesn't mean you still wouldn't have to worry about dandruff or acne, right?

Lee and his collaborators churned out hit after hit and he took over at Marvel in the 1960s, creating the "Marvel Universe" -- all of the heroes existed in the same time and story crossovers were frequent.

It's a model now adopted by the Hollywood producers beyond the Marvel Cinematic Universe -- which releases its 21st film, "Captain Marvel," in March next year.

Lee formally left Marvel in the 1990s but remained chairman emeritus. He was the brand's most recognizable face, giving lectures and speaking at comics conventions.

"My father loved all of his fans," his daughter JC told Hollywood celebrity news portal TMZ. "He was the greatest, most decent man."

In recent years, as Lee reached his 90s, he ran into legal troubles and scandal. A massage therapist sued him for sexual assault, accusing him of inappropriate touching during two sessions in 2017. Lee denied the allegations.

There were also claims that people around the Marvel legend -- who was worth tens of millions of dollars -- were trying to access his wealth, and that he was the victim of elder abuse at the hands of his manager and his daughter JC.

Lee's wife of nearly 70 years, Joan, died in 2017.

Hollywood quickly took to social media to pay tribute to the late superhero of comics.

"My youth wouldn't have been the same without him. So grateful to have met the guy, and told him how thankful I was for his work," tweeted Australian filmmaker James Wan.

Edgar Wright, the British director of "Shaun of the Dead" and "Baby Driver" used Lee's catchphrase in his eulogy: "Thanks for inspiring so many of us to pick up a pen or pencil and put your dreams onto paper."</s>LOS ANGELES (AP) — Stan Lee, the creative dynamo who revolutionized the comic book and helped make billions for Hollywood by introducing human frailties in superheroes such as Spider-Man, the Fantastic Four and the Incredible Hulk, died Monday. He was 95.

Lee was declared dead at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, according to Kirk Schenck, an attorney for Lee’s daughter, J.C. Lee.

As the top writer at Marvel Comics and later as its publisher, Lee was widely considered the architect of the contemporary comic book. He revived the industry in the 1960s by offering the costumes and action craved by younger readers while insisting on sophisticated plots, college-level dialogue, satire, science fiction, even philosophy.

“I think everybody loves things that are bigger than life. … I think of them as fairy tales for grown-ups,” he told The Associated Press in a 2006 interview. “We all grew up with giants and ogres and witches. Well, you get a little bit older and you’re too old to read fairy tales. But I don’t think you ever outgrow your love for those kind of things, things that are bigger than life and magical and very imaginative.”

Lee considered the comic-book medium an art form and he was prolific: By some accounts, he came up with a new comic book every day for 10 years.

“I wrote so many I don’t even know. I wrote either hundreds or thousands of them,” he told the AP in 2006.

He hit his stride in the 1960s when he brought the Fantastic Four, the Hulk, Spider-Man, Iron Man and numerous others to life.

“It was like there was something in the air. I couldn’t do anything wrong,” he recalled.

His heroes, meanwhile, were a far cry from virtuous do-gooders such as rival DC Comics’ Superman.

The Fantastic Four fought with each other. Spider-Man was goaded into superhero work by his alter ego, Peter Parker, who suffered from unrequited crushes, money problems and dandruff. The Silver Surfer, an alien doomed to wander Earth’s atmosphere, waxed about the woeful nature of man. The Hulk was marked by self-loathing. Daredevil was blind and Iron Man had a weak heart.

Some of Lee’s creations became symbols of social change — the inner turmoil of Spider-Man represented ’60s America, for example, while The Black Panther and The Savage She-Hulk mirrored the travails of minorities and women.

Lee scripted most of Marvel’s superhero comics himself during the ’60s, including the Avengers and the X-Men, two of the most enduring. In 1972, he became Marvel’s publisher and editorial director; four years later, 72 million copies of Spider-Man were sold.

“He’s become our Mickey Mouse,” he once said of the masked, web-crawling crusader.

Lee also published several books, including “The Superhero Women” in 1977 and “How to Draw Comics the Marvel Way” the following year, when he was named publisher of the year by the Periodical and Book Association of America.

