Marvel Comics icon Stan Lee dies at 95
Stan Lee, the cultural icon responsible for many of Marvel’s most popular superheroes in comic books and movies, has died at 95, an attorney for the Lee family confirmed to USA TODAY.
Lee was declared dead Monday at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, according to Kirk Schenck, an attorney for Lee’s daughter, J.C. Lee.
Born Stanley Martin Lieber, the New York City native co-created Spider-Man, Hulk, the Avengers, the XMen, the Fantastic Four, Black Panther, Daredevil, Doctor Strange and a host of other heroes while working as a writer and then editor-in-chief of Marvel Comics in the 1960s.
From the 1970s, when he became publisher, until the ’90s, Lee was the face of Marvel and a frequent staple at comic and pop-culture conventions, entertaining fans and “true believers” with his stories and signature catchphrase “Excelsior!” He created his own POW! Entertainment in 2001 to develop film, TV and comic properties, but always stayed connected to his original superhero roots as geek culture rose in Hollywood.
Lee was a progressive force in his chosen medium. He tackled prejudice and intolerance in his “Stan’s Soapbox,” challenged the obsolete Comics Code Authority with a 1970s anti-drug story line in “The Amazing SpiderMan,” and introduced Black Panther, an African king and great scientist, the first major black superhero in comics.
“I wanted to go against type,” Lee said. “Even though he had a little thatched-hut village in Africa, that was only to fool people. Underneath that, he had this modern civilization. I always felt at Marvel we had to do things different. The reader had to be surprised and had to be meeting characters the likes of which he or she hadn’t met before.”