Table of Contents:

Introduction By Idan Mashelnik

Throughout history, there have been people who have influenced the way we live. Stan Lee is one of these people.

I chose to prepare this research project on Stan Lee for several reasons. To begin with, he is responsible for the movie world that I love known as MARVEL. Also, I really like his personality even though I don’t know him very well, there is just something about him that I really like.

There are a number of things that I already know about Stan Lee. Firstly, I know that he is a big comic book writer. In addition, I know that he won prizes for movies and comics.

I expect to learn new and interesting things about Stan Lee. First and foremost, I expect to find out about his childhood and his life in general. Also, I want to learn about his family, about his wife and his children. Finally, I would like to discover how he thought about the superheroes that he invented such as spiderman and iron man.

Stan Lee has left his mark on the world. I am looking forward to finding out more about him.

Introduction By Lia Shoval

Throughout history, there have been people who have influenced the way we live.

Stan Lee is one of these people.

I chose to prepare this research project on Stan Lee for several reasons. To begin with, Stan Lee created a fictional universe which attracted a lot of people, children and adults. He was the chairman of Marvel the movie company which used the Stan Lee fictional universe as a base for their movies.  In addition, since I was a young child, I have always liked movies that involved drama, however, although Marvel movies are sci-fi, I still like them.

There are a number of things that I already know about Stan Lee. Firstly, I know that as a teenager Stan Lee worked for publisher George Goodman at Marker Comics. In addition, I know that he fell in love with the world of comics and started to create his own fictional characters.

I expect to learn new and interesting things about Stan Lee. First and foremost, I expect to find out about how he came up with the idea of the amazing characters he created. Also, I want to learn how one man managed to influence and change the lives of so many people. Finally, I would like to discover how the fame didn’t change him as a person and how he stayed humble and kind until the day he died. Stan Lee has left his mark on the world. I am looking forward to finding out more about him.

Biography – Stan Lee

Early Life: Stanley Martin Lieber was born on December 28, 1922, in Manhattan, New York City, in the apartment of his Romanian-born Jewish immigrant parents, Celia and Jack Lieber. Lee was raised in a Jewish household, and in a 2002 interview, he stated when asked if he believed in God, “Well, let me put it this way. No, I’m not going to try to be clever. I really don’t know. I just don’t know.” His father, trained as a dress cutter, worked only sporadically after the Great Depression, and the family moved further uptown to Fort Washington Avenue, in Washington Heights, Manhattan.

Lee had one younger brother named Larry Lieber. He said in 2006 that as a child he was influenced by books and movies, particularly those with Errol Flynn playing heroic roles. By the time Lee was in his teens, the family was living in The Bronx.

Lee described it as “a third-floor apartment facing out back”. Lee and his brother shared the bedroom, while their parents slept on a foldout couch. Lee attended DeWitt Clinton High School in the Bronx. In his youth, Lee enjoyed writing and entertained dreams of writing the “Great American Novel” one day. He said that in his youth he worked such part-time jobs as writing obituaries for a news service and press releases for the National Tuberculosis Center, delivering sandwiches for the Jack May pharmacy to offices in Rockefeller Center, working as an office boy for a trouser manufacturer, ushering at the Rivoli Theater on Broadway, and selling subscriptions to the New York Herald Tribune newspaper. At fifteen, Lee entered a high school essay competition sponsored by the New York Herald Tribune, called “The Biggest News of the Week Contest.”

Lee claimed to have won the prize for three straight weeks, goading the newspaper to write him and ask him to let someone else win. The paper suggested he look into writing professionally, which Lee claimed “probably changed my life.” He graduated from high school early, aged sixteen and a half, in 1939 and joined the WPA Federal Theatre Project.

Philanthropy: The Stan Lee Foundation (is a non-profit organization that seeks to provide access to literacy, education and the arts throughout the United States) was founded in 2010 to focus on literacy, education, and the arts. Its stated goals include supporting programs and ideas that improve access to literacy resources, as well as promoting diversity, national literacy, culture and the arts. Lee donated portions of his personal effects to the University of Wyoming at various times, between 1981 and 2001.