CBS turned the Hulk into a successful TV series, with Bill Bixby and Lou Ferrigno portraying the doomed scientist from 1978-82. A Spider-Man series ran briefly in 1978. Both characters were featured in animated TV series as well.

The first big-budget movie based on Lee’s characters, “X-Men,” was a smash in 2000, earning more than $130 million at North American theaters. “Spider-Man” did even better, taking in more than $400 million in 2002. A Marvel movie empire would emerge after that, one of the most lucrative mega-franchises in cinema history, with the recent “Avengers: Infinity War” grossing more than $2 billion worldwide. In 10 years, the Marvel Cinematic Universe film shave netted over $17.6 billion in worldwide grosses.

Stanley Martin Lieber was born Dec. 28, 1922, in New York. He grew up a fan of “Hardy Boys” adventure books and Errol Flynn movies, and got a job at Timely Comics after graduating from high school.

Within a few months, the editor and art director quit, leaving the 17-year-old Lee with creative control over the company, which grew and was renamed Atlas Comics and, finally, Marvel. Lieber changed his name, thinking Lee would be used for “silly little comics” and his real name would be reserved for novels.

His early work largely reflected popular movies — westerns, crime dramas, romance, whatever was the rage at the time. He worked for about 50 cents per page.

After a stint in the Army during World War II, writing for training films, he was back at Marvel to begin a long and admittedly boring run of assembly line comic book production.

Comics in the 1950s were the subject of Senate hearings pushed by the Comics Code Authority, which frowned on gore and characters that questioned authority. Major comic book companies adopted the code as a form of self-regulation to avoid sanctions.

Lee said he was also working for a publisher who considered comics as fare only for children.

“One day I said, ‘This is insane,’” Lee told the Guardian in 1979. “I’m just doing the same type of stories as everybody else. I wasn’t taking pride in my work and I wanted to quit. But my wife said, ‘Look, why don’t you do the kind of comics you want for a change?’”

The result was the first issue of “The Fantastic Four,” in 1960, with the characters, plot and text from Lee and the illustrations by famed Marvel artist Jack Kirby.

The characters were normal people changed into reluctant superheroes through no fault of their own.

Writing in “Origins of Marvel Comics,” Lee described the quartet this way: “The characters would be the kind of characters I could personally relate to; they’d be flesh and blood, they’d have their faults and foibles, they’d be fallible and feisty and — most important of all — inside their colorful, costumed booties they’d still have feet of clay.”

“The Amazing Spider-Man” followed in 1962 and before long, Marvel Comics was an industry behemoth.

Lee knew his work was different, proudly noting that stories were drawn out over several issues not to make money but to better develop characters, situations and themes. He didn’t neglect his villains, either. One, the Moleman, went bad when he was ostracized because of his appearance, Lee wrote, adding it was “almost unheard of in a comic book” to explain why a character was what he was.

Lee’s direct influence faded in the 1970s as he gave up some of his editorial duties at Marvel. But with his trademark white mustache and tinted sunglasses, he was the industry’s most recognizable figure. He lectured widely on popular culture.

Lee moved to Los Angeles in 1981 to head Marvel Productions, an animation studio that was later purchased, along with Marvel Comics, for $50 million by New World Entertainment.

As sales of comics declined, Marvel was forced into bankruptcy proceedings that meant it had to void a lifetime contract prohibiting Lee from working for anyone else. Lee later sued Marvel for $10 million, saying the company cheated him out of millions in profits from movies based on his characters.

In 2000, Lee agreed to write stories for DC Comics, reinventing Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman and other signature characters for Marvel’s one-time rival. DC Vice President and Publisher Paul Levitz had nothing but praise when the agreement was made.

“With his artistic collaborators at Marvel, Stan co-created the richest imaginary universe a single comics writer has ever built,” he said.

The dapper, friendly comic book genius continued to work into his 90s on numerous projects, including comics, films and DVDs.

In the late 1990s, he looked to capitalize on the Internet craze, offering animated “Webisodes” of comic-like action. Stan Lee Media also sought to reach out to Web-savvy youth through deals with pop artists the Backstreet Boys and Mary J. Blige.

The company went bankrupt, and three men were indicted for allegedly defrauding the business in a check kiting scam. Lee wasn’t implicated.

After that initial failure, Lee formed the successful Pow! Entertainment company to launch animated Internet-based projects.

