Stan Lee (Stanley Martin Lieber) passed away this morning at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, His Daughter told TMZ. Lee had a hospital stay earlier this year and had been in declining health recently. He was 95.
He adopted his famous pseudonym while employed as a proofreader and text filler at Timely Comics, the pulp publisher that later became Marvel.
“I felt someday I’d be writing the Great American Novel and I didn’t want to use my real name on these silly little comics,”
He later legally adopted his pen name.
Lee’s passing marks the end of the era of the original creators of the modern Marvel universe. Along with Jack Kirby (who died in 1994) and Steve Ditko (who died earlier this year)
Lee was also the face of Marvel, establishing a brand closely associated with him and with the qualities he represented: good humor, endless promotion of Marvel, a drive to transcend the genre with stories that tapped into universal human concerns, and a progressive outlook on social issues, especially those involving race.
Lee never maintained ownership rights to the characters. So when Marvel Entertainment was sold to Disney for $4.2 billion in 2009, the man is once known as “Mr. Marvel” didn’t see a penny of profit. “I was always a Marvel employee, a writer for hire, and, later, part of the management,” he told Playboy in 2014. “Marvel always owned the rights to these characters. If I owned them, I probably wouldn’t be talking to you right now.”
His public appearance was in a video he made in March,
“I want you all to know I’m thinking of you,” he said. “I want you to know that I still love you all. And I think that Marvel and Spidey and I had the best group of fans that any group in the world ever had, and I sure appreciate it.”
We all loved you too Mr. Lee, Excelsior! Mr. Lee.. Excelsior!
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