Stan Lee[2] (born Stanley Martin Lieber /ˈliːbər/; December 28, 1922 – November 12, 2018)[1] was an

American comic book writer, editor, and publisher. He was the editor-in-chief of Marvel Comics,[3] and
later its publisher[4] and chairman,[5] leading its expansion from a small division of a publishing house
to a large multimedia corporation.

In collaboration with several artists—particularly Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko—he co-created fictional
characters including Spider-Man, the Hulk, Doctor Strange, the Fantastic Four, Daredevil, Black Panther,
the X-Men, and—with his brother, co-writer Larry Lieber—the characters Ant-Man, Iron Man, and Thor.
In doing so, he pioneered a more complex approach to writing superheroes in the 1960s, and in the
1970s challenged the standards of the Comics Code Authority, indirectly leading to it updating its
policies.

Following his retirement from Marvel, he remained a public figurehead for the company, and frequently
made cameo appearances in movies based on Marvel characters. Meanwhile, he continued independent
creative ventures into his 90s until his death in 2018.

Lee was inducted into the comic book industry's Will Eisner Award Hall of Fame in 1994 and the Jack
Kirby Hall of Fame in 1995. He received a National Medal of Arts in 2008.

Contents

1 Early life

2 Career

2.1 Early career

2.2 Marvel revolution

2.3 Later career

3 Charity work

4 Fictional portrayals

5 Film and television appearances

6 Personal life

7 Death

8 Accolades

9 Bibliography
9.1 Books

9.2 Comics bibliography

9.2.1 DC Comics

9.2.2 Marvel Comics

9.2.3 Simon & Schuster

9.2.4 Other

10 See also

11 Notes

12 References

13 Further reading

14 External links

Early life

Stanley Martin Lieber was born on December 28, 1922, in Manhattan, New York City,[6] in the
apartment of his Romanian-born Jewish immigrant parents, Celia (née Solomon) and Jack Lieber, at the
corner of West 98th Street and West End Avenue in Manhattan.[7][8] His father, trained as a dress
cutter, worked only sporadically after the Great Depression,[7] and the family moved further uptown to
Fort Washington Avenue,[9] in Washington Heights, Manhattan. Lee had one younger brother named
Larry Lieber.[10] He said in 2006 that as a child he was influenced by books and movies, particularly
those with Errol Flynn playing heroic roles.[11] By the time Lee was in his teens, the family was living in
an apartment at 1720 University Avenue in The Bronx. Lee described it as "a third-floor apartment facing
out back". Lee and his brother shared the bedroom, while their parents slept on a foldout couch.[10]

Lee attended DeWitt Clinton High School in the Bronx.[12] In his youth, Lee enjoyed writing, and
entertained dreams of one day writing the "Great American Novel".[13] He said that in his youth he
worked such part-time jobs as writing obituaries for a news service and press releases for the National
Tuberculosis Center;[14] delivering sandwiches for the Jack May pharmacy to offices in Rockefeller
Center; working as an office boy for a trouser manufacturer; ushering at the Rivoli Theater on
Broadway;[15] and selling subscriptions to the New York Herald Tribune newspaper.[16] He graduated
from high school early, aged 16½ in 1939, and joined the WPA Federal Theatre Project.[17]

Career

Early career

With the help of his uncle Robbie Solomon,[18] Lee became an assistant in 1939 at the new Timely
Comics division of pulp magazine and comic-book publisher Martin Goodman's company. Timely, by the
1960s, would evolve into Marvel Comics. Lee, whose cousin Jean[19] was Goodman's wife, was formally
hired by Timely editor Joe Simon.[n 1]

His duties were prosaic at first. "In those days [the artists] dipped the pen in ink, [so] I had to make sure
the inkwells were filled", Lee recalled in 2009. "I went down and got them their lunch, I did
proofreading, I erased the pencils from the finished pages for them".[21] Marshaling his childhood
ambition to be a writer, young Stanley Lieber made his comic