Stan Lee, co-creator of Marvel Comics, dies

The beloved Stan Lee has passed on at 95

He was the last man standing among the team that created Marvel’s iconic heroes. Steve Ditko died a few months ago. Jack Kirby, who was the oldest of the trio, passed away in 1994.

Other people will write about Stan’s accomplishments, so I want to discuss the astounding community and environment that shaped him. He was in the class of 1939 at DeWitt Clinton High School in the Bronx, which was then a public all-boys institution. In his year alone, he shared classes with Paddy Chayefsky, the famous playwright and screenwriter, and Lawrence Tisch, who would become president of CBS. One year ahead of them at Clinton were Marty Balsam, Robert Q Lewis, Sugar Ray Robinson, A.M. Rosenthal of the NY Times, and David Begelman, who would become the head of Columbia Pictures. When Stan was a senior, some of the underclassmen included Richard Avedon, James Baldwin and two popular comic actors, Don Adams (Get Smart) and Larry Storch (F Troop). I could list many others from those classes who would be approximately as accomplished in their own fields, but you wouldn’t know their names because they made their marks outside of the entertainment fields. The list of famous and accomplished graduates from that one public high school is mind-boggling.

And of all of them, Stan may have made the greatest impact on pop culture. He was kind of a late bloomer compared to some of the men mentioned above, who were household names in the 50s and 60s, but when Stan hit, he hit big. He started to become known to comic book fans when he was 40ish, and his fame just kept escalating as his characters emerged in movie after movie. It was still ascending when he was in his 80s and 90s! As Stan himself would say, “Excelsior.”

The characters he created or co-created are now known throughout the world: Spider-Man, the Hulk, Thor, Iron Man, Dr. Strange, X-Men, Guardians of the Galaxy, Daredevil … the list goes on and on.

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UPDATE from the comment section: “Pretty amazing that the school also had alums that included Bill Finger and Bob Kane (class of ’33) the team that created Batman. That one place is responsible for the majority of great superheroes.”

7 thoughts on “Stan Lee, co-creator of Marvel Comics, dies

  1. Fans of Marvel Comics should check out the late 1970s Incredible Hulk TV show. I think this show set the template for the Marvel movies that treated the super-heroes as normal people with super powers.

    After the Batman TV show of the mid 1960s, I’m not sure what brought superheroes back onto television and film. I believe DC went first with Wonder Woman and then the Superman movie. (After the non comic book superhero Six Million Dollar Man and then the Bionic Woman, maybe these are what brought Superheroes back.)

    Wonder Woman was interesting but it was more about female empowerment (though not in any way to really challenge men) and many of the shows had 1970s new age and paranormal themes, so it wasn’t really a ‘human drama.’

    The Superman movie is regarded by some as an epic or something, but I think it’s a mostly terrible movie other than the music, as the tone of the film keeps shifting, sometimes it’s an epic (Marlon Brando), sometimes it’s a silly comedy, and sometimes it just makes no sense.

  2. Greatest honor I ever had was having Stan Lee confer a No Prize on me after I sent a typically college freshman crazed fan letter to Dr. Strange and got a postcard back signed by the man himself. RIP Stan

  3. Have to make the correction: Captain America was created by Jack Kirby and Joe Simon (who made to 98!). Stan deserves credit for reviving the character in the 60s and having him join the Avengers. If you want, you can substitute Black Panther for Cap, considering the success of that movie this year.

  4. Pretty amazing that the school also had alums that included Bill Finger and Bob Kane (class of ’33) the team that created Batman. That one place is responsible for the majority of great superheroes.

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