Lee’s wife and partner in nearly everything, Joan Lee, died on July 6, 2017, leaving a void that made her husband, by then in mental and physical decline, vulnerable to hangers-on who began to surround him. Lawsuits, court fights and an elder abuse investigation all emerged in the fight over who spoke for the elderly Lee.

Lee is survived by his daughter, Joanie, and a younger brother who also worked in comics, Larry Lieber.

Associated Press writers Dave Zelio and John Rogers contributed to this story</s>LOS ANGELES — Stan Lee, the creative dynamo who revolutionized the comic book and helped make billions for Hollywood by introducing human frailties in superheroes such as Spider-Man, the Fantastic Four and the Incredible Hulk, died Monday. He was 95.

Lee was declared dead at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, according to Kirk Schenck, an attorney for Lee's daughter, J.C. Lee.

As the top writer at Marvel Comics and later as its publisher, Lee was widely considered the architect of the contemporary comic book. He revived the industry in the 1960s by offering the costumes and action craved by younger readers while insisting on sophisticated plots, college-level dialogue, satire, science fiction, even philosophy.

Millions responded to the unlikely mix of realistic fantasy, and many of his characters, including Spider-Man, the Hulk and X-Men went on to become stars of blockbuster films. Recent projects he helped make possible range from the films "Black Panther" and "Doctor Strange" to TV series such as "Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D" and "Guardians of the Galaxy."

"I think everybody loves things that are bigger than life. ... I think of them as fairy tales for grown-ups," he told The Associated Press in a 2006 interview. "We all grew up with giants and ogres and witches. Well, you get a little bit older and you're too old to read fairy tales. But I don't think you ever outgrow your love for those kind of things, things that are bigger than life and magical and very imaginative."

Lee considered the comic-book medium an art form and he was prolific: by some accounts, he came up with a new comic book every day for 10 years.

"I wrote so many I don't even know. I wrote either hundreds or thousands of them," he told the AP in 2006.

He hit his stride in the 1960s when he brought the Fantastic Four, the Hulk, Spider-Man, Iron Man and numerous others to life.

"It was like there was something in the air. I couldn't do anything wrong," he recalled.

His heroes, meanwhile, were a far cry from virtuous do-gooders such as rival DC Comics' Superman.</s>According to TMZ Stan Lee is dead at the age of 95.</s>Stan Lee, a writer and editor often credited with helping American comics grow up by redefining the notion of a superhero, including the self-doubting Spider-Man, the bickering Fantastic Four, the swaggering Iron Man and the raging Incredible Hulk, died Nov. 12 at a hospital in Los Angeles. He was 95.

The Associated Press reported the death, citing an attorney for Mr. Lee’s daughter. The cause was not immediately available.

Mr. Lee’s name became synonymous with the company that would become Marvel Comics, which he joined as a teenage assistant and stayed with for much of his adult life.

After toiling in comics for 20 years as a self-described hack, on the verge of quitting the business, he was ordered by his boss to emulate a line of superheroes done by rival DC comics. Mr. Lee’s full-color, morally complex heroes helped foster a revival in a largely moribund profession.

Comics had entered a dark age after Senate hearings in the early 1950s that condemned the trade for contributing to juvenile delinquency. What followed was a comics code to monitor standards and ban content deemed immoral and unsuitable for children.

In the ‘60s, Mr. Lee took a distinctly new approach to characters and setting, as well as to the very interaction with readers who had grown used to comics that were aimed solely at a younger audience and that featuring flawless, square-jawed heroes who had uncomplicated morals.

Michael Chabon, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of the comic-book-themed novel “The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay,” said in an interview that Mr. Lee’s best-known characters were “vain, pompous, conceited. . . . Everything that works in comic books today is indebted to him for that.”

“There’s no question that Stan and the innovations he came up with saved the comic book and the superhero,” Tom Brevoort, Marvel’s senior vice president of publishing, told The Washington Post in 2011. “By crafting characters with feet of clay and personal problems — and not writing down to an audience that was perceived to be primarily 8-year-olds — Stan opened the doorway for more sophisticated and interesting treatments of any subject matter in comics. He made comics interesting and rel­evant and fun again.”

