Stan Lee

American comic Book Writer

Early life
Stanley Martin Lieber was born on December 28, 1922, in Manhattan, New York City in the
apartment of his Romanian-born Jewish immigrant parents, Celia and Jack Lieber, at the corner
of West 98th Street and West End Avenue in Manhattan. Though raised in a Jewish household,
in a 2002 interview, he stated when asked if he believes in God, "Well, let me put it this way...
No, I'm not going to try to be clever. I really don't know. I just don't know." His father, trained as
a dress cutter, worked only sporadically after the meeting Great Depression, and the family
moved further uptown to Fort Washington Avenue, in Washington Heights, Manhattan. Lee had
one younger brother named Larry Lieber. He said in 2006 that as a child he was influenced by
books and movies, particularly those with Errol Flynn playing heroic roles. By the time Lee was
in his teens, the family was living in an apartment at 1720 University Avenue in The Bronx. Lee
described it as "a third-floor apartment facing out back". Lee and his brother shared the bedroom,
while their parents slept on a foldout couch.
Lee attended DeWitt Clinton High School in the Bronx. In his youth, Lee enjoyed writing and
entertained dreams of writing the "Great American Novel" one day. He said that in his youth he
worked such part-time jobs as writing obituaries for a news service and press releases for the
National Tuberculosis Center delivering sandwiches for the Jack May pharmacy to offices
in Rockefeller Center; working as an office boy for a trouser manufacturer; ushering at the Rivoli
Theater on Broadway and selling subscriptions to the Tribune newspaper. At fifteen, Lee entered
a high school essay competition sponsored by the New York Herald Tribune, called "The
Biggest News of the Week Contest.Lee claimed to have won the prize for three straight weeks,
goading the newspaper to write him and ask him to let someone else win. The paper suggested he
look into writing professionally, which Lee claimed "probably changed my life. He graduated
from high school early, aged sixteen and a half, in 1939 and joined the WPA Federal Theatre
Project.

Marriage and residences

From 1945 to 1947, Lee lived in the rented top floor of a brownstone in the East 90s in
Manhattan. He married Joan Clayton Boocock, originally from Newcastle, England, on
December 5, 1947, and in 1949, the couple bought a house in Woodmere, New York, on Long
Island, living there through 1952. Their daughter Joan Celia "J. C." Lee was born in 1950.
Another daughter, Jan Lee, died three days after delivery in 1953.
The Lees resided in the Long Island town of Hewlett Harbor, New York, from 1952 to
1980. They also owned a condominium on East 63rd Street in Manhattan from 1975 to 1980, and
during the 1970s owned a vacation home in Remsenburg, New York. For their move to the West
Coast in 1981, they bought a home in West Hollywood, California, previously owned by
comedian Jack Benny's radio announcer Don Wilson.
Philanthropy
The Stan Lee Foundation was founded in 2010 to focus on literacy, education, and the arts. Its
stated goals include supporting programs and ideas that improve access to literacy resources, as
well as promoting diversity, national literacy, culture and the arts.
Lee donated portions of his personal effects to the University of Wyoming at various times,
between 1981 and 2001.

Later years and death

In September 2012, Lee underwent an operation to insert a pacemaker, which required cancelling
planned appearances at conventions. Lee eventually retired from convention appearances by
2017.
On July 6, 2017, his wife of 69 years, Joan, died of complications from a stroke. She was 95
years old.
In April 2018, The Hollywood Reporter published a report that claimed Lee was a victim
of elder abuse; the report asserted that among others, Keya Morgan, business manager of Lee
and a memorabilia collector, had been isolating Lee from his trusted friends and associates
following his wife's death, to obtain access to Lee's wealth, estimated to amount to US$50
million. In August 2018, Morgan was issued a restraining order to stay away from Lee, his
daughter, or his associates for three years. The Los Angeles Superior Court charged Morgan in
May 2019 with five counts of abuse for events in mid-2018. The charges are false imprisonment,
grand theft of an elder or dependent adult, fraud, forgery, and a charge of elder abuse. Lee died
on November 12, 2018, six weeks before his 96th birthday at Cedars-Sinai Medical
Center in Los Angeles, California, after being rushed there in a medical emergency earlier in the
day. Earlier that year, Lee revealed to the public that he had been battling pneumonia and in
February was rushed to the hospital for worsening conditions at around the same time. The
immediate cause of death listed on his death certificate was cardiac arrest with respiratory
failure and congestive heart failure as underlying causes. It also indicated that he suffered from
"aspiration pneumonia." His body was cremated and his ashes were given to his daughter. Roy
Thomas, who succeeded Lee as editor-in-chief at Marvel, had visited Lee two days prior to his
death to discuss the upcoming book The Stan Lee Story, and stated "I think he was ready to go.