Adult Life: From 1945 to 1947, Lee lived in the rented top floor of a brownstone in the East 90s in Manhattan. He married Joan Clayton Boocock on December 5, 1947, and in 1949, the couple bought a house in Woodmere, New York, on Long Island, living there through 1952. Their daughter Joan Celia “J. C.” Lee was born in 1950. Another daughter, Jan Lee, died a few days after her birth in 1953. The Lees resided in the Long Island town of Hewlett Harbor, New York. They also owned a condominium on East 63rd Street in Manhattan and, during the 1970s owned a vacation home in Remsenburg, New York. For their move to the West Coast in 1981, they bought a home in West Hollywood, California, previously owned by comedian Jack Benny’s radio announcer Don Wilson.

Later Years And Death: In September 2012, Lee underwent an operation to insert a pacemaker, which required cancelling planned appearances at conventions. Lee eventually retired from convention appearances by 2017. On July 6, 2017, his wife of 69 years, Joan, died of complications from a stroke. She was 95 years old. Lee died on November 12, 2018, six weeks before his 96th birthday at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, California, after being rushed there in a medical emergency earlier in the day. Earlier that year, Lee revealed to the public that he had been battling pneumonia and in February was rushed to the hospital for worsening conditions at around the same time.

The immediate cause of death listed on his death certificate was cardiac arrest with respiratory failure and congestive heart failure as underlying causes. It also indicated that he suffered from “aspiration pneumonia.” His body was cremated and his ashes were given to his daughter.

Roy Thomas, who succeeded Lee as editor-in-chief at Marvel, had visited Lee two days prior to his death to discuss the upcoming book The Stan Lee Story, and stated “I think he was ready to go. But he was still talking about doing more cameos. As long as he had the energy for it and didn’t have to travel, Stan was always up to do some more cameos. He got a kick out of those more than anything else.”

Early Career: With the help of his uncle Robbie Solomon, Lee became an assistant in 1939 at the new Timely Comics division of pulp magazine and comic-book publisher Martin Goodman’s company. Timely, by the 1960s, would evolve into Marvel Comics. Lee, whose cousin Jean was Goodman’s wife, was formally hired by Timely editor Joe Simon. His duties were prosaic at first. “In those days [the artists] dipped the pen in ink, [so] I had to make sure the inkwells were filled”, Lee recalled in 2009. “I went down and got them their lunch, I did proofreading, I erased the pencils from the finished pages for them”. Marshaling his childhood ambition to be a writer, young Stanley Lieber made his comic-book debut with the text filler “Captain America Foils the Traitor’s Revenge” in Captain America Comics #3 (cover-dated May 1941), using the pseudonym Stan Lee (a play on his first name, “Stanley”), which years later he would adopt as his legal name.

Lee later explained in his autobiography and numerous other sources that because of the low social status of comic books, he was so embarrassed that he used a pen name so that nobody would associate his real name with comics when he someday wrote the Great American Novel. This initial story also introduced Captain America’s trademark ricocheting shield-toss. He graduated from writing filler to actual comics with a backup feature, “‘Headline’ Hunter, Foreign Correspondent”, two issues later.

Lee’s first superhero co-creation was the Destroyer, in Mystic Comics #6 (August 1941). Other characters he co-created during this period fans and historians call the Golden Age of Comic Books include Jack Frost, debuting in the U.S.A. Comics #1 (August 1941), and Father Time, debuting in Captain America Comics #6 (August 1941). When Simon and his creative partner Jack Kirby left late in 1941, following a dispute with Goodman, the 30-year-old publisher installed Lee, just under 19 years old, as interim editor. The youngster showed a knack for the business that led him to remain as the comic-book division’s editor-in-chief, as well as art director for much of that time, until 1972, when he would succeed Goodman as publisher.

Lee in the Army, early 1940s:

Lee entered the United States Army in early 1942 and served within the US as a member of the Signal Corps, repairing telegraph poles and other communications equipment. He was later transferred to the Training Film Division, where he worked writing manuals, training films, slogans, and occasionally cartooning. His military classification, he said, was “playwright”; he added that only nine men in the U.S. Army were given that title. In the Army, Lee’s division included many famous or soon-to-be famous people, including three-time Academy Award-winning director Frank Capra, New Yorker cartoonist Charles Addams, and children’s book writer and illustrator Theodor Geisel, later known to the world as “Dr. Seuss.” Vincent Fago, editor of Timely’s “animation comics” section, which put out humor and funny animal comics, filled in until Lee returned from his World War II military service in 1945.