Lee told The Post in 2012: “All of our characters were freaks in their own way. The greatest example was with X-Men — they were hated because they were different. The idea I had, the underlying theme, was that just because somebody is different doesn’t make them better. ... That seems to be the worst thing in human nature.”

Much of Mr. Lee’s success was indebted to his Marvel partnership with artist and frequent co-creator Jack Kirby. Their first superheroes, appearing in 1961, were the Fantastic Four.

They were unlike the perfectly genial Superman, a DC Comics character. Fantastic Four were constantly were at odds with one another. Mr. Fantastic was a boring scientist whom the rest of the group constantly interrupted. One of the Four, the Thing, looked like a monster and often acted like one, and he hated the powers that made him look that way.

Other heroes came with their own weaknesses, such as the Jekyll-and-Hyde-like Incredible Hulk, who could not control the anger that gave him his strength; Daredevil, whose blindness helped develop other heightened senses. Iron Man was a billionaire industrialist modeled after Howard Hughes; his weakness was a piece of shrapnel dangerously close to his heart, acquired on a trip to Vietnam to inspect the weapons he produced for the war.

With artist Steve Ditko, Mr. Lee created Spider-Man in 1962, of whom cartoonist and author Jules Feiffer said, “He took the anxiety and schlumpiness that had become part of the culture from the '60s on and put them into the character of a superhero.”

Besides giving the characters human personalities, the artists further attracted readers with the comics’ realistic settings. While other heroes protected fictional cities such as Metropolis and Gotham, Mr. Lee’s lived in his native New York.

Mr. Lee constantly addressed and engaged the readers. In his memoir, written with George Mair, he remembered one particular author’s note: “On the cover I wrote something like, ‘Look, this may not be one of the best stories we’ve ever done, but we’ve given you enough good ones so that you owe it to us to buy this lemon anyway.' ”

“Stan was the first writer to bring an ironic distance to the material,” said Marvel artist Gerry Conway, as quoted in Tom Spurgeon and Jordan Raphael's “Stan Lee and the Rise and Fall of the American Comic Book” (2003).

Behind the scenes, Mr. Lee worked to foster a different kind of collaborative process with his artists.

Traditionally, comics were drawn from a screenplay-like script provided by the writer. Instead, Mr. Lee said, he would offer his artists plot ideas and brainstorm with them. The artists would then draw the story, and he would later fill in dialogue and text.

Artists in his “bullpen,” where the artists worked in proximity to each other and to him, were much more involved in the creative process. This became known as the Marvel Method.

He crisscrossed the country as a popular college speaker, visiting campus chapters of the official fan clubs he founded, the Merry Marvel Marching Society and later the Friends of Ol’ Marvel. Marvel became — and remains — one of the best-selling comic book companies in the country. In 2009, the Walt Disney Co. reached an agreement to acquire Marvel Entertainment in a deal worth more than $4 billion.

Mr. Lee has been criticized for not doing enough to acknowledge Kirby and Ditko’s roles in creating Marvel’s most popular characters. Marvel publicity and press coverage frequently played up Mr. Lee’s role and minimized his collaborators.

They were minimized legally, as well. Historically, none of the creators had any ownership rights, not even Mr. Lee. Because there were no royalties, comic artists often struggled financially after they stopped working.

In the 1970s, Kirby attempted to get back some of his original artwork to help support his family and sued. Mr. Lee, who was Marvel’s public face, refrained from taking an active role in the case. An elderly Kirby eventually received some of the art, years later, after agreeing to relinquish all claim to copyright.

Kirby and Mr. Lee had a falling-out. Kirby died in 1994.

“I made whatever I made because I was the editor . . . and I was the publisher and one-time president and chairman of the company,” Mr. Lee told The Post in 2012. “I was the scriptwriter. I made no more money than Jack, and at times he made more than I did. ... If it hadn’t been for those other guys — like [comic-book artist] John Romita [Sr.] — who took over so many of the [comics], I don’t think these comics” would be as popular today.

“Jack was great, and I have taken pains to say over and over again what a great collaborator he was and how much he contributed,” Mr. Lee continued. “But even when he was alive, I was the guy doing the publicity. I was . . . the guy boosting Marvel on the front lines. Jack was the voice of Jack Kirby, and at times he left to work at D.C., and when it served his interests better he came back to Marvel.”

