RIP Stan Lee

It’s not often I sit down to write about the passing of a “celebrity”, but when it is one that I feel has had some effect on my life, I have to take the time to give them the praise they deserve. Today, we lost a true icon in the world on Geekdom, if you will. Today, we lost the legendary Stan Lee. Yes, I realize Stan was 95 years old, so this really shouldn’t be a tremendous shock. I realize Stan has not been doing very well for some time, but that doesn’t make this hurt any less. No, I didn’t know Stan personally, but that doesn’t mean I can’t have felt a connection to the man and his immense history of work he gave to the world.

Some people will say “The guy made comic books, slow down. He didn’t solve world hunger.” No, he didn’t solve world hunger, but he created a way to escape the world for millions of people. An escape where people could go somewhere and pretend to be someone else, something else, a place of fantasy where for a small amount of time, all could be right with your world. His work in comics gave us all a brand new world of fantasy even beyond the pages. His work lead to a series of movies that people flock to the theaters in droves to finally see on the big screen, come to life. His work took that escape from page to screen, creating an even more immersive world to get lost in. His creations gave people characters to look up to, characters people want to be like, aspire to be like, even though they are fictional. Just look at the list of characters he created or had a hand in helping to create:

The Hulk

Doctor Strange

The Fantastic Four

Daredevil

Black Panther

The X-Men

Ant-Man

Iron Man

Thor

and of course, my all time favorite, Spider-Man.

For a guy who grew up reading Marvel comics, this is a list that I’m fairly sure I could not live without these days. These are all characters I am in some way invested in and have loved for as long as I can remember. And its not just that, it’s what grew out of my love for these characters. I have many friends who all grew up reading these comics, also loving these characters. I have discussions to this day about each and everyone one of them, on one level or another. They became part of an every day world because they were once a vision in Stan Lee’s head. My brother and I certainly became closer over all the years of his buying comics, or my buying comics, to read and share back and forth, to discuss ad nauseum about, and to one day pass along to his son, my nephew. These are things you can not measure in price or importance, all given to us by an imagination we may never see the likes of again.

All you need to do is look over social media today, look at the incredible amount of people who are telling stories of interactions with Stan, thanking him for what they have today, praising him for allowing them to play in his toy box, to even become the physical embodiment of his imagination. You don’t see this kind of outpouring often, and in this case, it is most certainly deserved.

Stan also created one of the greatest, and very commonly improperly said, sayings of all time. “With great power, must come great responsibility.” Most people will say “With great power, comes great responsibility.” It’s close, but that subtle difference? It’s an important difference. This is a statement that could not be more powerful today. I think its one we all should really ponder on.

I’ll close this out today simply by saying thank you. Thank you, Mr. Lee, for the incredible things you have left for us. Thank you for a whole other world for us to get lost in. Thank you for sharing this amazing gift with us for so long. You, dear sir, will never, ever be forgotten.

Excelsior.