Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

There is no right way to do the wrong thing.

Wow, you are pre-disappointed. How surprising.

Giving in to doom is how we fail to fight for ourselves & one another.

In after Baud. Damn.

When we show up, we win.

Perhaps you mistook them for somebody who gives a damn.

Republicans are the party of chaos and catastrophe.

Republicans do not pay their debts.

Too often we confuse noise with substance. too often we confuse setbacks with defeat.

I like political parties that aren’t owned by foreign adversaries.

When they say they are pro-life, they do not mean yours.

A thin legal pretext to veneer over their personal religious and political desires.

Books are my comfort food!

America is going up in flames. The NYTimes fawns over MAGA celebrities. No longer a real newspaper.

Republicans don’t want a speaker to lead them; they want a hostage.

The press swings at every pitch, we don’t have to.

JFC, are there no editors left at that goddamn rag?

The worst democrat is better than the best republican.

Optimism opens the door to great things.

Dear Washington Post, you are the darkness now.

Oppose, oppose, oppose. do not congratulate. this is not business as usual.

The arc of history bends toward the same old fuckery.

Fuck these fucking interesting times.

Within six months Twitter will be fully self-driving.

You are here: Home / Politics / America / Stan Lee Has Died at the Age of 95

Stan Lee Has Died at the Age of 95

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Here’s Marvel Entertainment’s statement:

NEW YORK, NY – NOVEMBER 12, 2018

Today, Marvel Comics and The Walt Disney Company pause and reflect with great sadness on the passing of Marvel Chairman Emeritus, Stan Lee. With a heavy heart, we share our deepest condolences with his daughter and brother, and we honor and remember the creator, voice and champion of Marvel.

“Stan Lee was as extraordinary as the characters he created. A super hero in his own right to Marvel fans around the world, Stan had the power to inspire, to entertain, and to connect. The scale of his imagination was only exceeded by the size of his heart,” said Bob Iger, Chairman and CEO, The Walt Disney Company.

Stanley Martin Lieber, a.k.a. Stan Lee, loved the written word from an early age, and wanted to craft stories like those in his favorite books and films, which he consumed voraciously. From a simple upbringing in the teeming landscape of Manhattan, young Stanley worked his way through a succession of jobs until the day he found himself an assistant at a comic book publishing company — Timely Comics.

In between refilling artists’ inkwells, erasing pencil lines from comic pages and fetching an untold number of lunches, Stanley expressed his desire to write and create tales of his own; in the May 1941 issue of CAPTAIN AMERICA COMICS #3, he got his wish. Readers would find a prose story in that issue, “Captain America Foils the Traitor’s Revenge,” sporting the byline of “Stan Lee.” A star was born.

As Stan’s roles and tenure with Timely Comics grew and evolved, so did the company itself. With Stan at its helm, Timely Comics morphed first into Atlas Comics and then into the name that would catapult it into legend and forever be synonymous with Stan Lee: Marvel Comics.

As Marvel’s Editor-in-Chief, Stan “The Man” Lee made his voice the voice of the stories themselves. Writing virtually every Marvel title and working with such luminaries as Jack Kirby, Steve Ditko, Don Heck, Gene Colan and John Romita, Stan began building a universe of interlocking continuity, one where fans felt as if they could turn a street corner and run into a Super Hero. A rich collection of characters grew out of his nonstop plotting sessions with his artists, including the Fantastic Four, Spider-Man, Thor, Iron Man, the Hulk, the X-Men, and more. Today, it would be almost impossible to find a corner of the Marvel Universe that Stan didn’t have a hand in.

Marvel fans found a friend in Stan Lee. He introduced the famous “Stan’s Soapbox” to speak directly to his readers, reaching a personal level rarely seen in comics of the day. Always pushing for new ways of creating comics, Stan also inaugurated the “Marvel method” of plotting and art, creating some of the most iconic stories in the industry to this day.

When something mattered to Stan, you felt it in his words, whether in an editorial or in the stories themselves. With passion for the medium, he helped refine and reform the Comics Code Authority and addressed hot-button issues like discrimination, drugs, and intolerance.

