Remembering Stan Lee: A man as extraordinary as the characters he created

A superhero in his own right to Marvel fans around the world, Stan had the power to inspire, to entertain and to connect

Stan Lee, who brought a modern sensibility to comic books and provided lucrative fodder for Hollywood as co-creator of such sympathetically imperfect superheroes as Spider-Man, the Incredible Hulk, X-Men, and Iron Man, has died. He was 95.

From his start as a writer for Timely Comics in 1941, Lee rose to editor and publisher of Marvel Comics. He made his mark starting in the early 1960s by conjuring superheroes with troubled lives and temperamental personalities, a leap from the comic-book characters of the past.

“For once I wanted to write stories that wouldn’t insult the intelligence of an older reader, stories with interesting characterization, more realistic dialogue and plots that hadn’t been recycled a thousand times before,” Lee wrote in his 2002 memoir, Excelsior: The Amazing Life of Stan Lee. He was describing the 1961 creation, with artist Jack Kirby, of the Fantastic Four, the human quartet who gain special powers after being exposed to cosmic radiation.

So pleased was Lee with the quick success of the Fantastic Four that he added to the cover of follow-up issues the slogan, “The World’s Greatest Comic Magazine.”

He followed up by helping create the Incredible Hulk —he said he asked Kirby, “Can you draw a good-looking monster, or at least a sympathetic-looking monster?” —then the Mighty Thor, Iron Man and X-Men in the early 1960s.

A Marvel till the End → Stan Lee Forever

‘Avengers: Infinity War’ set to beat Jungle Book’s box office record

Having made Rs 1.87 billion in 10 days, the Marvel superhero juggernaut is set to crush Mowgli’s Rs 1.88-billion haul at the box office.

Latest News : At Rs 1.87 billion (net after tax) box-office collections in the 10 days since its release, Marvel’s Avengers: Infinity War is on track to becoming the highest earning Hollywood film in the country. Released on April 27 along with the rest of the world, Infinity War was one of the widest Hollywood releases in the country at 2000 screens, and opened with Rs 400 million, the second highest opening at the box office this year.

A product of the Disney stable, Infinity War is the 19th movie in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) which started with the first Ironman film in 2008. The film follows the Mad Titan Thanos in his quest for the Infinity Stones so that he can wipe out half the universe. It stars more than 20 of Marvel’s superheroes, and is the culmination of multiple storylines established in the movies that came in the past decade.

On its way to the top, Avengers Infinity War would have beaten The Jungle Book (2016), also a product from the House of Mouse, which made Rs 1.88 billion in its lifetime at the theatres in India.

Released on April 8, the film had a nearly 6-week run at the box office, cashing in on the nostalgia the story holds for Indian audiences who have seen the 90’s animated version of Mowgli’s adventures with Baloo and Bagheera, and the summer vacation. Infinity War has breached its record within two weeks of release.

Disney’s strategy for its Hollywood films, especially those with mass appeal, has been honing a sharp focus on localisation in its distribution and marketing. Infinity War released in three Indian languages – Hindi, Tamil and Telugu, apart from English.

Apart from dubbing the content in local languages, the studio also marketed the dubs extensively, especially where they tapped into visible local talent like Rana Dagubatti who has voiced Thanos in the Telugu version.

Also Read → Avengers Infinity War Box Office Collection