Today, we lost a comic book legend Stan Lee who died at the age of 95. He has been ill for some time and it wasn't surprising that he passed away. Still, his death left a huge dent in the comic book industry. I would even say that he is the essence in Marvel Comics and other comic companies as well. Stanley Martin Lieber was born in New York City on December 28, 1922, to Romanian-Jewish parents, Jack and Celia Lieber. As a young man, his voracious reading of Shakespeare, Mark Twain, and pulp magazines among others, inspired Stan Lee to become a writer which eventually led to his rise in Timely Comics, which eventually became Marvel Comics we know and loved (NYTimes). He even served in the United States Army in 1942, serving in the Signal Corps and eventually moving to the Training Film Division where he developed his writing skills. Stan Lee along with artist Jack Kirby and writer Joe Simon created the first and famous comic character, Captain America. Unlike other superheroes of the day, Captain America was a flawed yet moral character which perhaps helped increased his popularity with the readers. Even Marvel characters such as Spiderman and Wolverine, for example, have vast superpowers yet they are still relatable to the audience as they sometimes question their place in the world.
Even villains such as Magneto and the Mad Titan, Thanos are not as clearcut as villains were supposed to be. As evil as they are, they believed in their cause as in the case of Magneto, where mutants were mistreated by society and as a result, he believed granting mutants dominance over the human population after such treatment. Thanos, with his crazy love for Lady Death, believed that wiping out half the universe will restore balance to life which is understandable, too many people and not enough resources (sounds familiar) but wiping half the universe? Nah. I would definitely say that Stan Lee was ahead of his time in this regard. Speaking of ahead of his time, Lee also introduced characters of color notably Storm and the Black Panther in order to reach black readers and even tackled racism and discrimination in his comics along with Kirby and Simon, among other writers. Under his leadership, Marvel became famous worldwide, creating a wide range of superheroes and villains and movies such as Iron Man, Thor, The Avengers series and even Black Panther were an international success, garnering billions of dollars worldwide. He even made cameos in various movies and with Avengers 4 coming up, I wonder how it's going to be without him. Mr. Lee, you will be missed. With your prolific writing and your comic book genius, there is none other like you and thank you for making such wonderful characters that we can relate to. May you rest in peace.
P.S These are not my photos.
https://madamenoire.com/1047582/5-black-female-comic-characters-that-wouldnt-exist-without-stan-lee/
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