Stan stepped up from his position as Editor-in-Chief in 1972 to tackle the role of Publisher at Marvel Comics, and while a strong succession of writers followed in his wake, his spirit and voice remained throughout the adventures that followed. His outspoken love for comics even extended to a series of college campus talks; given any chance to educate and illuminate on the industry, he took it. An entire generation of young readers expanded and strengthened their vocabulary and knowledge through Stan’s stories.

Marvel and the entire The Walt Disney Company salute the life and career of Stan Lee and offer their undying gratitude for his unmatchable accomplishments within their halls. Every time you open a Marvel comic, Stan will be there.

Please join us today in remembering Stan “The Man” Lee.

From one of my two favorite comic book artists:

Lee, like many of the men, especially the Jewish men of his generation, served in the US military during World War II. Specifically, he started in the Signal Corps and was ultimately transferred into the Training Films Division.

Excelsior!

Open thread!

Reader Interactions

46Comments

  1. 1.

    PaulWartenberg

    THANOS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

    (I mostly read DC so I’m not a huge Stan Lee fan, but I understand that for all his flaws he was a tireless promoter of comics as an important medium, and superhero stories)

  7. 7.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Raven: It was, as far as I know. But it was a distinct unit. Prior to MOPIC he was stringing telegraph wire for the Army.

  10. 10.

    Adam L Silverman

    @clay: Stepjan Sejic. I’m a big fan of his too short run doing the new Justice League books. Largely because DC couldn’t get its act together. He has a very unique style, just like Ross does, but in a different way.

  12. 12.

    Mnemosyne

    IIRC, the new thing Stan Lee brought to comic books was a level of realism. Spider-Man didn’t live in Metropolis or Gotham — he lived in New York City, with all of the same contemporary problems of other New Yorkers. Peter Parker wasn’t born a millionaire and had trouble making his rent sometimes.

    For good or ill, that’s what Lee brought to comic books.

  13. 13.

    Pogonip

    I haven’t read a comic book in 50 years or so, but I know Stan Lee was among the best of the best.

  15. 15.

    Villago Delenda Est

    A giant. He, Jack Kirby, Steve Ditko, and other silver age folks created all the thrills the MCU is based on.

    No more cameos. Sucks.

    Rest well, Stan. You’ve earned it and then some after such a superb run.

  18. 18.

    Paul W.

    RIP Mr. Lee, thanks for sending so much joy into the universe and just not stopping all the way through the end of your wonderful and prolonged life!

  20. 20.

    ??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)  ??

    @Villago Delenda Est:
    You think they’ll try to continue the tradition by digitally adding him? I’m only half joking.

    In all seriousness, RIP Stan Lee. Thanks for creating Spiderman!

  21. 21.

    dmsilev

    @Adam L Silverman: Both of those finished the actual filming parts a while ago, so they should have cameos unless it’s decided to edit them out. I imagine the cameos will stay in, plus probably some sort of tribute to mark his passing.

  25. 25.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    I’ve been watching old Hell’s Kitchen episodes on Amazon Prime and there was one where Stan Lee was seated at a Chef’s Table right in the kitchen so he could see everything going on. He kept commenting and finally said, “I have to find a way to make this into a story.” I don’t know if he ever did, but it shows the way he thought.

  26. 26.

    Chacal Charles Calthrop

    @Mnemosyne: Agreed, and what he did made comics much more powerful as a result.
    what I principally remember is that because they were so under-the-radar comics didn’t have to worry about critics and that, together with the flexibility of the medium, meant they could tell any kind of story, unbounded by anything other than whatever made the story work (& pass the censorship laws)

    I remember being completely blown away by Jim Starlin’s Infinity Gauntlet back in the 90’s, and being blown away again by the appearance of Thanos at the end of the Avengers. I walked out of there thinking, They’re filming the Infinity Gauntlet! But the Infinity Gauntlet is unfilmable!
    And, unfortunately, when Avengers 3 came out, Thanos was just a bad father, not the embodiment of the death impulse who wants to sacrifice the universe to his beloved Mistress Death. Apparently Disney is pulling punches, something Stan Lee never did, even when writing under the censorship of the Comics Code.
    At least Stan Lee lived long enough to see his contributions acknowledged in his own lifetime.

  28. 28.

    Adam L Silverman

    @NotMax: I decided to leave the bad stuff out. There’ll be plenty of time for people to pick apart the good and the bad later.

  31. 31.

