The Life Of Stan Lee And The Marvel Franchise

Stanley Martin Lieber, or as the nerd world calls him, Stan Lee, found national renown by building the Marvel Franchise into what it is today, a multi-million dollar company that publishes comic books, shoots movies, designs video games, and creates their own television shows.

The Marvel Franchise’s humble beginnings parallel that of its creator. Lee was born in New York City on December 28th, 1922. His parents, Celia and Jack Lieber, had immigrated from Romania only years before. Lee’s younger brother, Larry was born nine years later, and would later go on to work for Marvel Comics. Having been born in the 1920s, Lee experienced The Great Depression firsthand. The Lieber family lived in the same apartment in the Bronx for the entirety of Lee’s time at home. Lee and his brother shared the only bed the family owned, while their parents slept on a pull out couch. Celia Lieber worked wherever she could, washing dishes at the local diner or cleaning houses, but jobs were scarce. Jack Lieber was a trained dress cutter and found even less success because no one in the vicinity of the shop could afford to buy anything.

In his formative teenage years, Lee attended DeWitt Clinton High School in the Bronx. He especially enjoyed english class and writing in general. Lee recalls in an interview that, “From a young age, I was interested in becoming a writer...and dreamed of writing the next Great American Novel (Kugel).” In order to achieve that dream, Lee needed to obtain a typewriter, so he worked many different jobs. Some of which included selling newspapers, delivering sandwiches, writing ads and obituaries for the local paper, and three other jobs.

When Lee graduated high school in 1939, he was only sixteen years old. He immediatel...

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...years. This new company’s comics not only revolutionizing the heroes themselves, but also the field of comic books in general. Lee started the trend of naming his staff in a credits page, and calling them equals in the creative process because they helped him create new storylines and plots. Not only did he recognize his staff, but also the readers. He opened polls to the public to ascertain what they wanted to see from their favorite characters, and included a magazine-like format to his sold comic books. A letters to the editor section was made popular because of the open and friendly style of writing it had. Lee wanted to open a sort of dialogue with the fanbase, an achievement met by the introduction of the letters to the editor section.

Since Marvel’s booming popularity of the 1960s, Lee found himself the figurehead and public representative of the company.