Sad word reached the news today of the passing of Stan Lee at the age of 95.

Mr. Lee is, of course, known as the guiding force behind Marvel Comics and was listed as the co-creator of many of the biggest, best known heroes published through the company, including the likes of The Fantastic Four, Spider-Man, The Hulk, etc. etc.

Apart from being involved in some truly wonderful comics released from the early 1960’s, what made Mr. Lee so unique was that he became a full throated cheerleader and face of the company, something which didn’t really exist in comics before that time.  He created a sense of down to earth friendship between reader and creators and seemed to “talk” to readers and wink at them while barking/hyping the latest works.

This served him very well as Marvel Comics went from another so-so company to the biggest selling comic book company under his stewardship.  When the Marvel movies started to take off, he continued to be the face of the company by making amusing cameos in the many Marvel based films, often providing jokey lines and humorous bits.

His career, however, was not without some controversy.  As amiable as Mr. Lee appeared in public, the fact of the matter is that two of his principle cohorts, Jack Kirby (who co-created most of Marvel’s characters, including The Fantastic Four) and Steve Ditko (co-creator of Spider-Man and Dr. Strange, among others) both had a falling out with Mr. Lee in the later half of the 1960’s and left the company.

It was reported they were both unhappy with not only the rates they were getting for their artwork but also with the credit Mr. Lee gave himself for the books they worked on with him.  I know this might be very “inside baseball”, but Mr. Lee developed a method of “writing” comic books where he would get together with the artist and provide a light sketch of a comic’s plot.  The artist would then essentially create the entire book and Mr. Lee (or whomever was listed as the writer of the book) would come in afterwards and provide dialogue.  Amusingly, there were times when the dialogue didn’t fit what you were seeing on the page, though this didn’t happen all that often.

But the point is this: Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko felt they were doing more than “just” drawing their respective books; that they were writing AND drawing them only to have Mr. Lee come in afterwards and dialogue them and then take the sole credit for being the book’s “writer”.  To be fair, Marvel eventually offered more credit to books made by both Kirby and Ditko, but by that point the bad feelings were obviously overwhelming and the two left the company they helped make so very successful.

Still, Marvel succeeded and without Stan Lee would likely not have become the juggernaut it became.  Whether he came up with more or less of the stories than were attributed to him, his dialogue and descriptions presented on many a page were both playful and exciting and, in the editorial/mail pages, he could sell a book like no other.

Truly there hasn’t been anyone in this industry remotely like him.

He will be missed.