Stan Lee is regarded as the greatest American comic book writer, editor and publisher of the twentieth century.
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Join MemoriesMary Carr Lee was born, and given the name Stanley Martin Lieber, in Manhattan, New York.
Mary Carr Lee entered — and, for three weeks in a row, won — the New York Herald Tribune's high school essay competition, called "The Biggest News of the Week Contest." The newspaper suggested he consider a career in writing.
Mary Carr Lee worked as an assistant at Martin Goodman's pulp publishing enterprize, Timely Comics, which would eventually become Marvel Comics. Here he made his comic-book debut with the text-filler piece, "Captain America Foils the Traitor's Revenge" in Captain America Comics #3 (cover-dated May 1941). He published under the pseudonym Stan Lee, which was a play on his first name, Stanley.
Mary Carr In issue 5 of Captain America, Lee wrote his first comic, the backup feature, "'Headline' Hunter, Foreign Correspondent".
Mary Carr Lee co-created his first superhero, the Destroyer, for Mystic Comics issue 6. He followed up by co-creating the characters of Jack Frost, who debuted in U.S.A. Comics #1, and Father Time, who debuted in Captain America Comics #6, all in August 1941.
Mary Carr When the editor of Timely Comics left, Lee was installed as interim editor, but ended up remaining the comic book division's Editor in Chief and art director until Goodman's retirement in 1972, when Lee became Publisher.
Mary Carr Lee entered the US Army in 1942 and stayed until 1945 and, after a stint in the Signal Corps, moved to the Training Film Division, where he wrote manuals, slogans, training films, and sometimes cartooning. He also received weekly assignments via mail from Timely Comics asking for content, and returned them promptly.
Mary Carr Lee married Joan Clayton Boocock, and the couple had two daughters together.
Mary Carr Timely Comics became Atlas Comics, and Lee continued writing across genres that included Westerns, romance, medieval adventure, horror and humor. He also produced newspaper comic strip My Friend Irma with Daniel DeCarlo, of Archie Comics fame.
Mary Carr In response to DC Comics' revival of the superhero archetype, Goodman asked Lee to create a new team of superheroes and, on his wife's advice, Lee gave his new creations human, rather than idealistic, natures, including flaws and foibles. His first team, The Fantastic Four, were so popular that , with artist Jack Kirby, he went on to co-create Thor, Hulk, X-Men and more.
Mary Carr Throughout the 1960s, Lee began a range of initiatives that developed a sense of community between the Marvel team and their readers. That included a regular credit panel on the splash page of each story, naming the team who produced it: the writer, penciller, inker and letterer. He introduced Bullpen Bulletins, presenting news about Marvel staff and upcoming storylines, and also a letters column where fans addressed the creators by their first names. In 1965, Lee also recorded messages for the Merry Marvel Marching Society fan club.
Mary Carr Spider-Man, who would go on to be Marvel's most popular character, made his debut in the anthology Amazing Fantasy #15.
Mary Carr The Avengers made their debut, bringing together Hulk, Thor, Iron Man, Ant-Man, and the Wasp.
Mary Carr With Gene Colan, Lee created the first of Marvel's African-American superheroes: the Falcon, who debuted in Captain America #117.
Mary Carr Lee stepped back from writing monthly comics to work as publisher and figurehead for Marvel. He published his final issue of The Amazing Spider-Man in July 1972, and his final issue of Fantastic Four in August that year. Throughout the 70s, Lee appeared at comic book conventions around the United States, giving lectures and contributing to panel discussions.
Mary Carr Lee's final work with Jack Kirby, The Silver Surfer: The Ultimate Cosmic Experience, was published among the Marvel Fireside Books series. This is now considered to be Marvel's first graphic novel.
Mary Carr With John Buscema, Lee published The Savage She-Hulk, introducing the Hulk's female cousin.
Mary Carr The Lees move to West Hollywood, California so that Stan can help evolve the Marvel TV and movie projects.
Mary Carr As Executive Producer for Marvel Films, Lee made cameo appearances in many of the studio's films over the decades, from 1989 right through the 2000s.
Mary Carr With Peter Paul, Lee began a new internet-based superhero production studio called Stan Lee Media, which was awarded the 2000 Web Award for the best Entertainment Portal on the World Wide Web. It produced works including the animated series, The 7th Portal .
Mary Carr In partnership with Gill Champion and Arthur Lieberman, Lee co-founded POW! Entertainment, which focused on film, TV and video game production.
Mary Carr DC comics released the Just Imagine... series, written by Lee, who reinvented DC superheroes Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, and the Flash.
Mary Carr Lee played host on the SciFi Channel's Who Wants to Be a Superhero? for more than a year.
Mary Carr POW! made a move into manga with the series Karakuri Dôji Ultimo, on which Lee worked with Hiroyuki Takei, Viz Media and Shueisha. It was soon gollowed by other manga-style epics, including Heroman and Blood Red Dragon.
Mary Carr Rainmaker Animation partners with POW! Entertainment to create CGI film series Legion of 5.
Mary Carr Lee announced a partnership with 1821 comics to create Stan Lee's Kids Universe, a multimedia comic imprint targeted at children.
Mary Carr At San Diego Comicon, Lee launched his YouTube channel, Stan Lee's World of Heroes (now at youtube.com/MarvelousTV).
Mary Carr Lee is awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award by the Visual Effects Society, and the Producers' Guild of America's Vanguard Award.
Mary Carr Lee launched digital graphic novel Stan Lee's God Woke at Comic-Con International. The text of the novel was written as a poem he presented at Carnegie Hall in 1972, and the print-book version of the publication earned the Independent Voice Award in the 2017 Independent Publisher Book Awards' Outstanding Books of the Year.
Mary Carr Lee died of heart failure in Los Angeles, California. He was 95 years old.
Mary Carr During the 91st Academy Awards, Marvel legend Stan Lee was honored during the ceremony's "In Memoriam" segment, which annually pays tribute to the members of the entertainment industry who passed away over the past year.