Using inexhaustible creativity and enormous talent, Stan Lee (1922-2018) became a recognized cultural symbol worldwide. During his time as the creative leader of Marvel Comics, he gave life to popular characters such as Spider-Man, Iron Man or the Hulk. The biography, career and net worth of Stan Lee are more than a review of the life of the genius comic writer. It is a tribute to a whole universe of superheroes that will live forever in our hearts. Excelsior!
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Born on December 28, 1922, Stanley Martin Lieber was the first child of Celia and Jack Lieber, a Romanian immigrant couple who shared a small apartment in Manhattan, New York. There, as he grew up, little Stan got part-time jobs – as a food deliveryman or an armchair cleaner – while he was in high school.
At age 15, Stan Lee entered a school competition sponsored by the New York Herald Tribune. The contest consisted of amateur writing some interesting news that happened during the week. After repeatedly winning for nearly a month, the newspaper wrote Lee a letter, asking him to let someone else win and suggest writing professionally. Inspired by this event, he joined the Federal Theater Project.
Stan Lee net worth
Stan Lee’s cameos became fun and recurring element of pop culture. For his contribution to comics in general, he even made cameos in Marvel characters’ movies that he did not believe, like Deadpool and Venom. Stan Lee’s net worth is around 52 million dollars. Some of the earliest Stan Lee characters, created in conjunction with other writers, were Destroyer, Jack Frost, and Father Time.
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Unique like the X-Men
Stan Lee became an assistant at the Timely Comics company, run by comic book creator Martin Goodman, in 1939. Later, he would be allowed to write filler dialogue until he created his characters in 1941.
Finally, Goodman put Stan Lee in the position of interim editor, at just 19 years old. The discipline with which the author worked led him to be head of the publisher’s division. While climbing positions at work, he met Joan Clayton Boocock, whom he married in 1947. Later, during the 1950s, Stan Lee wrote comics of different genres, such as romance, western, humor and suspense. However, Lee had lost the motivation to work in the industry.
During the decade, the success of DC Comics had revived some interest in comic book heroes, so Martin Goodman tasked Stan Lee with creating a new team of superheroes that would appeal to readers.
Still facing his loss of inspiration, the writer asked Joan, his wife, what to do about this new project. She advised him to experiment with stories and characters that were to his liking, and not based on what others expected of him. After all, since he was reconsidering his profession, he had nothing to lose.
Stan Lee and the real flesh and blood heroes
Following their instincts, Stan Lee and his partner, artist Jack Kirby, created the Fantastic Four, a group of heroes that are very well received by readers. This brought a wave of new superheroes, created by Lee in conjunction with Kirby and his other companions. The Hulk, Thor, Iron Man, the X-Men, Daredevil, and Doctor Strange resulted from months of working together.
Once the superhero revolution had started, the name of Timely Comics (which had previously been renamed Atlas Comics) became Marvel Comics, which brought the arrival of its most famous character: Spider-Man (AKA the Man Spider). This new popularity would revive some superheroes that already existed in the 1940s, such as Captain America.
Stan Lee’s superheroes represented a total departure from conventional heroes. Rather than perfect beings. They were complex people who could be moody, vanity, melancholy, discriminated against, or even fail to impress their romantic interest.
Our stories of heroism have room for everyone except for hatred, bigotry and discrimination. Next to you is your brother, the woman over your sister and that boy who is passing by. Who knows? Could have spider powers.
The touch of humanity that Stan Lee brought to his characters attracted teenage and adult audiences to read comics as they could relate to the characters’ problems. This revolution in superheroes continued throughout the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s, with Lee serving as a writer, editor, and art director at Marvel.
Admired as Spider-Man
During his work as a chief creative officer, Stan Lee sought to create a friendly relationship with readers. He intended that each one could identify the writers and cartoonists by their style. So, he signed his comics with his phrase « Excelsior! ».
The desire to connect with the public generated an excellent relationship between Stan Lee and the comics fans. It makes him a public figure of the company. After he retired from the company in 1990, Stan Lee continued to attend comic book conventions frequently.
In the 2000s, at the beginning of Marvel movies, Stan Lee began to appear in the tapes through cameos. It could be seen in the films X-Men, Spider-Man ( Spider-Man ) and Fantastic 4, and its aftermath. Later, he would receive credits as an executive producer on the Marvel Cinematic Universe films. It began with Iron Man: The Iron Man ( Iron Man ). Lee continued to make cameos in all of these feature films.
On November 12, 2018, just over a year after his wife Joan’s death, Stan Lee died at the age of 95 in Los Angeles, California. In 2019, he appeared in Captain Marvel and Avengers: Endgame ( Avengers: Endgame ), through a cameo that had already been recorded and a digital reconstruction.