Stan Lee, co­founder of the Marvel Universe (漫威宇宙) and co­creator of many of its most popular superheroes, died at the age of 95.

Lee was born Stanley Martin Lieber in New York in 1922. As a son of working­class Jewish immigrants from Romania, times were hard and he lived with his family in a shabby single­bedroom apartment. After graduating from high school at 16, Lieber landed a job as an assistant at Timely Comics. By the early 1940s, he was a temporary editor for the company. It was at this time that he began using his pen name—Stan Lee. In 1947, two years after returning from serving for the U. S. Army, Lee married his wife, Joan. The two began their 70­year marriage and had two children.

In the late 1950s, DC Comics breathed new life into its classic superhero and experienced a significant success with its updated version of the Flash, and later with super­team the Justice League of America.

To compete against DC Comics, Lee was given the task of creating their own group of super heroes. In 1961, Timely Comics changed its name into Marvel Comics after Atlas Comics, and that November saw the debut (首次亮相) of the Fantastic Four. Lee's later famous and lasting creations of comic­book superheroes included Spider­Man, the Hulk, Thor, Iron Man and the X­Men.

Over the course of his career, Lee was an icon of Marvel Comics. As a writer and editor and, at various points both the publisher and vice president of Marvel Comics, Lee not only introduced interesting characters to the industry but changed the way that comic books came together. He also created a cooperative workflow between writers and artists, which became known as the "Marvel Method". Lee received a National Medal of Arts in 2008 for his innovations that revolutionized American comic books.