<div><div><p>Stan Lee, the Marvel Comics mastermind, was as imperfect as his superheroes&mdash;and just as indelible.</p></div></div>

- Steven Asarch

STAN LEE, CO-FOUNDER OF Marvel Comics, died at 95 on November 12. Along with artists Jack Kirby, Steve Ditko and countless others, he helped create some of modern pop culture’s most enduring icons. Lee leaves behind a daughter and a legacy as complicated as his flawed characters, including Spider-Man and the X-Men.

He was born Stanley Martin Lieber on December 28, 1922, and grew up in New York. In 1941, he landed a job at Martin Goodman’s Timely Comics. After filling the inkwells of artists, getting them lunch and proofreading their work, he was quickly promoted to writer. With his first assignment—“Captain America Foils the Traitor’s Revenge” in 1941’s Captain America Comics #3—he adopted the pseudonym Stan Lee.

That same year, after the departure of Captain America creators Kirby and Joe Simon, the 19-year-old Lee became Timely’s interim editor, then editor-in-chief. He left in 1942 to join the Army, where he wrote manuals and scripts under the military classification of “playwright.” He returned to Timely after the war, and the company would soon change its name to Atlas Comics—purveyors of pulpy romance and horror. Rival DC Comics, meanwhile, was having enormous success with a revival of the superhero genre: Superman, Batman and a newer version of the Flash. Goodman, eager to develop Atlas heroes, brought Kirby back and paired him with Lee.

It was Lee’s wife, Joan (the couple were married for 69 years; she died in 2017), who suggested adding pathos and real-life s

This story is from the November 30,2018 edition of Newsweek.

Subscribe to Magzter GOLD to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 10,000+ magazines and newspapers.

SUBSCRIBE NOW

Already a subscriber? Sign In