Lee was inducted into the Signal Corps Regimental Association and was given honorary membership of the 2nd Battalion of 3rd U.S. Infantry Regiment out of Joint Base Lewis-McChord at the 2017 Emerald City Comic Con for his prior service. While in the Army, Lee received letters every week on Friday from the editors at Timely, detailing what they needed written and by when. Lee would write, then send the story back on Monday. One week, the mail clerk overlooked his letter, explaining nothing was in Lee’s mailbox. The next day, however, Lee went by the closed mailroom and saw an envelope with the return address of Timely Comics in his mailbox. Not willing to miss a deadline, Lee asked the officer in charge to open the mailroom, but he refused.

So Lee took a screwdriver and unscrewed the mailbox hinges, enabling him to get at the assignment. The mailroom officer saw what he did and turned him into the base captain, who did not like Lee. He faced tampering charges and could have been sent to Leavenworth Prison. However, the colonel in charge of the Finance Department intervened and saved Lee from disciplinary action. In the mid-1950s, by which time the company was now generally known as Atlas Comics, Lee wrote stories in a variety of genres including romance, Westerns, humor, science fiction, medieval adventure, horror and suspense. In the 1950s, Lee teamed up with his comic book colleague Dan DeCarlo to produce the syndicated newspaper strip My Friend Irma, based on the radio comedy starring Marie Wilson. By the end of the decade, Lee had become dissatisfied with his career and considered quitting the field.

Marvel Comics: In the late 1950s, DC Comics editor Julius Schwartz revived the superhero archetype and experienced significant success with its updated version of the Flash, and later with super-team the Justice League of America. In response, publisher Martin Goodman assigned Lee to come up with a new superhero team. Lee’s wife suggested that he experiment with stories he preferred, since he was planning on changing careers and had nothing to lose.

Lee acted on that advice, giving his superheroes a flawed humanity, a change from the ideal archetypes that were typically written for preteens. Before this, most superheroes were idealistically perfect people with no serious, lasting problems. Lee introduced complex, naturalistic characters who could have bad tempers, fits of melancholy, and vanity;

they bickered amongst themselves, worried about paying their bills and impressing girlfriends, got bored or were even sometimes physically ill.

The first superheroes Lee and artist Jack Kirby created together were the Fantastic Four. The team’s immediate popularity led Lee and Marvel’s illustrators to produce a cavalcade of new titles. Again working with Kirby, Lee co-created the Hulk, Thor, Iron Man, and the X-Men; with Bill Everett, Daredevil; and with Steve Ditko, Doctor Strange and Marvel’s most successful character, Spider-Man, all of whom lived in a thoroughly shared universe. Lee and Kirby gathered several of their newly created characters together into the team title The Avengers and would revive characters from the 1940s such as the Sub-Mariner and Captain America. Years later, Kirby and Lee would contest who deserved credit for creating The Fantastic Four.

In addition to his work in other media, Lee wrote books on comics and on his own life. His published works include Origins of Marvel Comics (1974), Excelsior!: The Amazing Life of Stan Lee (2002), and Stan Lee and the Rise and Fall of the American Comic Book (2003). In 2008 he was awarded a National Medal of Arts.

OUR FIGURE’S INFLUENCE ON US

Throughout the years Stan Lee has made a lot of comic books and he invented a lot of characters but there was one thing that caught our eye and attracted us to the world of comics, And that was the comic book about “The Avengers”.

The Avengers is a comic book about superheroes and they join their powers to save the world from a big threat, It influenced us in that we started to see more movies especially superheroes movies and when we started it we didn’t quite get the idea of it but as soon that we started to see another movie and another one and another on we couldn’t stop watching them, Our eyes were opened and our view on the movie world changed, For example: one day we went to the cinema to see a movie, MARVEL movie, called Spiderman when we saw it we felt like we are in the movie it is like we knew the character in personal and when we finished the movie we understood what is the real meaning of fun.