Took pen name in his teens

Stanley Martin Lieber was born in New York City on Dec. 28, 1922, the eldest son of Romanian Jewish immigrants. His father was a dress cutter who was frequently out of work.

Mr. Lee came by his pen name as a teenager. He claimed he changed his name not because of anti-Semitism, like many comic book artists, but because he wanted to preserve his real name to write a real book.

After graduating high school, Mr. Lee took a job with Timely Publications, a company that published Marvel and was owned by his cousin-in-law Martin Goodman. He was hired by Timely editor Joe Simon, who with Kirby co-created Captain America.

During World War II, Mr. Lee served in the Army and spent three years in New Jersey writing scripts for training films. After his discharge, he continued spinning out science-fiction and monster comics for Timely, which was renamed Atlas.

In 1947, he married Joan Boocock, a British hat model. Their daughter Jan died days after her birth in 1953. In June 2018, court documents showed that the Los Angeles Police Department was investigating claims of elder abuse against Mr. Lee. His circle of business partners and confidantes had shifted tumultuously since his wife, who often guarded his interests, died in 2017.

[Stan Lee’s alleged elder-abuse and money issues have grown. Here’s how we got to this point.]

Survivors include another daughter, Joan Celia “J.C.” Lee; and a brother, comic book artist and writer Larry Lieber.

Mr. Lee credited with wife with pushing him to create the Fantastic Four instead of leaving Marvel in frustration at midcareer. His breakthrough against the industry's self-imposed “Comics Code” came in 1971 when the government asked him to produce a Spider-Man story line that came down harshly on drug use.

The code had a zero-tolerance policy for drugs, even in a negative light, but Marvel ignored the regulations, published without the seal of approval and saw no change in sales. Comic books across the industry stopped following the code’s guidelines.

Mr. Lee moved from editor to publisher in 1972, and then moved to Hollywood around 1980, attempting with little success to attain cinematic respectability for his characters. The few projects that came to fruition, such as “Howard the Duck” (1986) and “The Punisher” (1989), were critical and commercial failures.

In 1999, Mr. Lee entered the Internet age with the company Stan Lee Media, which produced Web cartoons and briefly gave Mr. Lee a paper worth of $100 million. The company collapsed in 2001 amid allegations of a massive scam run by Mr. Lee’s partner, Peter F. Paul, who turned out to be a felon. Paul fled to Brazil but eventually returned to the United States and pleaded guilty to securities fraud.

In 2002, “Spider-Man,” directed by Sam Raimi and starring Tobey Maguire, opened at the box office and eventually grossed more than $800 million worldwide. Citing a previously ignored line in his contract, Mr. Lee sued Marvel for 10 percent of the profits in what he told Variety was “the friendliest lawsuit in the world.” He won the case in 2005. Retaining his lifetime contract with Marvel, he started a new comic company, P.O.W. (Purveyors of Wonder) Entertainment.

In 2008, he received the National Medal of Arts, the highest honor given to artists by the U.S. government.

Mr. Lee, who has had cameos in many Marvel-based films, was known for an economy of humility. As a teenage boss at Marvel, he would sit on a file cabinet and yell, “I am God!” at his artists sitting below. In his memoir, he said, “If I may be totally candid, I'm my biggest fan.”</s>Stan Lee, the colorful Marvel Comics patriarch who helped usher in a new era of superhero storytelling -- and saw his creations become a giant influence in the movie business -- has died.

Kirk Schneck, an attorney for Lee's daughter, tells CNN the comic giant was taken by ambulance from his Los Angeles home on Monday morning to Cedar's Sinai Medical Center, where he later died. The cause of death is not yet known, according to Schneck.

Lee began his career at what was then Timely Comics in 1939. Over the years he was a writer, editor and occasional illustrator. But, bored with the output, he was preparing to leave the company when history took a sudden turn.

For many years, the business had been dominated by DC (then National) Comics, creators of Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman and the Green Lantern.

In the late '50s, DC started reimagining its heroes -- kicking off what comics historians call the "Silver Age" of the business -- but those figures were still, largely, otherworldly and two-dimensional, living in made-up places such as Metropolis and Gotham City.

