Stan The Man

Happy Birthday to Stanley Martin Leiber, aka Stan Lee, 88 today!

If you're reading this Blog, chances are you know all about Stan The Man, and what he means to the comics-reading world ( and beyond! ) so there's no need for me to go into any great detail here.

( But you can read more about The Man here, here and here. )

Suffice it to say, Stan is a larger-than-life legend, a ball of octogenarian energy, and one of the most important - if controversial - comics creators ever.

Stan's been and done many things in his 70-year career but, for me ( and countless thousands of others ), he will always be Stan The Man, the editor, head writer and tireless promoter of The Marvel Age Of Comics -

co-creator of The Fantastic Four, Spider-Man, The Incredible Hulk, The Mighty Thor, The Avengers, The X-Men, Iron Man, Doctor Strange, Nick Fury, Daredevil and, er, Willie Lumpkin.

Of course it helped that he worked with some of the greatest artists that ever anguished over a deadline to produce super-hero mayhem, month in and month out: Jack Kirby, Steve Ditko, John Romita, Gene Colan, John Buscema, Don Heck, Bill Everett, Marie Severin, James Steranko..... the list goes on.....

Anyway, Happy Birthday Stan! Your wonderful, corny, exciting, hyperbolic, philosophical, funny and touching prose style was a major source of enjoyment in my childhood - and still is!

Excelsior!!