But he was still talking about doing more cameos. As long as he had the energy for it and didn't
have to travel, Stan was always up to do some more cameos. He got a kick out of those more
than anything else."

Publishing career
Early career
With the help of his uncle Robbie Solomon,  Lee became an assistant in 1939 at the new Timely
Comics division of pulp magazine and comic-book publisher Martin Goodman's company.
Timely, by the 1960s, would evolve into Marvel Comics. Lee, whose cousin Jean was
Goodman's wife, was formally hired by Timely editor Joe Simon. His duties were prosaic at first.
"In those days the artists dipped the pen in ink, so I had to make sure the inkwells were filled",
Lee recalled in 2009. "I went down and got them their lunch, I did proofreading, and I erased the
pencils from the finished pages for them". Marshaling his childhood ambition to be a writer,
young Stanley Lieber made his comic-book debut with the text filler "Captain America Foils the
Traitor's Revenge" in Captain America Comics #3 (cover-dated May 1941), using the
pseudonym Stan Lee (a play on his first name, ”Stanley”), which years later he would adopt as
his legal name. Lee later explained in his autobiography and numerous other sources that
because of the low social status of comic books, he was so embarrassed that he used a pen name
so that nobody would associate his real name with comics when he some day wrote the Great
American Novel. This initial story also introduced Captain America's trademark ricocheting
shield-toss.
He graduated from writing filler to actual comics with a backup feature, "'Headline' Hunter,
Foreign Correspondent", two issues later. Lee's first superhero co-creation was the Destroyer,
in Mystic Comics #6 (August 1941). Other characters he co-created during this period fans and
historians call the Golden Age of Comic Books include Jack Frost, debuting in U.S.A.
Comics #1 (August 1941), and Father Time, debuting in Captain America Comics #6 (August
1941).
When Simon and his creative partner Jack Kirby left late in 1941, following a dispute with
Goodman, the 30-year-old publisher installed Lee, just under 19 years old, as interim editor. The
youngster showed a knack for the business that led him to remain as the comic-book division's
editor-in-chief, as well as art director for much of that time, until 1972, when he would succeed
Goodman as publisher.
Lee entered the United States Army in early 1942 and served within the US as a member of
the Signal Corps, repairing telegraph poles and other communications equipment. He was later
transferred to the Training Film Division, where he worked writing manuals, training films,
slogans, and occasionally cartooning. His military classification, he said, was "playwright"; he
added that only nine men in the U.S. Army were given that title. In the Army, Lee's division
included many famous or soon-to-be famous people, including three-time Academy Award-
winning director Frank Capra, Yorker cartoonist Charles Addams, and children's book writer
and illustrator Theodor Geisel, later known to the world as "Dr. Seuss." Vincent Fago, editor of
Timely's "animation comics" section, which put out humor and funny animal comics, filled in
until Lee returned from his World War II military service in 1945. Lee was inducted into the
Signal Corps Regimental Association and was given honorary membership of the 2nd Battalion
of 3rd U.S. Infantry Regiment out of Joint Base Lewis-McChord at the 2017 Emerald City
Comic Con for his prior service.
While in the Army, Lee received letters every week on Friday from the editors at timely,
detailing what they needed written and by when. Lee would write, and then send the story back
on Monday. One week, the mail clerk overlooked his letter, explaining nothing was in Lee's
mailbox. The next day, however, Lee went by the closed mailroom and saw an envelope with the
return address of Timely Comics in his mailbox. Not willing to miss a deadline, Lee asked the
officer in charge to open the mailroom, but he refused. So Lee took a screwdriver and unscrewed
the mailbox hinges, enabling him to get at the assignment. The mailroom officer saw what he did
and turned him into the base captain, who did not like Lee. He faced tampering charges and
could have been sent to Leavenworth Prison. Luckily, the colonel in charge of the Finance
Department intervened and saved Lee from disciplinary action.
