Story of Stan Lee

Stan Lee was inducted into the comic book industry's Will Eisner Award Hall of Fame in 1994 and the Jack Kirby Hall of Fame in 1995. He received a National Medal of Arts in 2008.

He was the editor-in-chief of Marvel Comics, and later its publisher and chairman, leading its expansion from a small division of a publishing house to a large multimedia corporation.

In collaboration with several artists—particularly Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko—he co-created fictional characters including Spider-Man, the Hulk, Doctor Strange, the Fantastic Four, Daredevil, Black Panther, the X-Men, and—with his brother, co-writer Larry Lieber—the characters Ant-Man, Iron Man, and Thor. In doing so, he pioneered a more complex approach to writing superheroes in the 1960s, and in the 1970s challenged the standards of the Comics Code Authority, indirectly leading to it updating its policies.

Following his retirement from Marvel, he remained a public figurehead for the company, and frequently made cameo appearances in movies based on Marvel characters. Meanwhile, he continued independent creative ventures into his 90s until his death in 2018.

Lee died at the age of 95 at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, California, on November 12, 2018, after being rushed there in a medical emergency earlier in the day. Earlier this year, Lee revealed to the public that he had been battling pneumonia, and in February was rushed to the hospital for worsening conditions around the same.

His death was met with a wave of tributes, including Marvel stars and friends Robert Downey Jr., Chris Evans, Sebastian Stan, Tom Holland, Mark Ruffalo, Jennifer Lawrence, Ryan Reynolds, Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, and many more.