Stan Lee was the man who made the heroes great

Stan Lee, the creative mind behind Spider-Man and many other Marvel heroes, died at the age of 95. He lent comic supermen traction - and founded a pop mythology that nobody can pass by today.

The publisher Marvel Comics and the entertainment giant Walt Disney honored Lee as a "superhero". "Stan Lee was as extraordinary as the characters he created," Disney CEO Bob Iger was quoted as saying by Marvel. It is almost impossible today to find a place in the Marvel Universe not marked by Lee.

As soon as Spider-Man has brought down the alleged car thief, the alarm system calls grumpy neighbors on the scene. A white-haired man leans out of the window and threatens the superhero with the index finger: "Do not force me to come down, you little bum!" What is for most viewers of "Spider-Man: Homecoming" only one Ulkmoment among many, offers Marvel Fans an ironic insider nonsense. Because the grinning nimble actor is none other than Stan Lee - the man without whom the main character of the film and several other Marvel stars would not exist.

In the future, comic enthusiasts around the world will be crushing one or two tears on this scene - and on many comparable lee-plays in other Marvel blockbusters - on Monday, the hero-maker died in Los Angeles. He was 95 years old.

The son of Jewish-Romanian immigrants grew up as Stanley Martin Lieber in New York. Thanks to family contacts, he found work as a teenager in the dime publishing Timely Publications, from which the Marvel Empire should develop. His creative urge (the young Stan wanted to act and write novels) soon made him the author and editor-in-chief of a pioneer of the young comic industry - and led him in the 1960s, together with gifted draftsmen such as Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko to unsurpassed success.

"Today we lost a true superhero," the Oscar Academy paid tribute on Twitter. "Stan Lee, thank you for everything." The US Army praised Lee for his services during the Second World War and for his later support for soldiers.

He missed a genre that had previously spawned especially outraged high-flyers like Batman and Superman, an overdue dose of humanity. His heroes had incredible abilities, but inside they were as concerned as their fans.

Spider-Man spun nets, knocking slogans and crawling facades up. Behind his red costume, however, hid a nerdy youth, who had to deal with everyday problems and matters of the heart. The Fantastic Four, conceptually a copy of the "Justice League" from the stables of the eternal competitor DC, explored stupid different worlds of death - but when they fell into quarrels, each reader felt reminded of his own family.

Lee's heroes and villains (over 300, most of the masculine, conjured from his and his ally's hat) seldom used trivial omnipotence fantasies.

Even the comedian Seth Rogen thanked Lee: He had given people who felt differently, the feeling that they were something special. "You were and will always be a superhero," wrote actress Jamie Lee Curtis. German rapper Casper wrote in English: "You, you yourself, were the greatest superhero of all."

In an interview, Lee said he himself was "stupid on business grounds", some of his former colleagues would argue against it: Jack Kirby, for example, saw Lee's urge to gain fame and royalties betrayed.

The African prince Black Panther, whose movie debut was celebrated as Hollywood's inclusion mark, once sprang from Lee's mind. Active and easygoing he was to the last. Now the builder of the modern superhero pantheon himself has gone under the legends. His work continues to grow, all by itself.