Stan "The Man" Lee

Stan Lee was born in 1922 in New York City. He was born Stanley Lieber but changed the name later to Stan Lee. Lee's started his carrer in the comic industry at the age of 17 when he became assistant editor and copywriter for the Timely Comics group (later to become Marvel Comics). At the time Joe Simon and Jack Kirby were the group's editors, but when the pair moved in 1942, Lee was promoted to editor. He held that post as the company changed names from Timely to Atlas and finally to Marvel. In 1972 he was promoted to publisher and editorial director.

During the 1940s, most of Lee's writing was done for the Timely superhero group. His best work probably came on the Captain America and Young Allies strips, but he also wrote stories for superhero strips like The Withness, The Destroyer, Jack Forst, Whizzer and Black Marvel. In 1961 Stan Lee began to form the superheroes that we know Marvel Comics for. Together with artist Jack Kirby he formed the new line of superheroes. The Fantastic Four, Spider-Man, Dr. Strange, Thor, The Hulk, Sub-Mariner, Daredevil, Iron Man, X-Men and many others. Lee based all the comics on one bacis premise: that even though the character was a hero with some sort of superhuman ability, he had human failings, emotions, and foibles that the teenaged reader could identify with. Spider-Man for example, had girl problems, a doting grandmother, and not much of a personality. Johnny Storm, the Human Torch (Fantastic Four), was erratic and unreliable. All of Lee's creations had similar character defects.

Lee's new material catapulted the Marvel line to popculture status throughout the 1960s, and sales responded in a like manner. Lee was celebrated as the savior of the comic book, the great innovator, and his personal reputation kept pace with his character's popularity. He went on lecture tours to collage campuses, made broadcast media appearances, and even held a "Evening with Stan Lee" at Carnegie Hall in 1972.

Due to his successful comics the comic book fans bestowed Lee six consecutive "Alley" awards between 1963 and 1968. He was intrumental in the formation of the Academy of Comic Book Arts (ACBA), and a book publisher published his Origins of Marvel Comics in 1974.

In 1972 Stan Lee became Marvel's publisher and in 1978 he moved to California to supervise the operation of Marvel's film and television arm.

Aside form his writing of the Amazing Spider-Man newspaper strip (started in 1977) and an occasional comic book story, he has allmost totally abandoned creative activiteis. Furthermore record as a publisher has also come under fire of late because of his egomaniacal insistence on taking credit for every story Marvel ever published ("Stan Lee presents…") and his shabby treatment of Jack Kirby, Steve Ditko and others of his most talented collaborators have drawn strong criticism on him.

But the fact still remains. Stan Lee has done remarkable works in comic book industry. And was one of the leading men to create the modern image of superheroes and still almost forthy years since the creation many of his comic books still lives on and are among the bestselling comic books in the world.