25 Facts You Didn’t Know About Stan Lee
PocketEpiphany
Published
06/03/2022
in
ftw
Stan Lee's presence is still all around us. In fact, the success of the Marvel Cinematic Universe may end up being his most enduring legacy.
Despite the success, though, many people don't know the real Stan. Want to be a real "true believer?" Check out these marvelous facts about Stan the Man from r/todayilearned.
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1.
Stan Lee had a younger brother, Larry, who co-created Thor, Iron Man, and Ant-Man. Larry Lieber is currently 90 years old and only retired from pencilling comics in 2018. -
2.
Stan Lee came up with Spider-Man when he was experiencing writer's block for new superpowers and saw a fly crawling on a wall. Lee then started thinking of names like Insect Man, Fly Man, Stick-to-Wall Man, and Mosquito Man before settling on Spider-Man, because it sounded scary and dramatic. -
3.
Stan Lee created The X-men as 'mutants' because he didn't want to explain how they got their powers. They were BORN with their powers. -
4.
Stan Lee, the co-creator of comic book characters including Iron Man, the Fantastic Four, Spider-Man, Daredevil and the X-Men which have populated a film series that has grossed more than $11bn worldwide, was a victim of elder abuse by his business manager Keya Morgan. -
5.
Stan Lee and Dr. Seuss were in the same military unit during WW2. -
6.
When Stan Lee first introduced Spider-Man the publisher turned him down. Stan Lee didn't give up and snuck Spider-Man in to the last issue of the shuttered series Amazing Fantasy which went on to become a success. -
7.
Stan Lee, co-creator of Daredevil, worried that blind people would be offended at how far he exaggerated the way a blind person's other senses are enhanced, until he started receiving letters telling him that blind people greatly enjoyed having Daredevil comics read to them. -
8.
In the late 1990's, Michael Jackson nearly bought Marvel Comics so he could star as Spider-Man in the first movie. Michael Jackson and Stan Lee were going to buy the company together. When the deal fell through, he also attempted to play Professor X in the first X-Men movie. -
9.
Iron Man was created by Stan Lee as a challenge to create a hero no one should like and force people to like him. -
10.
Stan Lee proposed to his wife after two weeks of dating. She was already married and filed for a quick divorce in Nevada an hour before being married to Stan. The judge who granted the divorce was the same one who performed the marriage ceremony. -
11.
Stan Lee had a contract awarding him 10% of the net profits of anything based on his characters. The film Spider-Man (2002) made more than $800 million, but the producers claim that it did not make any profit as defined in Lee's contract. -
12.
Kevin Smith opened his home to Stan Lee after reports of elder abuse. -
13.
Stan Lee planned on quitting the comic book industry until his wife Joan told him to write the type of characters he wanted to for his last project. The result was the Fantastic Four, which created a more humanly flawed type of superhero. -
14.
While Stan Lee was in the army he never missed a deadline for Timely Comics(Marvel in the 40s), when he discovered that mail was being withheld from him, he broke into the mailroom, unhinged the mailbox with the screwdriver, and submitted the assignment, which he was nearly jailed for. -
15.
Stan Lee used alliterative names like Peter Parker and Reed Richards because he has a poor memory - having first and last name start with the same letter made them easier to remember. -
16.
According to Stan Lee and Lou Ferrigno, CBS thought the name Bruce Banner sounded "too gay-ish.” The protagonist’s name on The Incredible Hulk series was then changed to David Banner. Ferrigno thought it was "the most absurd, ridiculous thing [I’d] ever heard." -
17.
In Deadpool, Stan Lee played a DJ at a Vancouver strip club. He later revealed that he actually filmed his part in a studio and was disappointed not to be in the vicinity of the topless dancers. -
18.
Gwen Stacy was killed off in the Spider-Man comics because Stan Lee was in a rush to get to a meeting in Europe; Wanting to get his writers out of his office, he told them, "If that's what you wanna do, okay," without realizing what he'd just agreed to. He came back to find Gwen dead. -
19.
Stan Lee once commented that he liked to work "science" into all of his stories, and that Hulk's pants were the only time he never had a clue how the exact science behind it worked. -
20.
Although Stan Lee gave the Hulk's alter ego the alliterative name "Bruce Banner", Lee misremembered it and referred to him as "Bob Banner" in some later stories, an error which readers quickly picked up on. To resolve this discrepancy he decided the official name is "Robert Bruce Banner." -
21.
When Spider-man married Mary Jane in 1987, Marvel held a public wedding featuring actors dressed like the characters and Stan Lee officiated the wedding ceremony. -
22.
Stan Lee served in the military during World War II for three years after hearing about the attack in Pearl Harbor. -
23.
Hulk was originally intended to be grey. Ink problems released in the first edition made Stan Lee decide it should be green. -
24.
In 2016, during a Facebook Q&A, Stan Lee named Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man (2002) as his favorite superhero movie. -
25.
Stan Lee based the characters of Professor X and Magneto on Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X, respectively.
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Stan Lee had a younger brother, Larry, who co-created Thor, Iron Man, and Ant-Man. Larry Lieber is currently 90 years old and only retired from pencilling comics in 2018.
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