Discover what made the future: Stan Lee

Stanley Martin Lieber was an American comic book writer who, due to being embarrassed by the low social status of comic books, wrote under the pen name Stan Lee. He later adopted Stan Lee as his legal name which has now become a household name across the globe.

Lee made such a big mark by giving the characters in his comics more depth and instilling in most of them flaws that made them more relatable. This also made the characters more interesting to older readers and now, also, to older viewers as we have seen with the booming Marvel Entertainment franchise. Although he was not directly involved in creating the movies his influence is widely regarded and everyone was always on the lookout for his cameos.

In 1971 Lee played a role in getting the Comics Code Authority to relax its rules on the depiction of drug use in comics (as long as use was negatively portrayed). This was after a US government department asked Lee to write a story on the dangers of drug use and Lee naturally pushed the boundaries as far as he could. The CCA rejected the comic and Marvel published regardless. Marvel received high praise and in the aftermath the CCA loosened regulations. For other examples of his racy approach see Stripperella, the crime fighting secret agent living undercover as a…

Lee had a number of projects outside of Marvel and even though there was a lot of suing, not uncommon in the States, he was still treasured by many and even received the National Medal of Arts which was presented to him in 2008.

Stan Lee passed away last year (2018) at the ripe old age of 95 but we haven’t seen the end of him yet as he is still expected to feature in cameos recorded for Captain Marvel and Avengers 4.