There comes a time when every hero hangs up his cape. It’s never easy to see a hero move on, but the legacy they leave behind is irreplaceable.

Such is the case for Stan Lee. The creator of many Marvel characters died Monday at the age of 95. Lee started writing comics in 1939 and has been a prominent face in the entertainment business since. His characters, including Spider-Man, the Incredible Hulk, the Fantastic Four and Captain America, to name a few, have been childhood staples for generations.

What made Lee such a major force in the industry is that he crafted characters with personality and humility. Unlike the pre-World War II heroes that were more generic and invincible, Lee’s characters had relationship issues, family crises, moral dilemmas and major flaws that they had to fight, along with the typical villains.

Lee was also not afraid to tackle major social issues in his comics. It’s well-known that the “X-Men” series is about more than just mutants — it serves as a metaphor for racial prejudice. The “X-Men” face intolerance in society and several mutants question whether or not they’re normal. The franchise opened the door for discussions about prejudice and race relations among comic book fans.

Of course, Lee’s work has come into the forefront in the past 20 years with the flooding of superhero films. Without Lee’s original comics, we may have never seen films such as “Iron Man,” “X-Men” or “The Avengers” hit the screens. This trend for Marvel started as early as 1967, when the original “Spider-Man” show hit TVs. Lee began promoting the company in 1972 and pushed to make ties with Hollywood in the 1980s to expand the reach of his characters. The move certainly paid off.

Lee’s personality is still clearly present in each Marvel film, which doesn’t just come from his cameos. The characters Lee created still live by those same morals. Peter Parker is still a teenager who’s fighting major villains while also trying to win the girl. Bruce Banner is still a genius with an internal conflict.

As someone who never reads comics and only started watching Marvel films recently, I find it hard not to see Lee’s tremendous influence across all of cinema, television and literature. He made it possible to tell stories about people who shoot spider webs and protect the universe across multiple planets.

Patrick Gunn is a sophomore broadcast journalism major. His column appears weekly in Pulp. You can email Patrick at pagunn@syr.edu.

Published on November 13, 2018 at 9:25 pm

Contact Patrick: pagunn@syr.edu