    Villago Delenda Est

    KNOW YE THESE, THE HALLOWED RANKS OF MARVELDOM

    RFO: Real Frantic One, buyer of at least three Marvel mags a month
    TTB: Titanic True Believer, a divinely inspired “no prize” winner.
    QNS: Quite ‘Nuff Sayer, a fortunate frantic one who’s had a letter printed.
    KOF: Keeper Of the Flame, one who recruits a newcomer to Marvel’s rollicking ranks.
    PMM: Permanent Marvelite Maximus, anyone possessing all four of the other titles
    FFF: Fearless Front Facer, an honorary title bestowed for devotion to Marvel above and beyond the call of duty.

  33. 33.

    Mike in DC

    I think the treatment of Jack Kirby is really the biggest black mark on his record. But the impact he had on the industry, and on pop culture, is immeasurable. RIP.

  35. 35.

    Jeffro

    Way to go, Stan, you had one hell of a run! Thanks primarily for DAREDEVIL, one of the coolest, most offbeat superheroes ever to grace Marveldom. Excelsior!

  37. 37.

    Ked

    I came to comics mostly in the 85-00 period, and while I understand intellectually the incredible contribution he is responsible for in his younger years, my memories are of a man who never spoke out against the crass commoditization of content, exploitation of readers, and general commercial authorial dreck. If anything, he always gave the appearance of reveling in it.

    There were so many good things happening in that period – the start of serious imports from Japan, the rise of independent and self-published comics, the beginnings of direct sale of comics first through distributor catalogs and then through the internet, and the very start of internet comics… and if Stan didn’t exactly oppose them, he was the standard bearer for business-as-usual, which meant producing comics strictly as a business team, ignoring all of this revolution in favor of the wretched output Marvel produced. Even DC was ahead of his game, with their Vertigo imprint which basically delivered Neil Gaiman to the world. (And I still can’t believe Preacher made it the full run without getting cancelled, much less to television.)

    Stan Lee, to me, was that self-promoter guy who was maybe cool before I was born, but mostly just got paid to stamp his name on anything the hopeless writing teams at Marvel got told to put in their comics and show up on video any time Marvel put together a movie… which really were not any good in that period either.

    So celebrate Stan Lee for creating the Marvel “Universe”, but don’t forget just how complicit in its long-term failings he was.

  38. 38.

    (((CassandraLeo)))

    Douglas Rain, a.k.a. the voice of HAL 9000, has also died today. I would contend that 2001 is more chilling than almost any modern horror film you care to name, because HAL 9000’s actions are completely within the realm of plausibility. Rain’s serene performance is the backbone of the entire film.

    Others have already covered Lee’s legacy admirably, so I won’t recap. R.I.P. to two giants.

  40. 40.

    JGabriel

    I’m not gonna say Rest in Peace, Stan. More than most, you’ve earned the right to do whatever the fuck you want in the afterlife.

    May the best of your stories continue to be read 1000, 2000, even 3000 years from now. You were the Homer of 20th C. America.

  41. 41.

    JGabriel

    @(((CassandraLeo))):

    Douglas Rain, a.k.a. the voice of HAL 9000, has also died today.

    “Dave. My mind is going. I can feel it. I can feel it. My mind is going. There is no question about it”

    If it’s any consolation, HAL, most of the US was right there with you, Nov. 8-9, 2016.

  44. 44.

    Victor Matheson

    Stan lee is responsible for literally hundreds, maybe thousands, of hours of my personal entertainment over the course of my life.

    A great life for a great entertainer.

  45. 45.

    Feathers

    This thread is dead, but in case anyone is still reading, I learned from Sarah Weinman’s Twitter that Stan Lee went on a date with Patricia Highsmith. Somebody other people had heard of set them up on a date back in the 40s. Would have loved to have her take on a superhero comic.

  46. 46.

    jml

    Stan was a legend, a relentless promoter of positivity and the ambassador of alliteration.

    Reed Richards
    Bruce Banner
    Scott Summers
    Sue Storm
    Stephen Strange
    Peter Parker
    and best of all…
    J. Jonah Jameson…Junior.

    An amazing life. I expect the haters will not be able to let even a day go by without denigrating him for treatment of artists at Marvel and doing everything they can to reduce his contributions to what was great over there, but the work stands.

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