RIP Stan Lee

Like the rest of the world, I heard today that Stan Lee died.

Since then, I've been seeing memes and memorials all over social media - references to the characters he helped create, or to the ones who came about because of what he was doing at Marvel in the early 60s. I've also seen eulogies and tributes from comics creators (and other notables) praising him for his impact on the culture.

I haven't seen a lot on the fallings-out he had with Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko, who helped him create that universe, but to be honest, I don't know if that matters. As I read in one of the obituaries today, Stan himself didn't get all the ownership that would have been due him if he'd been working in another medium - that doesn't make it right, but it widens the picture a bit.

I never met Stan myself, or to my knowledge was ever in the same room as him. But he was comics' cool Grandpa, at least by the time I got into comics. The fact that his name was all over the books ("Stan Lee presents"), and in later years that he had all those cameos in the movies and on shows like the Big Bang Theory, made him an icon to more than just us comics nerds.

Still, I think even if someone's a public figure you've never met, you can have a favorite memory of them, and this is mine: the second time he went on the Nerdist Podcast, probably in 2013, he was talking to Chris Hardwick about his childhood. He was lively as ever, chatty and full of jokes, but casting his mind back he started to recite the jingle to a commercial he'd heard on the radio as a boy. And, in awestruck wonder, he mused to Chris what a wonderful thing that was that after all those decades he could still remember that. It melted my heart to hear it then, and I'm close to tears writing it down now.

My entry into superhero comics came about because of the X-Men, though a version far removed from the original book he came up with. From there I spread out into almost all of the Marvel universe, and then on to other books, mostly DC for the last couple of years. But even as a DC fan, you had to love Stan "the Man" Lee.

I'll be remembering him, tonight and for a long time, by reading the comics that he helped usher in, watching the TV shows drawn from his characters, and enjoying the movies he appeared in, possibly as the same character across each one.

We'll miss you, Stan - Excelsior.