So let us tell more about it: What would you do once you’ve established a shared universe of some serious superhero heavy hitters? You assemble them together as the Avengers. “If the happy hordes of Marveldom enjoyed seeing our heroes together,” Lee said in an introduction to an Avengers trade-paperback collection, “why not get a team where a number of them could join forces each issue?” Soon, Lee and Kirby gave the company their own in-house version of DC’s Justice League, with an all-star lineup – Hulk! Thor! Iron Man! Ant-Man and the Wasp! – banding together to fight supervillains. Other famous MCU (Marvel Cinematic Universe) players would join the team and battle tons of bad guys over the years, but this first five-person team-up against Thor’s evil brother Loki is where, per Lee’s opening-page disclaimer, “the first of a series of star-studded book-length super-epics featuring Earth’s mightiest superheroes” starts.

Interview

We chose to interview Kritaarth. He has a fan club for MARVEL where Stan Lee worked.

There are several reasons why we chose to interview this person. First of all he is a comic artist and he knows a lot about comics. Moreover, he is a big fan of his work.

Q: How do you know Stan Lee?

A: I know Stan Lee from the movies. He was in all the movies, so I searched the cast and found out that he is a very important person in the movie.I have known about him since then.

Q: What do you know about his personal life?

A: I know that his wife’s name is Jane, and he is a very popular personality, and that he died in 2018. He was a very brave guy and was more into science-fiction.

Q: How did you connect to Stan Lee’s work?

A: He is an inspiration to me, he encouraged me to be an artist, a Comic artist or illustrator.

Q: Which comic book that Stan Lee wrote did you like the most?

A: Deadpool Kills the Marvel Universe, it is super awesome and I like the motive behind it, I actually like movies which have blood or violence in it.

Q: What is your favorite superhero which Stan Lee created and why?

A: Captain America, I like him because he is loyal to his country and does what he thinks is right, and his backstory is just perfect.

Q: If you had the opportunity to hang out with one of the superheros for a day, who would it be? And what would you Do?

A: Iron Man, he is super cool and I would like to see his inventions, explore his lab and stuff, and wear one of his armours.

Q: If you could pick one character from the DC Universe and move him into Marvel Universe who would it be? and why?

A: I would convert Batman, his tactics and plans makes him the most well-planned hero, he also has a really cool superpower he is rich, his dedication and determination makes him the most cool superhero.

Q: If you could be Stan Lee for one day what would you do as Stan Lee? Why would you do it?

A: I would meet all the Avengers I mean their cast and have dinner with them, and donate some money for charity. I would give Hulk the Infinity Gauntlet (the Gauntlet Thanos used to wipe out half of the universe) again and ask him to snap his fingers in order to get his loved  one back to life.

Reflection

We found the preparation of this project worthwhile for several reasons. We both really like Marvel films and characters and we were interested in investigating who invented them and what’s the story behind each character. Stanley also revolutionized the world of film and comics, which is a world we’re interested in.

We learned many things while working on the project. We learned about Stanley’s private life and his childhood, where his passion for creating and writing came from. The project helped us better understand the purpose of each character Stanley created and thus we understood the plot in a lot of ways.

We developed a number of skills during our work on this project. During the work and as we progressed we learned how to optimize our work, what is expected of us and how to develop the best project we can. The part we liked the most during the project is the presentation because it caused us to remember all the first steps we did and also by speaking English and it improved the confidence in speech in front of an audience.

We enjoyed working together in a group for a number of reasons. First of all the division of work eased the load we have if one of us encountered a problem was the one to turn to and we trusted each other to give their best for the project.

On the one hand, there were things we enjoyed while preparing this project, we enjoyed better understanding Stanley’s past and his passion for creating and writing. And we also enjoyed working together and experienced this whole project that only we would understand each other.

On the other hand, there were things we enjoyed less while working on the project. A lot of times there’s been disagreements about what’s right to write and what shouldn’t create arguments and unpleasantness.

In conclusion, we are grateful that we had the opportunity to prepare this project. The project will certainly be memorable for better or worse. We’re glad we’re going through the whole course of the project together and not alone, it makes it easier to do the job. And thanks to the project, we’ve learned a lot of new things that we didn’t know.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

1. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stan_Lee – wikipedia

2. https://peoplepill.com/people/stan-lee-1 – amp

3. https://www.britannica.com/biography/Stan-Lee – Stan LeeAmerican comic book writer

4. https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-lists/stan-lee-15-essential-comics-252972/fantastic-four-1-nov-1961-253072/ – Stan Lee: 15 Essential Comics

Appendix

Material and Photos we didn’t include in the body of the project

Stan Lee’s capital worth is estimated to be only about $50 million.

The End