In the mid-1950s, by which time the company was now generally known as Atlas Comics, Lee
wrote stories in a variety of genres including romance, Westerns, humor, science fiction,
medieval adventure, horror and suspense. In the 1950s, Lee teamed up with his comic book
colleague Dan DeCarlo to produce the syndicated newspaper strip My Friend Irma, based on the
radio comedy starring Marie Wilson. By the end of the decade, Lee had become dissatisfied with
his career and considered quitting the field.
Marvel Comics
Marvel revolution
In the late 1950s, DC Comics editor Julius Schwartz revived the superhero archetype and
experienced a significant success with its updated version of the Flash, and later with super-team
the Justice League of America. In response, publisher Martin Goodman assigned Lee to come up
with a new superhero team. Lee's wife suggested that he experiment with stories he preferred,
since he was planning on changing careers and had nothing to lose.
Lee acted on that advice, giving his superheroes a flawed humanity, a change from the ideal
archetypes that were typically written for preteens. Before this, most superheroes were
idealistically perfect people with no serious, lasting problems. Lee introduced
complex, naturalistic characters who could have bad tempers, fits of melancholy, and vanity;
they bickered amongst themselves, worried about paying their bills and impressing girlfriends,
got bored or were even sometimes physically ill.
The first superheroes Lee and artist Jack Kirby created together were the Fantastic Four, based
on a previous Kirby superhero team, Challengers of the Unknown, published by DC Comics. The
team's immediate popularity led Lee and Marvel's illustrators to produce a cavalcade of new
titles. Again working with Kirby, Lee co-created the Hulk, Thor, Iron Man, and the X-
Men; with Bill Everett, Daredevil; and with Steve Ditko, Doctor Strange and Marvel's most
successful character, Spider-Man, all of whom lived in a thoroughly shared universe. Lee and
Kirby gathered several of their newly created characters together into the team title The
Avengers and would revive characters from the 1940s such as the Sub-Mariner and Captain
America. Years later, Kirby and Lee would contest who deserved credit for creating The
Fantastic Four.
Lee's revolution extended beyond the characters and storylines to the way in which comic books
engaged the readership and built a sense of community between fans and creators. He introduced
the practice of regularly including a credit panel on the splash page of each story, naming not
just the writer and penciller but also the inker and letterer. Regular news about Marvel staff
members and upcoming storylines was presented on the Bullpen Bulletins page, which (like the
letter columns that appeared in each title) was written in a friendly, chatty style. Lee remarked
that his goal was for fans to think of the comics creators as friends, and considered it a mark of
his success on this front that, at a time when letters to other comics publishers were typically
addressed "Dear Editor", letters to Marvel addressed the creators by first name (e.g., "Dear Stan
and Jack"). Lee recorded messages to the newly formed Merry Marvel Marching Society fan
club in 1965. By 1967, the brand was well-enough ensconced in popular culture that a March
3 WBAI radio program with Lee and Kirby as guests was titled "Will Success Spoil Spiderman"
Throughout the 1960s, Lee scripted art-directed and edited most of Marvel's series, moderated
the letters pages, wrote a monthly column called "Stan's Soapbox", and wrote endless
promotional copy, often signing off with his trademark motto, "Excelsior!" (Which is also
the New York state motto). To maintain his workload and meet deadlines, he used a system that
was used previously by various comic-book studios, but due to Lee's success with it, became
known as the "Marvel Method". Typically, Lee would brainstorm a story with the artist and then
prepare a brief synopsis rather than a full script. Based on the synopsis, the artist would fill the
allotted number of pages by determining and drawing the panel-to-panel storytelling. After the
artist turned in penciled pages, Lee would write the word balloons and captions, and then
oversee the lettering and coloring. In effect, the artists were co-plotters, whose collaborative first
drafts Lee built upon.
Following Ditko's departure from Marvel in 1966, John Romita Sr. became Lee's collaborator
on The Amazing Spider-Man. Within a year, it overtook Fantastic Four to become the company's
top seller. Lee and Romita's stories focused as much on the social and college lives of the
characters as they did on Spider-Man's adventures. The stories became more topical, addressing
issues such as the Vietnam War, political elections, and student activism. Robbie Robertson,
introduced in The Amazing Spider-Man #51 (August 1967) was one of the first African-
American characters in comics to play a serious supporting role. In the Fantastic Four series, the
lengthy run by Lee and Kirby produced many acclaimed storylines as well as characters that
have become central to Marvel, including the Inhumans and the Black Panther, an African king
who would be mainstream comics' first black superhero.
