There would be no multi-billion dollar Marvel movie empire without Stan Lee. The writer started out as an assistant at what would become Marvel Comics in 1939 at 16-years-old making $8 a week. He once considered quitting comics right before he created one of the most famous comic families in history - The Fantastic Four.
He cultivated a very recognizable and beloved personal brand across media when few knew how to do that. But Lee was not without controversy, battling with co-creators and the very company that he helped propel to the stratosphere.
He was also a Long Islander for over 30 years.
Below we present some crazy and historical facts about Stan Lee.
Personal Life and Long Island
- Stan Lee was born Stanley Martin Lieber in 1922 in Manhattan
- His parents were Romanian Jewish immigrants named Celia and Jack
- As a youth, Lee read Shakespeare as well as pulp magazines
- He once said that his favorite superhero as a kid was Robin Hood
- Lee served in the U.S. Army during World War II as a member of the Signal Corps
- He was eventually transferred to the Training Film Division
- The division included director Frank Capra, cartoonist Charles Addams (creator of the Addams Family), Theodor Geisel aka Dr. Seuss.
- Lee lived in New York City until he married and then moved to Long Island
- He and his wife, Joan Lee (née Boocock), moved to Woodmere in 1949
- The couple then moved to Hewlett Harbor in 1952
- The Lee family moved from Long Island in 1980 to Hollywood, California
- Lee moved to the West Coast to help promote Marvel Comics characters in movies and television shows
- Lee said of his Long Island home, “I lived in a place called Hewlett Harbor, on the South Shore. And we had our own little duck pond, and it was so nice and suburban, and kids used to come and feed the ducks, and it was lovely. We hated moving away.”
- The family also owned a home in Southampton in the 1970s
- Lee is quoted by The New York Times as saying about his East End home, “We wanted a summer home. My wife saw this place and fell in love. It was remote — we were the only house on the lane — and a stone’s throw from the beach. There was so little traffic that I bought mopeds. We felt as carefree as kids riding into town.”
- He worked at Marvel for 75 years
- The Lees had a daughter named Joan Celia "J. C." who was born in 1950
- Another daughter, Jan Lee, died only a few days after she was born in 1953
- Lee’s wife, Joan, died in 2017 at 93-years-old
- Lee continued working into his 90s and passed away on November 12, 2018 at the age of 95
Comic Career - Excelsior!
- He started at a comic book company called Timely Comics in 1939 at 16-years-old
- He was paid $8 a week for the job
- Timely Comics was based in New York City and owned by his cousin through marriage
- Timely Comics eventually became Marvel Comics in the 1960s
- Lee was a prolific writer who invented pseudonyms so that it looked like stories were written by a team of writers at the company
- One of them, Stan Lee, stuck
- Lee later said that he wanted to save his real name for an eventual career as a serious novelist
- Timely’s offices eventually moved into the Empire State Building
- In the early 1960s Lee contemplated leaving the comic book industry
- His wife encouraged him to write characters as he wanted them to be, imbued with real emotions, doubts and failing - this connected to the modern reader
- Lee and legendary comic artist Jack Kirby created The Fantastic Four as an answer to the success of DC Comics’ Justice League of America in 1961
- The Fantastic Four became a blockbuster hit for Marvel
- The success of the team’s comics inspired Lee to stay in comics
- Lee is credited with creating some of the most iconic superheroes of all time including Spider-Man, Thor, the X-Men and the Incredible Hulk
- Most of his iconic characters were created in the 1960s
- Lee and Jack Kirby created The Black Panther, the first mainstream comic superhero of African descent
- Lee also co-created, The Falcon, the very first African-American superhero in a mainstream comic
- Lee changed the way superheroes were written by introducing flawed, real characters behind the mask
- In his obituary, the New York Times wrote that “in humanizing his heroes, giving them character flaws and insecurities that belied their supernatural strengths, Mr. Lee tried ‘to make them real flesh-and-blood characters with personality,’ he told The Washington Post in 1992
- Lee and Kirby invented what would come to be called the “Marvel Method,” where the artist drew comics from a story outline and then the writer would add dialogue and action words - like Pow and Bam!
- Of his creations Lee told The Associated Press in a 2006 interview, “I think everybody loves things that are bigger than life. … I think of them as fairy tales for grown-ups.”
- Lee used the catchphrase “Excelsior” to sign off his letters and editorial essays in the comics Excelsior is a Latin word meaning “ever upward.” It is also the New York State motto
Controversies...
- Over the years, artists like Kirby and Steve Ditko challenge how much input Lee had in creating many of Marvel’s most famous characters in the Silver Age of comics
- These controversies let to lifelong rifts
- An outsized personality, Lee was a vociferous promoter of Marvel Comics and became synonymous with the brand and the superheroes
- The Marvel Comics business evolved from ten cent comic books to a multi-billion-dollar film franchise
- Lee had received almost no income from Marvel movies and TV series, according to The New York Times, “until he won a court fight with Marvel Enterprises in 2005, leading to an undisclosed settlement costing Marvel $10 million.”
- Sadly, there were allegations of elder abuse against associated of Stan Lee in the final years of his life
- This is said to have occurred after the death of his beloved wife Joan, who kept strict track of the Lee enterprises
- Lee made money by attending conventions to sign autographs, which is where some people believe he became the target of con-artists looking to take advantage of him
- Assistants are accused of stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars from Lee in his waning years
- The accusations also included his daughter
Accolades!
- Lee eventually became the editor-in-chief of Marvel Comics
- He then became its publisher and chairman
- Later he left the company and became chairman emeritus and a member of the editorial board
- Lee was known for making cameo appearances in many of the Marvel Cinematic Universe films
- The National Endowment for the Arts awarded Lee a National Medal of Arts in 2008
- Lee was inducted into the comic book industry's Will Eisner Award Hall of Fame in 1994
- He was also inducted into the Jack Kirby Hall of Fame in 1995
- Lee was nominated for an Emmy Award in 2017 for Outstanding Short Form Animated Program for Marvel's Rocket & Groot
- He was given an Executive Producer credit on many Marvel television shows and films
- After his death Elon Musk said that creations and contributions “will last forever”
- Game of Thrones author George R. R. Martin put him “right up there with Walt Disney as one of the great creators of characters — probably bigger”