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Creator: Stan Lee

Don't you wish this man was your grandfather?

"With great power there must also come ... great responsibility!"

— Stan Lee, Amazing Fantasy #15, Aug. 1962

Face front, true believers!

Stan Lee (born Stanley Martin Lieber) is a Comic Book creator, writer, editor, "Chairman Emeritus" of Marvel Comics and (co-)creator of just about every significant Marvel character who doesn't carry a shield, wear a skull on his chest, or have metal bones. However, how much credit he deserves for creating them — as opposed to his artist collaborators, especially Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko — is a matter of debate.

To say he's still active today, both in comics and other media, is kind of a mammoth of an understatement. Among his recent projects, he hosted the Reality Show Who Wants to Be a Superhero? and the documentary series Stan Lee's Superhumans, and has a cameo in almost every Marvel movie adaptation. He has also gotten into the anime and manga business, and is now working on two series, Karakuridouji Ultimo with Shaman King creator, Hiroyuki Takei, and Heroman with Studio BONES. He's also working on The Governator with Arnold Schwarzenegger.

You might not be entirely aware of it, but he has had a YouTube Channel

for quite some time now, and frankly you have no excuse to not check it out.

EXCELSIOR!!

Notable Comic Book characters created by Stan Lee:

Black Panther (with Jack Kirby)
Daredevil (with Bill Everett)
Doctor Strange (with Steve Ditko)
Fantastic Four (with Jack Kirby)
Iron Man (with Jack Kirby, Don Heck and Larry Lieber)
Spider-Man (with Steve Ditko)
The Incredible Hulk (with Jack Kirby)
The Mighty Thor (with Jack Kirby and Larry Lieber)
X-Men (with Jack Kirby)
The Avengers (with Jack Kirby)

Tropes associated with Stan Lee:

Added Alliterative Appeal: Smilin' Stan adores alliterations. Which inevitably leads to...
Alliterative Name: Peter Parker, Bruce Banner, Reed Richards... the list goes on. Justified, in that Stan was working on more than a dozen comics at any given time when he created those names, and the alliteration served as a mnemonic. Sometimes it didn't work, which is why the Hulk's full name is "Robert Bruce Banner" (one issue called him "Bob Banner" over and over), and why an early issue of Amazing Spider-Man listed Peter Parker as "Peter Palmer". This was parodied in an episode of The Big Bang Theory.
- He even had this in real life with his brother Larry Lieber.
- He also ended up giving his co-workers alliterative nicknames — in addition to his own "Smilin' Stan," there was "Jazzin' Johnny Romita," "Adorable Artie Simek," and others.
Author Appeal: Better known for what he doesn't like in comic books — mainly excessive violence and teen sidekicks.
Author Avatar:
- In Karakuridouji Ultimo, the Big Bad looks exactly like him. Even the American Shonen Jump lampshades this.
- In Heroman, Stan appears as a patron in the restaurant Joey works at who's always drinking coffee.
- He originally created J. Jonah Jameson so there would be a character he could play in an adaptation, which ended up never happening despite the numerous adaptations featuring him (and hey, J.K. Simmons played such a good JJJ).
Badass Moustache
Big Applesauce: He's a native, and it definitely shows. ("Excelsior!" is also the New York State motto.)
Catchphrase:
- "Excelsior!"
- "Face front, true believers!"
- "'Nuff said!"
City of Weirdos/Some Nutty Publicity Stunt: Stan uses these a lot. If something weird is going on in midtown Manhattan, count on seeing a jaded New Yorker who's certain that it's someone filming a movie or "Some Nutty Publicity Stunt."
- He even played one of those in The Avengers!
Comes Great Responsibility: The Trope Namer.
Comic Book Time: Lee was in charge when Marvel first began to abandon its real-time storytelling in favour of "Marvel time" in 1968. The statement that comics do not represent change, but "the illusion of change" is usually attributed to either him or Marv Wolfman.
Cool Old Guy: So much so that he is the page's image.
Cool Shades: One really can't imagine Stan the man without his dark specs.
Creator Cameo: Stan has always enjoyed this trope, both in the comics themselves and elsewhere. It's been joked that he has the superpower to appear in any media, so observe:
- He even cameos in anime that somewhat involved him, too.
- In Ultimo he's actually the Big Bad!
- He appeared as a bus driver in Heroes.
- He's appeared in a number of Marvel Comics as himself:
  - Most famously, Stan showed up at the wedding of Reed Richards and Sue Storm with Jack Kirby — only to be denied entry!
  - Stan showed up (with artist Stan Goldberg) in one Millie the Model story, as the creators of a comic book starring Millie.
  - In 1997, almost every Marvel Comics series had a special issue as part of a campaign called Marvel Flashbacks. Stan appeared in each story as the Narrator.
  - A series of 2006 one-shots called Stan Lee Meets (e.g. Stan Lee Meets the Thing, Stan Lee Meets Doctor Doom, etc.) was built around this trope.
  - Shows in Vol 1 on Marvel Mangaverse along with fellow creator Jack Kirby as one of Captain Marvel's neighbors.
- He has contractually-obliged cameos in every movie based on one of his works, and usually appears in Marvel movies he isn't contractually obliged to get cameos in. As for his cameos:
  - Spider-Man Trilogy: In 1, a heroic bystander who saves a kid from falling debris. In 2, another bystander. In 3, a bystander who poetically muses about Spider-Man to Peter in the beginning.
  - Hulk: A security guard getting into an elevator with Lou Ferrigno.
  - The Incredible Hulk: The civilian who is poisoned by Banner's irradiated blood in the beginning. Considering how his The Simpsons persona is a Cloud Cuckoo Lander who thinks he can actually turn into Hulk like described below, it's amusing to think him actually doing so in the movie as well.
  - Daredevil: A man reading a newspaper who almost walks out into traffic only to be stopped by the blind kid Matt Murdock.
  - Fantastic Four: Willie Lumpkin, the Baxter Building's mailman. In Rise of the Silver Surfer he plays himself trying to get into the wedding, a Call Back to the same thing in the actual comics.
  - Iron Man: He plays a person who was mistaken for Hugh Hefner by Tony. In 2 he is mistaken for Larry King. Whether he is actually supposed to be these people is unknown.
  - Thor: He plays a New Mexico local with a truck trying to pull Mjolnir from its spot. Credited as Stan the Man.
  - Captain America: The First Avenger: He plays an Army general in a crowd who loses the opportunity to see Rogers because he left on another mission, but mistakes the messenger for Capt. "I thought he'd be taller." This is a semi-exception as, while Lee didn't create the character, he did serve as Timely Comics' editor during the Golden Age, not to mention introducing Cap to the Silver Age and creating Cap's trademark move of throwing his shield.
  - X-Men: In the first film, he appears as a random beachgoer who watches Senator Kelly emerging from the ocean. In the third film, he appears in the beginning of the film as a neighbor of a young Jean Grey watering his lawn (a scene in which fellow X-Men writer Chris Claremont also cameos).
  - The Avengers: Near the end of the film, Stan shows up as a man playing chess in the park, who is interviewed by a news crew regarding the events of the movie's finale. His character believes it all to be a hoax.
  - He also pops up in one of the deleted scenes as a guy at a cafe who alerts Cap to the waitress's interest.
  - The Amazing Spider-Man: During Spidey and the Lizard's fight, he plays an oblivious librarian who listens to classical music with noise-cancellation headphones while the fight goes on behind him. He reprises the cameo in How It Should Have Ended's episode on the movie where he blames the Avengers for the mess and warns them he's got his eyes on them.