The story frequently cited as Lee and Kirby's finest achievement is the three-part "Galactus
Trilogy" that began in Fantastic Four #48 (March 1966), chronicling the arrival of Galactus, a
cosmic giant who wanted to devour the planet, and his herald, the Silver Surfer. Fantastic
Four #48 was chosen as #24 in the 100 Greatest Marvels of All Time poll of Marvel's readers in
2001. Editor Robert Greenbergerwrote in his introduction to the story that "As the fourth year of
the Fantastic Four came to a close, Stan Lee and Jack Kirby seemed to be only warming up. In
retrospect, it was perhaps the most fertile period of any monthly title during the Marvel Age."
Comics historian Les Daniels noted that "the mystical and metaphysical elements that took over
the saga were perfectly suited to the tastes of young readers in the 1960s", and Lee soon
discovered that the story was a favorite on college campuses. Lee and artist John
Buscema launched The Silver Surferseries in August 1968.
The following year, Lee and Gene Colan created the Falcon, comics' first African-American
superhero in Captain America #117 (September 1969). In 1971, Lee indirectly helped reform
the Comics Code. The U. S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare had asked Lee to
write a comic-book story about the dangers of drugs and Lee conceived a three-issue subplot
in The Amazing Spider-Man #96–98 (cover-dated May–July 1971), in which Peter Parker's best
friend becomes addicted to prescription drugs. The Comics Code Authority refused to grant its
seal because the stories depicted drug use; the anti-drug context was considered irrelevant. With
Goodman's cooperation and confident that the original government request would give him
credibility, Lee had the story published without the seal. The comics sold well and Marvel won
praise for its socially conscious efforts. The CCA subsequently loosened the Code to permit
negative depictions of drugs, among other new freedoms.
Lee also supported using comic books to provide some measure of social commentary about the
real world, often dealing with racism and bigotry. "Stan's Soapbox", besides promoting an
upcoming comic book project, also addressed issues of discrimination, intolerance, or prejudice.
In 1972, Lee stopped writing monthly comic books to assume the role of publisher. His final
issue of The Amazing Spider-Man was #110 (July 1972) and his last Fantastic Four was #125
(August 1972).
Lee became a figurehead and public face for Marvel Comics. He made appearances at comic
book conventions around America, lecturing at colleges and participating in panel discussions.
Lee and John Romita Sr. launched the Spider-Man newspaper comic strip on January 3,
1977. Lee's final collaboration with Jack Kirby, The Silver Surfer: The Ultimate Cosmic
Experience, was published in 1978 as part of the Marvel Fireside Books series and is considered
to be Marvel's first graphic novel. Lee and John Buscema produced the first issue of The
Savage She-Hulk (February 1980), which introduced the female cousin of the Hulk, and crafted a
Silver Surfer story for Epic Illustrated #1 (Spring 1980).
He moved to California in 1981 to develop Marvel's TV and movie properties. He was an
executive producer for, and made cameo appearances in Marvel film adaptations and other
movies. He occasionally returned to comic book writing with various Silver Surfer projects
including a 1982 one-shot drawn by John Byrne, the Judgment Day graphic novel illustrated by
John Buscema, the Parable limited series drawn by French artist Mœbius, and The
Enslavers graphic novel with Keith Pollard. Lee was briefly president of the entire company, but
soon stepped down to become publisher instead, finding that being president was too much about
numbers and finance and not enough about the creative process he enjoyed.
Beyond Marvel
Lee stepped away from regular duties at Marvel in the 1990s, though he continued to receive an
annual salary of $1 million as Chairman Emeritus. In 1998 he and Peter Paul began a new
Internet-based superhero creation, production, and marketing studio, Stan Lee Media.It grew to
165 people and went public through a reverse merger structured by investment banker Stan
Medley in 1999, but, near the end of 2000, investigators discovered illegal stock manipulation by
Paul and corporate officer Stephan Gordon. Stan Lee Media filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy
protection in February 2001. Paul was extradited to the U.S. from Brazil and pleaded guilty to
violating SEC Rule 10b-5 in connection with trading of his stock in Stan Lee Media. Lee was
never implicated in the scheme.
Following the success of Fox Studio's 2000 X-Men film and Sony's then-current Spider-
Man film, Lee sued Marvel in 2002, claiming that the company was failing to pay his share of
the profits from movies featuring the characters he had co-created. Because he had done so as an
employee, Lee did not own them, but in the 1990s, after decades of making little money
licensing them for television and film, Marvel had promised him 10% of any future profits. Lee
and the company settled in 2005 for an undisclosed seven-figure amount.
