Stan Lee: From errand boy to Marvel superhero

In 2008, Lee was awarded the National Medal of Arts, the highest government award for creative artists.

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 at the age of 95, his daughter said on Monday. (Text: Reuters)

Lee's daughter did not mention the circumstances of her father's death but as per several news reports an ambulance was called to his Hollywood Hills home and that he died at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center.

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.

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 $20 billion at theatres worldwide.

Lee was born as Stanley Martin Lieber in New York on Dec. 28, 1922, the son of Jewish immigrants from Romania. At age 17, he became an errand boy at Timely Comics, the company that would evolve into Marvel. 

Lee soon earned writing duties and promotions. He penned Western stories and romances, as well as superhero tales, and often wrote standing on the porch of the Long Island, New York, home he shared with his wife, actress Joan Lee, whom he married in 1947. 

 

 

Fans leave tributes on Stan Lee's star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame shortly after the news that the Marvel founder died aged 95 was made public. 

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.