Hollywood and the entertainment industry lose people all the time. There are names we hear that make us go “huh” and keep going. There are names that when we hear them make us stop and realize we just lost a great one. Then there are the people that, when they pass on, everything stops! They have made such a huge impact on us and the world that we may as well lost a loved one. Today is the latter. At the age of 95, the great one, Stan Lee, has passed away.
Born of Jewish decent, Stanley Martin Lieber was not only one of the greatest guys you could ever run into, but he was one of the founding fathers of comics. Over the years he has created such house hold names as Spiderman, Captain America, the Hulk, Dr Strange, the Fantastic Four, Black Panther and the X-Men.
So much of what he created not only launched Marvel into the mega brand that it is today but made it a major comic book company of the early days, going toe to toe with the mega giant DC. As you can see by the names mentioned above, there was little he didn’t have his fingers in at some point. In fact, Stan was a driving force in adding social issues into the comics. He inserted issues like racism, bigotry, discrimination, prejudice and others by using mutants and other “fantasy differences” in place of the real life issues.
There is an old adage that be careful about meeting your childhood heroes and idols. They seldom live up to our expectations. You would be hard pressed to find anyone that could say Stan Lee didn’t live up to expectations. He was a man of quality who loved and adored his fans. He became the face of Marvel, traveled to conventions and did so much for his fans.
Listing his achievements would be trying to write an encyclopedia. I could spend hours and pages for months and never cover his life fully. Most recently, he was known to modern movie goers for his cameos in the Marvel movies, which almost always brought a laugh. He was good at that.
I guarantee that not only do Marvels heroes shed tears at today’s news, but Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman and every comic book character across the spectrum will as well. Today the world mourns not only one of the great artists, story-tellers and visionaries of our time, but the loss of a true gentleman and genuine hero. Rest Well big guy.
