RIP Stan Lee

A legendary life.  And talk about becoming more famous in your later years.  Once Marvel began making movies of their classic characters in the early 00's, Lee's star grew larger-than-life.

Living in Germany in the early 70's, I began to devour comics, not just from Marvel, but DC as well.
This was just before music took over my life, and I outgrew comic books (but still loved all the characters).  I bought or borrowed all of 'em as soon as our Military bookstore got them in.  Among the Stan Lee creations:  Hulk, Spider-Man, Daredevil, Thor, Iron Man, Fantastic Four, X-Men, Doctor Strange.  And Captain America, which Lee didn't create, but did write some of the stories.
Over at DC: Superman, Batman, Flash, Green Arrow, Green Lantern.  All these characters were flawed, and that's what made Lee's creations so authentic.

This was a whole new world for an Elementary school kid.  As I got older, I lost interest in the comic books.  But when DC brought out the Superman movies and Batman in the late 70's/late 80's, I was once again taken back to my childhood.

And the good part about Marvel resurrecting its franchise with that first Spider-Man movie in 2002, is that the film was good.  As were most of the others Marvel brought back to the big screen,

So, I have to thank Stan Lee for opening up my imagination with his comic books. Those comic books, which were well-written and drawn up, were like classic novels to a 7-10 year old.