The feisty writer, editor and publisher was responsible for such iconic characters as Spider-Man, X-Men, Thor, Iron Man, Black Panther and The Fantastic Four.

Stan Lee, the legendary writer, editor and publisher of Marvel Comics whose fantabulous but flawed creations made him a real-life superhero to comic-book lovers everywhere, has died. He was 95. 

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Lee, who began in the business in 1939 and created or co-created Black Panther, Spider-Man, X-Men, The Mighty Thor, Iron Man, The Fantastic Four, The Incredible Hulk, Daredevil, Ant-Man and other characters, died early Monday morning at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, a source told The Hollywood Reporter.

On his own and through his work with frequent artist-writer collaborators Jack Kirby, Steve Ditko and others, Lee catapulted Marvel from a tiny venture into the world’s No. 1 publisher of comic books and later a multimedia giant.

In 2009, the Walt Disney Co. bought Marvel Entertainment for $4 billion, and most of the top-grossing superhero films of all time — led by The Avengers‘ $1.52 billion worldwide take in 2012 — featured Marvel characters.

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Like Alfred Hitchcock before him, the never-bashful Lee appeared in cameos in the Marvel movies, shown avoiding falling concrete, watering his lawn, delivering the mail, crashing a wedding, playing a security guard, etc.

In Spider-Man 3 (2007), he chats with Tobey Maguire’s Peter Parker as they stop on a Times Square street to read news that the webslinger will soon receive the key to the city. “You know,” he says, “I guess one person can make a difference”.

And Stan certainly did !

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We at IndieMacUser were lucky enough to meet the legend that was Stan Lee at London Film & Comic Con 2014.

Stan was the first guest we saw at this event and we also attended his sold out panel. Stan was an amazing guest and seemed generally happy to be at the event.

RIP to a true legend !

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