Over the past 20 years, Marvel has gone from the verge of bankruptcy to being the dominant entertainment company in the world. Marvel properties began their domination of the box office in 2000, with the first X-Men film, and continued with the Spider-Man franchise, culminating in the 2008 creation of the Marvel Cinematic Universe and Iron Man.

All of those characters–the X-Men, Spider-Man, Iron Man, and the Avengers–were created by Lee and his collaborators (most notably Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko). While he wasn’t responsible for every one we’ve seen on the screen–Captain America and Wolverine, most notably, pre- and post-dated Lee–much of what the world is captivated by in cinema right now is the product of Lee’s imagination. But if Lee had his way, it would have started decades ago.

“I wish it had happened overnight,” Lee admits in a conversation the week of the release of Avengers: Age Of Ultron. “I’m not a patient guy–I wish this had all happened 30, 40, 50 years ago, but I’m glad it happened. I’m glad I’m still around while it is happening, because it’s incredibly enjoyable.”

Lee spent much of the ’80s and ’90s focused on trying to develop Marvel’s properties for television and movies, but aside from a few successes–the Incredible Hulk TV show, a bad Howard The Duck film, some Spider-Man and Fantastic Four cartoons–the Marvel age of Hollywood didn’t begin until the new millennium. But all of that has culminated in movies that don’t just exist, but exceed expectation. Here’s how Stan Lee sees the evolution of his career–and of Marvel–over that time.





Stan Lee’s real name, famously, isn’t actually Stan Lee. It’s Stanley Leiber, but–as he’s explained multiple times in his “Stan’s Soapbox” column in the back of Marvel books over the decades–he used the pseudonym to save his real name for the literary works he dreamed of creating in prose, while he wrote comics to pay the bills in the ’50s and ’60s. But when asked to identify the turning point in his career, Lee quickly identifies the merging of the two ambitions.

“I think the biggest decision I ever made was to stay in comics. Years ago–just before I started The Fantastic Four, which was the first superhero book I did–I wanted to quit, because nobody had any respect for comics. I figured, ‘Why am I in a field where I’m embarrassed to say what I’m doing?’” Lee recalls. “And my wife told me to stick it out. She said, ‘Write a few books the way you want to do it, instead of the way they tell you to do it. The worst that’ll happen is you’ll get fired, but you want to quit anyway.’ So that’s when I did The Fantastic Four, and luckily it sold better than all the other books.”