Stan Lee: 1922-2018 | The Comics Journal

 
 
"There may be no figure in the history of comics who is simultaneously more revered and more reviled than Stan Lee, who died this Monday morning at the age of 95. He was Smilin’ Stan, Stan the Man, the human face of the comics industry for a generation in which a consumer demographic transformed into a fan community. And he was still there, still smiling, when the general movie-going public finally fell in love with Spider-Man, the X-Men, the Avengers, Fantastic Four, the Hulk — all characters he had taught to speak more than 50 years earlier. He also, fairly or unfairly, came to embody the corporate greed that had trampled comics-creator rights.

It would be hard to overestimate Lee’s impact on the art, business and cultural image of comics. His noteworthy creative work emerged during a roughly 10-year period, but his comics career spanned more than 75 years — very nearly the life of the comics industry itself. During that time, atypical among comics creators, he had only one boss: Marvel (aka Timely and Atlas Comics). In the 1960s, Lee ignited and oversaw the greatest burst of creativity the superhero genre had seen since the invention of Superman. As Marvel’s editor-in-chief, he infused the line with a recognizable house style built upon the prolific Jack Kirby’s solidly dynamic art. As Marvel’s head writer, he created a world where super-heroic tropes stumbled ironically and engagingly among the petty details of everyday life. As Marvel’s spokesperson, he made readers feel they were part of an elite club and shepherded comics out of the kid-lit ghetto and onto college campuses.

But his willingness to toe the company line meant that his name and smiling face became corporate logos that were routinely stamped over the credits of other comics creators. Because his name became shorthand in the media for the multitude of creative efforts that had breathed life into the Marvel universe and because he allowed a “Stan Lee Presents” blurb to introduce even comics he had no involvement with, many in the fan community accused Lee of hogging the limelight and obscuring the work of Marvel artists.

His relationships with some of those artists, notably Kirby, soured into enduring animosity, but Lee himself rarely, if ever, expressed anger toward his co-creators in public. And more often than not, his colleagues described him as a generous and enthusiastic storyteller, often acting out plots in his offices, generating ideas even into his eighth decade."
read obit by Michael Dean​
Stan Lee: 1922-2018 | The Comics Journal