Yesterday, Stan Lee passed away. Stan was credited with creating hundreds of Classic characters throughout Marvel’s exceptional pantheon of Heroes and Villains and was easily one of the most important writers of the 20th Century.
I waited on writing this because I honestly wasn’t sure how I felt. He played such an important role in my life and I don’t think it’s really hit me just yet. I worked last night and had multiple people ask me if I was alright and I even came up with a new cocktail in his memory but there was never a moment where I was truly saddened because I knew that he was at peace and that he was finally resting with his wife, Joan, who had passed away last year.
Stan was a man who not only inspired people like me but also made his worlds open and accepting of everyone. There’s been a famous picture going around of him speaking against bigots and that was who he believed to be the ultimate villain. He was the first man to feature a Black Superhero and opened the path for multiple characters and creators of different ethnicity.
My favorite story of him and Joan is that he was about to leave comics for good and she pushed him to tell just one story that was everything he wanted to write. So Stan wrote about a family who gained powers and became Marvel’s first family : The Fantastic Four. He was able to build an entire mythos because he wrote exactly what he wanted to write and what he wanted to read. For a writer like me, that’s the dream right there.
He was a man who was able to inspire us not just through his ideas and stories but through his own character. He gave us so much hope and acceptance. Something that I think we could all use more of in these times. He did all with a smile on his face and a word that always seemed bigger than life, just like he was, Excelsior!
Thank you Stan, for everything.
