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Disney, Marvel pay tribute to Stan Lee

Marvel Comics and The Walt Disney Company have led the tributes being paid to legendary comic book creator Stan Lee, who has died aged 95.

Stan Lee

Lee, born Stanley Martin Lieber in Manhattan in 1922, worked his way through a succession of jobs before becoming an assistant at comic book publishing company Timely Comics in 1939.

With Lee at the helm, Timely Comics morphed first into Atlas Comics and then into Marvel Comics, home to a host of characters including The Fantastic Four, Spider-Man, Thor, Iron Man, The Hulk and X-Men.

“Stan Lee was as extraordinary as the characters he created. A superhero in his own right to Marvel fans around the world, Stan had the power to inspire, to entertain and to connect. The scale of his imagination was only exceeded by the size of his heart,” said Bob Iger, chairman and CEO of The Walt Disney Company.

Disney acquired Marvel for US$4bn in 2009, paving the way for a stream of feature films and series based on the company’s IP released by the Mouse House in recent years.

Lee appeared in cameo roles in many of these releases. He also founded Pow! Entertainment, a multimedia entertainment company, alongside producer Gill Champion and the late intellectual property specialist Arthur Lieberman.

The prodco’s credits include animated show Stan Lee’s Mighty 7 and UK drama series Lucky Man, which was commissioned by Sky1.

“Stan Lee’s contributions to Marvel, a company he helped forge into a household name, will forever live on and we will continue to celebrate the imaginative characters he helped create and the fantastic universe he helped build. My thoughts and prayers go out to his daughter and brother at this time,” added Ike Perlmutter, chairman of Marvel Entertainment.

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