Stan Lee, who dreamed up Spider-Man, Iron Man, the Hulk, Black Panther and a line of other Marvel Comics superheroes that became mythic figures in pop culture with soaring success at the movie box office, died at the age of 95, his daughter said on Monday. As a writer and editor, Lee was key to the rise of Marvel into a comic book titan in the 1960s when, in collaboration with artists such as Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko, he created superheroes who would enthrall generations of young readers. “Stan Lee was as extraordinary as the characters he created,” Bob Iger, chairman and CEO of The Walt Disney Co., said in a statement. “The scale of his imagination was only exceeded by the size of his heart.” Disney bought Marvel Entertainment in 2009 for US$4 billion to expand Disney’s roster of characters, with the most iconic ones having been Lee’s handiwork. Lee was known for his cameo roles in most Marvel films, pulling a girl away from falling debris in 2002’s “Spider-Man” and serving as an emcee at a strip club in 2016’s “Deadpool.” In the 2018 box-office hit “Black Panther,” which featured Lee’s leading black superhero, he was a casino patron. “There will never be another Stan Lee,” said Chris Evans, who starred as Captain America in Marvel movies. “For decades he provided both young and old with adventure, escape, comfort, confidence, inspiration, strength, friendship and joy.” Lee was widely credited with adding a new layer of complexity and humanity to superheroes. His characters were not made of stone — even if they appeared to have been chiseled from granite. They had love and money worries and endured tragic flaws or feelings of insecurity. His creations included web-slinging teenager Spider-Man, the muscle-bound Hulk, mutant outsiders The X-Men, the close-knit Fantastic Four and the playboy-inventor Tony Stark, better known as Iron Man. Lee was born as Stanley Martin Lieber in New York on December 28, 1922, the son of Jewish immigrants from Romania. At age 17, he became an errand boy at Timely Comics, the company that would evolve into Marvel. Lee soon earned writing duties and promotions. He penned Western stories and romances, as well as superhero tales. Lee became Marvel’s publisher in 1972. He went on the lecture circuit, moved to Los Angeles in 1980 and pursued opportunities for his characters in movies and television. In his later years, he gave updates via Twitter. Lee all but parted ways with Marvel after being made chairman emeritus of the company. But even in his 80s and 90s, he was a wellspring of new projects, running a company called POW! Entertainment. He and his wife, actress Joan Lee, had two children. They got married in 1947 and Joan died in 2017. (SD-Agencies) | 