60 Fun Facts About Stan Lee

What was Stan Lee's birth name?

He legally adopted the pen name years after first using it in 1941.

From which country had Lee's Jewish immigrant parents come?

He never visited it and did not speak Romanian, since his parents never taught him.

Which fictional character did Lee call 'the first superhero I had read about'?

He was also influenced by Errol Flynn's heroic film roles.

Where in the Bronx did Lee go to school?

He graduated early, at sixteen and a half, in 1939.

Lee claimed three straight Herald Tribune essay contest wins; what did he more likely win?

The story that the paper begged him to let someone else win is apocryphal, as is the editor's life-changing plea.

Which Martin Goodman publishing division, later Marvel, did Stan Lee join as an assistant in 1939?

His uncle Robbie Solomon got him in; his cousin Jean was Goodman's wife.

Which of these was among Lee's first duties as a teenage assistant in 1939?

He also fetched lunch, proofread and erased pencil lines from finished pages.

In which comic did the pseudonym 'Stan Lee' first appear, on a text filler in 1941?

The filler also introduced Captain America's ricocheting shield-toss.

Why did Lee write under a pseudonym at the start of his career?

He dreamed of writing the Great American Novel one day.

What was Lee's first superhero co-creation, in Mystic Comics #6 (1941)?

Jack Frost and Father Time followed in the same month.

How old was Lee when Martin Goodman made him interim editor after Joe Simon and Jack Kirby quit in 1941?

He stayed editor-in-chief until 1972, when he succeeded Goodman as publisher.

What military classification did Lee say he held in the US Army, shared by only nine men?

He wrote manuals, training films and slogans; Frank Capra, Charles Addams and Dr. Seuss were in the same division.

How did Lee retrieve a comics assignment from a locked army mailroom, nearly landing in Leavenworth?

He was charged with tampering; a finance colonel intervened to save him.

Which newspaper strip, based on a radio comedy, did Lee produce with Dan DeCarlo in the 1950s?

By the end of the decade he was so dissatisfied he considered quitting comics.

Whose advice led Lee to write superheroes with 'flawed humanity' since he had nothing to lose?

He was planning to change careers; the result was the Fantastic Four.

Which rival publisher's 1960 super-team prompted Martin Goodman to ask Lee for one of his own?

Julius Schwartz had revived the Flash in 1956 and launched the League in 1960.

What was the first superhero team Lee and Jack Kirby created together, in 1961?

Kirby and Lee later disputed who deserved credit for it.

With which artist did Lee co-create Spider-Man and Doctor Strange?

Kirby co-created the Hulk, Thor, Iron Man and the X-Men.

With which artist did Lee co-create Daredevil?

Everett had created the Sub-Mariner back in 1939.

What did Lee call the fan club for which he recorded messages in 1965?

By 1967 a radio show could be titled 'Will Success Spoil Spiderman'.

What was the name of Lee's monthly column in Marvel comics?

Beyond plugging comics it addressed discrimination, intolerance and prejudice.

Lee's trademark sign-off 'Excelsior!' is also the official motto of what?

It is Latin for 'ever upward'.

Under the 'Marvel Method', what did Lee give artists instead of a full script?

The artist plotted and drew the pages, and Lee wrote balloons and captions afterwards, making the artists co-plotters.

How did Lee justify using sophisticated vocabulary in comics aimed at children?

He also pioneered credit panels naming the inker and letterer as well as writer and penciller.

Which artist replaced Ditko on The Amazing Spider-Man in 1966, making it the top seller?

Their stories brought in the Vietnam War, elections and student activism.

Which Lee and Kirby character, an African king, broke a colour barrier in mainstream comics?

He debuted in Fantastic Four; the Falcon, created three years later, was the first African-American superhero.

The three-part 'Galactus Trilogy', often called Lee and Kirby's finest work, began in which issue?

It introduced the world-devouring Galactus and his herald the Silver Surfer, and was a college-campus favourite.

Which US department asked Lee for an anti-drug comic, loosening the Comics Code?

The Code refused its seal to Amazing Spider-Man #96-98, so Marvel published without it and the Code changed.

What was Lee's last issue of The Amazing Spider-Man as regular writer, in 1972?

His last Fantastic Four was #125 the following month, as he became publisher.

Which 1978 book, Lee's last collaboration with Jack Kirby, is considered Marvel's first graphic novel?

Parable, drawn by Mœbius, was one of Lee's later Silver Surfer projects.

Which female hero, cousin of Bruce Banner, did Lee and John Buscema introduce in February 1980?

