Stan Lee (Real)




 * You may be looking for the animated version of Stan Lee.

Stan Lee (born Stanley Martin Lieber; December 28, 1922) is a writer, editor, creator of comic book characters, and the former president and chairman of Marvel Comics.

He, along with several other artists such as Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko, created Spider-Man, Iron Man, X-Men, the Fantastic Four, Hulk, Daredevil, Doctor Strange, and many others.

Stanley was born in New York City, New York to Celia and Jack Lieber. Due to the Great Depression his father constantly changed jobs and moved to different neighborhoods. He loved to read and got part-time jobs like writing obituaries for a news service and press releases for the National Tuberculosis Center, 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, and selling subscriptions to the New York Herald Tribune newspaper.

Thanks to his uncle Robbie Solomon, Stanley would get a job at Timely Comics. Timely would eventually evolve into the current day Marvel Comics. Stanley's first work was Captain America, under the pseudonym Stan Lee. He felt he would save his given name for some more literary work, but would end up being famous by that name.

When Joe Simon and Jack Kirby left in 1941 due to creative differences with publisher Martin Goodman, Stan showed a knack for the business which would led him to remain as the comic-book division's editor-in-chief, as well as art director until 1972 when he would succeed Goodman as publisher.

During World War II Stan entered the U.S. Army in 1942 and served in the Signal Corps writing manuals, making training films, creating slogans, and occasionally cartooning.

Stan married Joan Clayton on December 5, 1947. The two had two daughters, Joan Celia "J.C." Lee in 1950 and Jan Lee, who unfortunately died three days after delivery in 1953.

In the 1950's rival Detective Comics (DC) saw a revival of superheroes with the Flash and Justice League of America. Martin Goodman assigned Stan Lee to create his own superhero team. Stan created heroes that had a flawed humanity, that would bicker between each other, drink, have anger issues, or trouble getting a girlfriend. A divergence from DC's indestructible Superman or billionaire Batman. Stan created the Incredible Hulk, Iron Man, the Mighty Thor and the X-Men with Jack Kirby; Daredevil with Bill Everett; and Doctor Strange and Marvel's most successful character Spider-Man with Steve Ditko.

Stan also supported using comic books to provide some measure of social commentary about the real world, often dealing with racism and bigotry. In one famous Spider-Man story line, the wallcrawler's best friend became addicted to drugs. The Comics Code Authority refused to let it by but it was published anyways without their approval, winning great praise. Besides promoting an upcoming comic book project, "Stan's Soapbox" also addressed issues of discrimination, intolerance, or prejudice. Stan took to using sophisticated vocabulary for the stories' dialogue to encourage readers to learn new words, justifying this by saying: "If a kid has to go to a dictionary, that's not the worst thing that could happen."

In the 1990's Stan became friends with former lawyer Peter Paul who helped Stan get a non-exclusive contract with Marvel enabling him to start a Internet-based superhero studio Stan Lee Media in 1998. However, investigators discovered that Paul and corporate officer Stephan Gordon had illegally manipulated the stock. Pual fled to São Paulo, Brazil but was extradited and pled guilty. Luckily, Stan was never implicated, though Stan Lee Media did file for bankruptcy in February 2001.

Stan eventually became the figurehead and public face for Marvel Comics. Stan was president of Marvel Comics but stepped down because he felt the position was more about numbers than it was about creative freedom. Recently, Stan has done cameo roles in the various Marvel projects, including voicing himself in Spider-Man.