- He appears as himself in the series finale of Spider-Man The Animated Series when Madam Web brings together several Spider-Mans from alternate universes, one of whom is an actor who plays him in the real world.
- He voices a dock worker who's also modeled after him in The Spectacular Spider-Man.
- He plays Stan the Janitor in Ultimate Spider-Man
- In MTV's Spider-Man he voices a hallucination urging Peter to forsake Spider-Man.
- Also showed up in Mallrats. One of the first few times he did cameo in a movie that wasn't based on a Marvel property.
- He appears in every Marvel-themed episode of Bad Days, and eventually starts making cameos in episodes focused on characters not created by Marvel.
- A Robot Chicken sketch about a musical starring the Avengers has him play the piano, and also share a fact that adds a touch of irony to shipping Black Widow and Hawkeye.
Deadpan Snarker: Like you would not believe. As shown here and here. The videos is a debate for DC's game Injustice, where people debate match ups of characters in the game and who would win. Lets just say, we now know where Spider-Man got it from.
Fan Nickname: He's known as "Stan the Man" to his fans. Some movies he's been in, such as Mallrats and Thor, even credit him as such.
Grumpy Old Man: Often portrays himself this way for humor, such as in his "Stan's Rants" series.
Happily Married: To his wife Joan, almost to the point of Single-Target Sexuality.
Historical Villain Upgrade: Frequently gets this from partisans of co-creators like Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko — though admittedly he's never been good at sharing credit (then again, neither were Kirby and Ditko).
Hoist by His Own Petard: Inverted — he caused this with an anti-drug comic (commissioned by the US Government) that the Comics Code Authority refused to approve due to arcane language that did not permit any portrayal of drugs, whether positive or negative. He ran it anyway, and the CCA ended up looking like idiots. The CCA very quickly rewrote the Code to allow negative or cautionary portrayals of drug use, inadvertently helping to usher in the Bronze Age Of Comic Books. More than likely as a result, the influence of the Code itself began to wane in the following decades (eventually leading Marvel — among other companies — to abandon it altogether).
In Case You Forgot Who Wrote It: "Stan Lee Presents" appeared on all Marvel issue titles for decades (because he was Marvel's publisher at that time, though not a writer except for the occasional special project).
Jerkass: Stan often portrays himself as a bit of a Jerkass in comics where "Stan Lee" is a character. Stan has also said (presumably at least somewhat in jest) that he based legendary jerkass J. Jonah Jameson on himself, or at least the way he thought comics readers imagined him. He was also kind of crusty when he appeared on The Big Bang Theory (then again, Sheldon did show up at his house and promptly went inside of it without his permission).
- Taken to its logical conclusion where he's the Big Bad of Ultimo.
- And then there's his role as "principal Stanley" in Mini Marvels, where once Spidey starts angsting — justifiably — about his status as a Butt Monkey, causes Stan to look awkward once he mentions "who decided this to happen to me?".
- Ascends in X-Play, where "Roger the Stan Lee Experience" recounts tales of doing Jack Kirby's wife and stealing credit for Kirby's success.
- Also happens in his guest spot on Chuck - where it's implied that his whole career has been some sort of CIA operation.
- Likewise his cameos on Robot Chicken.
Kid Sidekick: He doesn't like the trope and has likened it to endangerment of minors — hence the death of Bucky Barnes. He totally subverts this trope later on with Johnny Storm being a team member rather than just a sidekick. And, ultimately, Spider-Man being the first lone teen super hero of his kind. He also admits how hypocritical this is.
- Considering this, though, one wonders how he allowed Rick Jones to be this to the Avengers in the early stories.
Large Ham: His public persona.
Man Child: One of his appearances on Robot Chicken portrayed him as this. With him providing the voice, no less.
Narrator: Given half a chance.
The Nicknamer: Responsible for nicknaming the majority of the Marvel Bullpen and characters.
Purple Prose: A peerlessly pounding pantheon of pulse-poundingly purple prose! Nobody does it better, true believers!
Self-Deprecation: Many times. See Jerkass above. He also appeared in an episode of The Simpsons, where he acts like a Cloudcuckoolander — or, as Comic Book Guy put it, "I am starting to suspect his mind is no longer in mint condition."
Stan: (After seeing Homer go on a minor rampage where he coincidentally got green paint all over him) He's not the Incredible Hulk! I'M the Incredible Hulk! (Yells and tries to Hulk Out) C'mon change dammit! Grrr, I did it once before!
Take That: In his Just Imagine series, he makes Robin a bad guy. Knowing how he hates sidekicks, doing that to the character that popularized comic book sidekicks would seem more like this than just trying to make him a complex character.
- In his recent colab with How It Should Have Ended, he gave his views on how certain films should've ended. He then shows three more, each showing him interrupt George Lucas while he's writing each of the Star Wars prequels, then tossing the script of each into the fireplace.
Villain Decay: While his heroes and writing style are still iconic today, his storytelling style is also somewhat infamous for really introducing a lot of this to Marvel villains — he'd have them say things like "This time my brilliant plan will destroy those meddling heroes!!!" without any sense of irony, even after the villain listed all the times they'd already gotten stomped. In the early 1960s, it still kind of worked; by 1969 or so, not so much. Much of his own later work — not to mention a great deal of comicry that followed in his footsteps — had to spend time fighting the villainous cliches he himself constructed.
What Could Have Been: The entire point of Just Imagine Stan Lee Creating The DC Universe.