The Savage She-Hulk #1 was one of Lee's last new characters before he moved to California.

Why did Lee move to California in 1981?

He was briefly company president but stepped down because the job was too much about numbers.

How much was Lee's annual salary as Marvel's chairman emeritus after stepping back in the 1990s?

In 2002 he sued Marvel for a share of film profits and settled in 2005 for a seven-figure sum.

What happened to Stan Lee Media, the internet studio Lee co-founded in 1998?

Paul was extradited from Brazil and pleaded guilty; Lee was never implicated.

What share of film profits had Marvel promised Lee in the 1990s, the basis of his 2002 lawsuit?

As an employee he did not own the characters; the case settled in 2005 for an undisclosed seven-figure amount.

What does the acronym POW! stand for in Lee's company POW! Entertainment?

He founded it in 2001 with Gill Champion and Arthur Lieberman.

What was Stripperella?

The same year another publisher released his Just Imagine... series reimagining its own heroes.

In the 2001 series Just Imagine..., Lee reimagined the heroes of which rival publisher?

It was DC's first work written by Lee, covering Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern and the Flash.

Which former Beatle did Lee announce as the lead of a superhero programme in 2004?

The same year POW! went public through a reverse merger.

Which reality competition did Lee host and judge on the Sci-Fi Channel from 2006 to 2007?

He co-created and executive-produced it too.

Lee's frequent cameos and executive-producer credits gave him which record?

He kept doing them until his death in 2018.

What did Lee repair in the Army Signal Corps in 1942, before the Training Film Division?

He never served overseas; the Signal Corps Regimental Association inducted him in 2017.

Lee's digital graphic novel God Woke used text he originally presented as a poem where, in 1972?

The print version won a 2017 Independent Publisher Book Award.

From which English city did Lee's wife Joan Boocock come?

They married in December 1947 and were together 69 years until her death in 2017.

Where did Lee donate papers and personal effects between 1981 and 2011?

They sit in the American Heritage Center and cover 1926 to 2011.

How old was Lee when he died in November 2018?

He died at Cedars-Sinai in Los Angeles; the certificate listed cardiac arrest with respiratory and heart failure.

What were Lee's last words to Roy Thomas, who succeeded him as Marvel editor-in-chief?

Fans assumed 'my boy' meant Spider-Man, but Lee had long called Thomas Roy 'the Boy'.

Which honour did Lee receive from the NEA in 2008?

He had entered the Eisner Hall of Fame in 1994 and the Jack Kirby Hall of Fame in 1995.

Which company bought rights to Lee's name and likeness in 2020, forming Stan Lee Universe?

The company was renamed Kartoon Studios in 2023; Marvel licensed the name back for films and attractions in 2022.

Which Spider-Man supporting character, introduced in 1967, was among comics' first serious African-American roles?

He debuted in The Amazing Spider-Man #51 during the Lee-Romita run.

Which artist co-created the Falcon, comics' first African-American superhero, with Lee in 1969?

The Falcon debuted in Captain America #117.

What was the name of Stan Lee's younger brother, who also wrote and drew comics?

The brothers shared a bedroom as boys while their parents slept on a foldout couch in the family apartment.

At what age did Lee graduate from high school in 1939?

He then joined the WPA Federal Theatre Project before his uncle Robbie Solomon helped him into Timely Comics.

Which of these was one of the teenage Lee's part-time jobs in New York?

He also ushered at the Rivoli Theater on Broadway and delivered sandwiches to offices in Rockefeller Center.

In which year did Lee stop writing monthly comics to become Marvel's publisher?

He was briefly president of the whole company but found the job too focused on finance and stepped back to publisher.

Which French artist drew Lee's Silver Surfer limited series Parable?

Lee's other Silver Surfer returns included a 1982 one-shot with John Byrne and the Judgment Day graphic novel with John Buscema.

Lee's 2011 series Blood Red Dragon paired him with Todd McFarlane and which Japanese rock star?

The same year he began writing a live-action musical called The Yin and Yang Battle of Tao.

In which Long Island community did the Lees live from 1952 to 1980?

The couple had earlier bought a house in nearby Woodmere in 1949 before moving to California in 1981.

In July 2017, Lee and Jack Kirby were jointly given which honour?

Days later Lee pressed his hands, feet and signature into cement at the TCL Chinese Theatre.

Lee partnered with The Guardian Project to create superhero mascots for which sports league?

Other late-2000s projects included a comics line for Virgin Comics and a foreword to a skyscraper-safety book.