Stan Lee, widely known as the godfather of all Marvel characters, has died at the age of 95. His representative confirmed that he died at Los Angeles.
Born Stanley Martin Lieber on 28th December 1922, he found himself at the position of editor in chief of Timely Comics at the young age of 19. Timely Comics was renamed as Marvel Comics in the early 1960s and the rest, as they say it, is history. Stan Lee spent more than half of his life creating characters that would become the juggernauts of inspiration today, such as Spider Man, The Fantastic Four, The Incredible Hulk and many more.
He revolutionized how storytelling was done in comics and create a wave of innovation and relatability through his copy and superior scriptwriting. Back then, DC Comics was known for its heroes that had no dents and flaws, positioning these larger than life characters as the hallmark of justice and valor.
However, Marvel took the road less travelled and through Stan’s scripts, weaved social issues and complex emotional character development that was highly relatable to its readers at the point of time.
Another innovation Stan brought to the comic book world was the fact that one titular character could appear in another character’s comic book through carefully planned scripting and dialogues. You would have Spider Man appear to help The Incredible Hulk and so on and so forth, which was unheard of during that era. This quickly evolved to become what is known today as crossovers.
After the success of the X-Men movie in 2000 directed by Bryan singer, Marvel movies became a permanent summer blockbuster fixture every year moving forward. These movies combined have made more than 18 billion USD worldwide despite Marvel’s first venture into the silver screen was quickly met with lackluster response that resulted in certain productions not being released or being released straight to video.
Stan Lee has been in most of these blockbuster movies, often incorporated as a very entertaining character cameo. His upcoming cameo in the Avengers 4 movie has been confirmed and it is said that most of the movies in 2019 will have him make cameos as these scenes were filmed way earlier before his untimely departure.
The Magic Rain mourns the loss of a visionary that helped shape what we consume and love today: Pop culture.
Thank you and farewell, Stan “The Man” Lee.
Excelsior!