In the early '60s, Lee was asked to come up with a team of superheroes to compete against DC's Justice League. With the notable help of artists such as Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko, he helped instigate a revolution, though Lee didn't see it that way at the time.

"If my publisher hadn't said 'let's do superhero stories,' I'd probably still be doing 'A Kid Called Outlaw,' 'The Two-Gun Kid' or 'Millie the Model' or whatever I was doing at the time," he told CNN in 2013.

Marvel revitalized the comics business with a series of flawed, more human superheroes. Its figures lived in the real world -- a few were based in New York City, with all its dirt and clamor -- and struggled with everyday challenges, whether it was paying the rent or wondering about their purposes in life.

First came the Fantastic Four, a superhero team probably most famous for the grumpy, rock-skinned Thing. Following that success Lee and Marvel introduced such characters as Spider-Man, the Hulk, Iron Man, Thor, the X-Men and Daredevil.

These new superheroes -- all created in a burst between 1961 and 1964 -- were hugely popular and allowed Marvel to surpass DC in both sales and fashionableness.

Spider-Man, in particular, became the imprint's signature character: a neurotic photographer named Peter Parker who, after being bitten by a radioactive spider, develops spider-like powers. Parker was forever clashing with newspaper editor J. Jonah Jameson (an angry, cigar-chomping martinet who was no Perry White), wondering about his relationship with Mary Jane Watson and worrying about his fragile Aunt May. Crime fighting was the least of his concerns.

"I never thought that Spider-Man would become the worldwide icon that he is. I just hoped the books would sell and I'd keep my job," Lee said in 2006.

Many of the characters were developed for television with varying degrees of success. But it was the emergence of the "Marvel Universe" in the movies, especially with the "X-Men" franchise and the Sam Raimi-directed "Spider-Man" (2002), that truly made the brand ubiquitous. In 2009, the Walt Disney Company purchased Marvel Entertainment -- the licensing arm of the comic-book brand -- for $4 billion.

By that point, Lee had long since become more of a company figurehead rather than a writer and editor in the day-to-day trenches. He became the company's editorial director and publisher in 1972 and eventually immersed himself in spreading the Marvel gospel (often with the exclamation, "Excelsior!") He's had bit parts in most of the films featuring the company's characters.

He was occasionally criticized for egotistically cheerleading for himself as much as Marvel. "Stan the Brand," the authors of "Stan Lee and the Rise and Fall of the American Comic Book" called him, pointedly.

It wasn't all joy for Lee. Though the success of the movies made the characters worth billions, Lee maintained that he saw little of that wealth. Even so, he saw more than artist Kirby, who many comics historians credit with molding a number of characters. Over the years, the credit for the characters -- and, therefore, the profits -- has been the subject of court cases, some involving Kirby or his family.

The characters' impact, however, is indisputable.

Marvel characters are known the world over, and its films have become huge successes.

"I used to be embarrassed because I was just a comic-book writer while other people were building bridges or going on to medical careers," he told the Washington Post. "And then I began to realize: entertainment is one of the most important things in people's lives. Without it they might go off the deep end. I feel that if you're able to entertain people, you're doing a good thing."

He retained a lifelong passion for the medium he helped mold, and wouldn't tolerate disdain.

"Comic book should be written as one word. So from now on, I want you to remember that," he said in a 2012 YouTube video. "They are not funny books. They are not comic books, they are comicbooks! Remember that, or incur my wrath."

Tragedy struck Lee last year when he lost Joan, his wife of 69 years, who died at the age of 95.

The couple had a true partnership and Marvel fans came to know Joan Lee for her voice-over work as Miss Forbes and Madame Web in the animated versions of "Fantastic Four" and "Spider-Man." She also had a cameo in "X-Men: Apocalypse" in 2016.

Lee filed a suit against his former company, Pow! Entertainment in May, alleging it conspired with two employees to steal his identity.

The company announced in July that the suit had been dismissed by Lee.

"The whole thing has been confusing to everyone, including myself and the fans, but I am now happy to be surrounded by those who want the best for me," Lee said in a statement. "I am thrilled to put the lawsuit behind me, get back to business with my friends and colleagues at POW! and launch the next wave of amazing characters and stories!"
Marvel Comics editor and comic book writer Stan Lee dies at the age of 95.