Stan Lee is a pop culture icon. His name has become synonymous with an entire industry and with the quintessentially American genre of the superhero comic. With his unmistakable tinted glasses and gray mustache, Lee became recognized by generations of fans as the public face of Marvel through countless signing appearances and his regular cameo roles in Hollywood blockbusters and television series.

Spider-Man, the Hulk, the Fantastic Four, Iron Man, Thor, the X-Men — nearly all of the characters whose stories Marvel successfully brought to the screen originated from Lee’s imagination. Together with legendary artists and writers such as Steve Ditko and Jack Kirby, Lee reinvented a fading genre in the mid-twentieth century by creating superheroes grounded in everyday life, psychologically flawed, and morally complex, where good and evil often existed side by side. In doing so, he launched a cultural phenomenon whose influence continues to expand.

Active since the 1940s as a writer, editor, publisher, and creative force, Lee — who passed away in Hollywood on November 12, 2018 — ultimately became part of the Marvel mythology itself. As the beloved “Senior Citizen of Steel,” he appeared in nearly every new Marvel production, serving as both mascot and ambassador for the vast universe of characters that included the shy Peter Parker as Spider-Man, Daredevil, the emotionally volatile Hulk, Doctor Strange, the egotistical Iron Man, the Silver Surfer, the Avengers, Black Panther, Ant-Man, the Guardians of the Galaxy, and millions of fans around the world.

Lee’s journey to pop culture immortality is recounted here by his successor at Marvel, the acclaimed comics writer, editor, and historian Roy Thomas. Hundreds of illustrations and photographs — many drawn from Stan Lee’s private archive — along with inserted facsimile comic reprints and a foreword by Lee himself complete this extraordinary tribute to a true legend.

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