‘As extraordinary as characters he created’
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STAN Lee, who dreamed up Spider-Man, Iron Man, the Hulk, Black Panther and a cavalcade of other Marvel Comics superheroes that became mythic figures in pop culture with soaring success at the movie box office, died on Monday at the age of 95.
As a writer and editor, Lee was key to the ascension of Marvel into a comic book titan in the 1960s when, in collaboration with artists such as Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko, he created superheroes who would enthrall generations of young readers.
“He felt an obligation to his fans to keep creating,” his daughter J.C. Lee said in a statement. “He loved his life and he loved what he did for a living. His family loved him and his fans loved him. He was irreplaceable.”
She did not mention the circumstances of Lee’s death but the celebrity news website TMZ said an ambulance was called to his Hollywood Hills home early on Monday and that he died at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center.
“Stan Lee was as extraordinary as the characters he created,” Bob Iger, chairman and CEO of The Walt Disney Co, said in a statement. “The scale of his imagination was only exceeded by the size of his heart.”
Disney bought Marvel Entertainment in 2009 for US$4 billion to expand Disney’s roster of characters, with the most iconic ones having been Lee’s handiwork.
Lee was known for his cameo roles in most Marvel films, pulling a girl away from falling debris in 2002’s “Spider-Man” and serving as an emcee at a strip club in 2016’s “Deadpool.” In the 2018 box-office hit “Black Panther,” which featured Lee’s leading black superhero, he was a casino patron.
“There will never be another Stan Lee,” said Chris Evans, who starred as Captain America in Marvel movies.
“For decades he provided both young and old with adventure, escape, comfort, confidence, inspiration, strength, friendship and joy.”
Americans were familiar with superheroes before Lee, in part thanks to the 1938 launch of Superman by Detective Comics, the company that would become DC Comics, Marvel’s arch-rival.
Lee was widely credited with adding a new layer of complexity and humanity to superheroes. His characters were not made of stone — even if they appeared to have been chiseled from granite. They had love and money worries and endured tragic flaws or feelings of insecurity.
“I felt it would be fun to learn a little about their private lives, about their personalities and show that they are human as well as super,” Lee told NPR News in 2010.
He had help in designing the superheroes but he took full ownership of promoting them.
His creations included web-slinging teenager Spider-Man, the muscle-bound Hulk, mutant outsiders The X-Men, the close-knit Fantastic Four and the playboy-inventor Tony Stark, better known as Iron Man.
Dozens of Marvel Comics movies, with nearly all the major characters Lee created, were produced in the first decades of the 21st century, grossing more than US$20 billion at theaters worldwide, according to box office analysts. The website Box Office Mojo said “Black Panther” had a worldwide gross of US$1.34 billion.
Spider-Man is one of the most successfully licensed characters ever and he has soared through the New York skyline as a giant inflatable in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade.
Lee, as a hired hand at Marvel, received limited payback on the windfall from his characters.
In a 1998 contract, he wrestled a clause for 10 percent of profits from movies and TV shows with Marvel characters. In 2002, he sued to claim his share, months after “Spider-Man” conquered movie theaters. In a legal settlement three years later, he received a US$10 million payment.
Hollywood studios made superheroes the cornerstone of their strategy of producing fewer films and relying on big profits from blockbusters. Some people assumed that, as a result, Lee’s wealth had soared. He disputed that. “I don’t have US$200 million. I don’t have US$150 million. I don’t have US$100 million or anywhere near that,” Lee told Playboy magazine in 2014.
Having grown up in the Great Depression, Lee added that he was “happy enough to get a nice paycheck and be treated well.”
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