STAN LEE, AN ICON WHO WILL NEVER BE FORGOTTEN

On Nov. 12, the comic book legend Stan Lee died. Honestly, I don’t know how I feel about it.

I never met the man, I didn’t know him personally, and in my eyes he is a complete stranger, but what made him famous is his legend, which made him impossible to ignore when he walked into a room.

It has been quoted by famous actors that when Stan Lee was on the red carpet, the cameras were on him and away from the actors. He outshined them, and when he died I believe there was not a single person in all of America that was not heartbroken.

He was an artist in the comic book industry who greatly influenced themes within the industry, transforming comics into what they are today. The Marvel “Avengers” movies were a huge hit around the world and he made a cameo appearance in every movie, appearing for mere seconds as a different character in each Marvel movie.

Early life

Stan was born in 1922 and was around before the Great Depression.

At the age of 18 he was part of the early years of the comics industry, where he worked at Timely Comics. During that time he created his first comic hero, “Captain America,” after a brief stint with the U.S. Army during World War II as a member of the Signal Corps, repairing radio equipment and telephone poles. He was later transferred into the training film division, where he worked as a cartoonist for the films.

After his stay in the Army he went back to work at Timely Comics, which re-branded itself into the new name, Atlas Comics.

‘Human’ super heroes

From there, two things happened to Stan that changed his life, from that of an artist into a modern legend.

One: DC Comics had recently revised the superhero archetype and with the introduction of the comic hero known as “Flash,” additionally introduced their super team, known as the “Justice League of America.” 

In response to this, Martian Goodman, the publisher of Atlas Comics – which  later re-branded into Marvel Comics – asked Lee to make a competing super team from scratch.

Two: The second huge change was when Stan asked his wife for advice on how to make a super team a reality. Her words were  something along the lines of “Experiment with the stories that you like, since you have nothing to lose.”

Following that advice, Lee changed the comics industry overnight by experimenting on something new that had never been done before in the comic book genre. He made the team members “human,” gave them flaws, and evolved them into characters with complex layers. Characters had the ability to feel, and show feelings, and even get bored.

At the time, DC Comics was No. 1 and had the best-selling comic book characters, but in the 1950s and ’60s their characters were never human in the first place. They were, for lack of better words, “subhuman” or “superior”: they didn’t have human flaws, or show human-like emotions.

Thanks to Stan’s experimentation for Atlas, he created “The Fantastic Four,” “The Hulk,” “Iron Man,” and “X-Men,”  along with the most successful super hero comic book character to date, “Spider-man.”

Shared with fans

Additionally, unlike what DC Comics was doing at the time, all of these characters lived in the same, shared universe. This allowed Atlas Comics to become  a new sensation overnight.

However, there was one more detail that Stan introduced that made him famous: He engaged with the fans of his work.

He wrote a monthly column that addressed any question from his fans. He also involved the (drawing) artists of his comics by getting their feedback and actually having them involved with the word process, where most comics writers didn’t.

These techniques allowed Lee to become a legend in this world. Without his input there would be no Marvel Comics as we know it, and as we see with today’s movie industry, there would be no run of highly popular movies such as “Captain America” or “Avengers,” and so much more.

Just how big a difference did Stan Lee make in this world?

I asked an online gamer friend of mine – living in Maryland, he’s 18 years old, and goes by Demon45 – about Lee’s death, and his immediate answer said it all: “I feel depressed, like a large hole was carved out of my chest.”