TMZ is reporting that Stan lee has passed away at age 95, as confirmed by his daughter, JC Lee.

J.C. told TMZ, “My father loved all of his fans. He was the greatest, most decent man.”

We’ve lost one of the greatest figures our cultural history, an icon who influenced marketing, movies, and nerd culture in innumerable ways and inspired countless others with his energy and passion for connecting with his fans.

stan-lee-70s

The debate over Stan’s legacy will never end, but give him his due: he lasted nearly 70 years in an industry and whatever he did was Stan all the way.

With Jack Kirby, Steve Ditko and a few others, Lee changed the way superheroes would be perceived by the world, a movement that has led to today’s dominance of the superhero genre in all our media.

I got to meet Stan a couple of times. He couldn’t have been more Stan Lee if he tried. Smilin’ Stan was no act, it was just who he was to the core. And that person will never be seen again.

We’ll have more news and industry reaction as the day goes on.

 

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Stan in 1943

20 COMMENTS

  1. Maybe if we weren’t so obsessed with individual genius, his legacy would be less up for debate. Lee, Kirby, Ditko and all of them helped make Marvel the wellspring of imagination it was. They did it together, and now another one of them is gone.

  2. Steve Ditko’s passing hit me hard, but this crushes me. No one wrote dialogue like Stan Lee and he heavily influenced how I write. I’m devastated…

  3. “Lee, Kirby, Ditko and all of them helped make Marvel the wellspring of imagination it was. They did it together, and now another one of them is gone.”

    Agreed. This is not a day for arguing over who created (or “wrote”) what. Lee and the ’60s Bullpenners did their best work TOGETHER.

    The artists — particularly Kirby and Ditko — supplied a lot of the ideas, but Stan’s dialogue and attention to characterization made these creations come alive, made them human and relatable.Without that, I doubt those characters would still be around.

  4. I’ve been dreading this day. I’m sure many of you have, too. :(

    What can be said about Stan Lee that hasn’t already been said over the course of his, incredible, career? For as long as I’ve been a comic book fan (almost 40 years), I’ve been a Marvel zombie, first and foremost. The fantastical world of the Marvel Universe that Stan and Jack created when they, practically, reinvented the comic book with FANTASTIC FOUR #1 forty-seven years ago, continues to be a driving force in Pop Culture, today. And, arguably, one of the greatest fictional universes ever invented! Spider-Man, The Hulk, Fantastic Four, The X-Men, The Avengers, Dr. Strange, Daredevil…the list is almost endless. These characters will continue to entertain us, influence us, and inspire us for many decades to come. Thank you for all of it, Stan!

    Somewhere, up there, I’d like to think that “The Man” and “The King” are, already, working on their next collaboration.

    Excelsior! And R.I.P., Stan.

  5. He took something to a place it hadn’t been before. Disney didn’t create the cartoon, Jim Henson didn’t create puppets, but like them Stan took a medium and supercharged it, graced it with a style and vision that hadn’t been there before. He didn’t do it alone and neither did they and like them he had faults like any other man. But his stories are his legacy and for a writer there’s no better way to be remembered.

  6. Check out Spencer Ackerman’s long, even-handed appreciation of Stan at the Daily Beast.

    Also go to the Criterion Collection’s twitter feed for an interview with Stan about his early-’70s collaboration with French New Wave director Alain Resnais. (The screenplay he wrote for Resnais sold, but it was never filmed.)

  7. In on this momentuous day…

    Debate the credits later Stanley Lieber didn’t die penniless and forgotten. This should be the standard for those deserving creators of renowned still with us.

    For now, good on him. R.I.P. Stan.

  8. I’m without words. It was expected, but not now. Stan Lee and Marvel Comics have been a part of my life for the past, almost 50, years. He helped form my worldview as a child. Taught me to accept differences. Work hard to overcome adversity. Taught me about honor and love and strength. I learned about navigating our world through the the lense of the superhero, in a simpler time. Excelsior and ‘nuff said, Stan.

  9. “I learned about navigating our world through the the lense of the superhero, in a simpler time.”

    My early Marvel reading was in the Vietnam/civil rights/Watergate years, and it was definitely NOT a simpler time (or a time of innocence; Americans were literally shooting each other in the streets over political differences). Stan and Marvel also helped me navigate and make sense of those scary years.

  10. @Cerebro: (Math nerding here) The Fantastic Four was created fifty-seven years ago, not forty-seven years ago.

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