Celebrities offer their thanks, remembrances and condolences after Stan Lee diesIn his later years, Stan Lee became as famous for his movie cameos as he was for his pioneering work in comic books
Tributes have poured in for Marvel legend Stan Lee, the creative dynamo who revolutionised the comic book and helped make billions for Hollywood with superheroes such as Spider-Man and the Incredible Hulk.
Lee died Monday in Los Angeles after suffering a number of illnesses in recent years. He was 95.
“With a heavy heart, we share our deepest condolences with his daughter and brother,” said Marvel Comics and its owner The Walt Disney Company.
“We honour 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.
“I owe it all to you… Rest In Peace Stan,” Robert Downey Jnr, the actor who played Iron Man, posted on Instagram.
Captain America actor Chris Evans mourned the loss on Twitter: “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 many lives. Excelsior!!”
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 realise: 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 the second world war 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 recognisable 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.
This year, he filed a US$1 billion lawsuit against his former company POW! Entertainment for damages over what he called a “sham deal” with a Chinese company. Two months later he dropped the lawsuit and called it “confusing to everyone”.
Lee’s wife of nearly 70 years, Joan, died in 2017.
Agence France-Presse, Reuters, The Guardian
