Stan Lee, the legendary writer, editor, and publisher who co-created some of Marvel Comics‘ most popular and enduring superheroes, has died. According to The Hollywood Reporter, he passed away in the early hours of Monday morning at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles. He was 95 years old.

Along with artist Jack Kirby, who died in 1994, Lee helped usher in Marvel’s revolution in the 1960s and beyond with characters and titles like the Fantastic Four, Hulk, Iron Man, Thor and the X-Men. With Bill Everett, he penned the first pages occupied by Daredevil, and with Steve Ditko, he introduced readers to Doctor Strange and Spider-Man. Lee and Kirby later combined many of these characters, as well as older characters like Captain America, into Marvel’s first Avengers crossover series.

More recently, the retired comic book impresario had found new life as the public face of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the hugely popular interconnected world of film adaptations of his many creations. From popping up in numerous cameos in every MCU movie to date to regularly promoting Disney subsidiary’s latest offerings at premieres and elsewhere, Lee’s connection to these characters and the audiences who love them had only grown stronger with time.

Sadly, his final years were plagued with controversy, including accusations of elder abuse made against his daughter and a restraining order filed against an ex-business partner when money went missing. Much of this came to pass soon after Joan Lee, Stan’s wife of 70 years, died in 2017.

(Via The Hollywood Reporter)