Stan Lee was born as Stanley Martin Lieber in New York on 28th December 1922. He was the son Jewish immigrants from Romania. At the age of 17, he became an errand boy at Timely Comics, the company that would evolve into Marvel. He got the job with the help of an inside connection, his uncle. This is according to Lee’s autobiography, “Excelsior!”.
He was soon able to earn writing duties and promotions. He penned many Western stories and romances as well as a few superhero tales. He often wrote while standing on the porch of his home in Long Island, New York. He shared this home with his wife, actress Joan Lee. They were married in 1947. Joan Lee died recently in 2017.
The couple had two children, Joan Celia and Jan Lee. Joan was born in 1950. Jan Lee died within 3 days of his birth in 1953.
In the year 1961, Lee’s boss saw a rival publisher’s success with caped crusaders. He told Lee to dream up a superhero team. At the time, Lee felt that comics were a dead-end career. But his wife urged him to give it one more shot. She told him to create the complex characters he wanted to, even if it led to his firing.
The result was the Fantastic Four. There’s Mr Fantastic, the stretchable man, his future wife, Invisible Woman, her brother, the Human Torch and strongman, The Thing. They were like a devoted but dysfunctional family.
Lee became Marvel’s publisher in 1972. He has made cameos in most Marvel films as well. His characters were not like the conventional superheroes. His characters were human with human flaws and worries. Teens could identify with Spiderman because he had the same nuances of life as them.