In 2001, Lee, Gill Champion, and Arthur Lieberman formed Entertainment to develop film,
television and video game properties. Lee created the risqué animated superhero
series Stripperella for Spike TV. That same year, DC Comics released its first work written by
Lee, the Just Imagine... series, in which Lee re-imagined the DC
superheroes Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, and the Flash.
In 2004, POW! Entertainment went public through a reverse merger again structured by
investment banker Stan Medley. Also that year, Lee announced a superhero program that would
feature former Beatle Ringo Starr as the lead character. Additionally, in August of that year, Lee
announced the launch of Stan Lee's Sunday Comics, a short-lived subscription service hosted
by Komikwerks.com. From July 2006 until September 2007 Lee hosted, co-created, executive-
produced, and judged the reality television game show competition Who Wants to Be a
Superhero? On the Sci-Fi Channel.
In March 2007, after Stan Lee Media had been purchased by Jim Nesfield, the company filed a
lawsuit against Marvel Entertainment for $5 billion, claiming Lee had given his rights to several
Marvel characters to Stan Lee Media in exchange for stock and a salary. In June 2007, Stan Lee
Media sued Lee; his newer company, POW! Entertainment; and POW! Subsidiary QED
Entertainment.
In 2008, Lee wrote humorous captions for the political fumetti book Stan Lee Presents Election
Daze: What Are They Really Saying? In April of that year, Brighton Partners and Rainmaker
Animation announced a partnership with POW! To produce a CGI film series, Legion of 5. Other
projects by Lee announced in the late 2000s included a line of superhero comics for Virgin
Comics, a TV adaptation of the novel Hero, a foreword to Sky scraper man by skyscraper fire-
safety advocate and Spider-Man fan Dan Goodwin, a partnership with Guardian Media
Entertainment and The Guardian Project to create NHL superhero mascots and work with the
Eagle Initiative program to find new talent in the comic book field.
In October 2011, Lee announced he would partner with 1821 Comics on a multimedia imprint
for children, Stan Lee's Kids Universe, a move he said addressed the lack of comic books
targeted for that demographic; and that he was collaborating with the company on its futuristic
graphic novel Romeo & Juliet: The War, by writer Max Work and artist Skan Srisuwan. At the
2012 San Diego Comic-Con International, Lee announced his YouTube channel, Stan Lee's
World of Heroes, which airs programs created by Lee, Mark Hamill, Peter David, Adrianne
Curry and Bonnie Burton, among others. Lee wrote the book Zodiac, released in January 2015,
with Stuart Moore. The film Stan Lee's Annihilator, based on a Chinese prisoner-turned-
superhero named Ming and in production since 2013, was released in 2015. In 2008 POW!
Entertainment debuted the manga series KarakuriDôji Ultimo, a collaboration between Lee
and Hiroyuki Takei, Viz Media and Shueisha, The following year POW! Released Heroman,
which was written by Lee, and serialized in Square Enix's Monthly ShōnenGangan with the
Japanese company Bones. In 2011, Lee started writing a live-action musical, The Yin and Yang
Battle of Tao.
The 2000s saw Lee's public persona penetrate the public consciousness through merchandising,
branding and appearances in Marvel's books in which he was featured as a character in
the Marvel Universe. In 2006, Marvel commemorated Lee's 65 years with the company by
publishing a series of one-shot comics starring Lee himself meeting and interacting with many of
his co-creations, including Spider-Man, Doctor Strange, the Thing, Silver Surfer, and Doctor
Doom. These comics also featured short pieces by such comics creators as Joss
Whedon and Fred Hembeck, as well as reprints of classic Lee-written adventures.At the
2007 Comic-Con International, Marvel Legends introduced a Stan Lee action figure. The body
beneath the figure's removable cloth wardrobe is a re-used mold of a previously released Spider-
Man action figure, with minor changes. Comikaze Expo, Los Angeles' largest comic book
convention, was rebranded as Stan Lee's Comikaze Presented by POW! Entertainment in 2012.
At the 2016 Comic-Con International, Lee introduced his digital graphic novel Stan Lee's God
Woke, with text originally written as a poem he presented at Carnegie Hall in 1972. The print-
book version won the 2017 Independent Publisher Book Awards' Outstanding Books of the Year
Independent Voice Award.