Stan Lee[1] (born Stanley Martin Lieber /ˈliːbər/, December 28, 1922 – November 12, 2018) was an American comic-book writer, editor, producer, and publisher. He was the editor-in-chief of Marvel Comics,[2] and later its publisher[3] and chairman,[4] 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 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.
