Today, fans of comics and superhero movies around the world mark the 101st birthday of the late Stan Lee – the man who created some of today's most recognizable superheroes, and is responsible for the entire rich Marvel universe, and quite a few of the familiar versions of superheroes from the DC universe. We asked Forefront to tell us about the Jew who left behind a legacy of heroes.
Lee was born Stanley Martin Lieber in New York City in 1922, and began his career in comics in 1939, taking a junior job for Timely Comics, the company that eventually evolved into Marvel. His breakthrough came after he got an opportunity to write the texts in Captain America comics, and in the following decades he went from being a supporting character to a main character in the superhero world, who instead of working on existing hero comics invented his own heroes.
Stan Lee at ComicCon 2010, Photo: Gage Skidmore / flickr
In the 60s, during the so-called Silver Age of comics, Lee reached a peak when he began collaborating with artists such as Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko, with whom he created iconic characters such as the Fantastic Four, Spider-Man, the Hulk, Iron Man, Thor, the X-Men, Black Panther and countless others, shaping the Marvel universe as we know it today.
What set Lee's characters apart was their flawed humanity. Unlike the typical heroes of rival DC (whose heroes were also illustrated in the early 2000s), Lee's Marvel heroes struggled with insecurities, relationship problems, financial problems, and more – they were superheroes that readers of all ages could identify with. Under Lee's guidance, Marvel stories also began addressing social issues, such as racism and discrimination, years before other media outlets.
Lee worked tirelessly to expand Marvel beyond comic books, turning the fictional universe into a powerhouse of movies, television, video games, and more. He also became famous for his countless brief appearances in Marvel films, a tradition from which right up until his death in 2018 and beyond (several of the films he appeared in were released between his death in November 2018 and 2021).
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