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The most popular of all cartoon shows aired by Bangladesh Television in the mid-1980s was undoubtedly 'Spider-Man'. With episodes that ran under 22 minutes, the cartoon featured one of the most popular superhero characters as he took on colourful villains and extraordinarily difficult situations.
The show and the character of Spider-Man were a hit among the children in Bangladesh. Over the next few years, most of them came across comic books featuring the character. Some of them began buying and collecting these comic books, more than two decades after the character had first appeared in the anthology comic book 'Amazing Fantasy 15' published by Marvel Comics in August, 1962.
One of the co-creators of this iconic character and former Editor of Marvel Comics was Stanley Martin Lieber, popularly known as Stan Lee. He had created Spider-man with artist Steve Ditko.
With collaborators like Ditko, Jack Kirby, John Romita Senior and many other comic book artists, Lee had created most of the other Marvel Comics characters including Iron Man, Fantastic Four, Hulk, Avengers, Black Panther, X-men, Dr. Strange and more.
On November 12, 2018, Stan Lee passed away at the age of 95 years at Cedars-Sinai Medical Centre, after battling pneumonia since February of this year.
Lee's death was mourned by people across the world as his works and life had touched a diverse range of readers, professionals and influenced mainstream entertainment over eight decades.
Lee's career had started early.
After joining Marvel Comics predecessor Timely Comics in 1939 at the age of 17, Lee wrote a two-page story titled "The Traitor's Revenge!" for Kirby and Joe Simon's Captain America issue no. 3 in 1941.
Around that year, he was named Interim Editor of the comic book company, after the previous editor quit. During the Second World War, he enlisted in the US Army where he wrote manuals and training films with a group that included Pulitzer-winner William Saroyan, Oscar-winner Frank Capra and others.
After the war, Lee returned to the comic-book company as its editor.
Marvel, known as Atlas Comics at this time, was lagging behind DC Comics. The latter had published the first superhero character 'Superman', who appeared in Action Comics #1 in 1938.
DC's superheroes used their superpowers to fight crime and super-villains in the comics. DC eventually brought their superheroes together to form 'The Justice League of America'. This became one of their best-selling titles at the time.
After Atlas Comics was renamed to Marvel Comics in 1961, Lee and Kirby created their own superhero team: the Fantastic Four. In the storyline, the four protagonists were family members who had superpowers but also had arguments and fights like real families.
As the characters were more relatable, Fantastic Four soon became a best-selling title. It paved the way for other characters like Spider-man, Hulk, Avengers, X-men, Daredevil and others around this time.
The readers of Marvel Comics loved the fact that besides having superpowers, these characters were essentially human. Peter Parker (Spider-man) had to work part-time at the Daily Bugle to support his family. Bruce Banner (The Hulk) was a scientific genius. But being an introvert, he was constantly bullied by peers and seniors.
The characters of the X-men, created by Lee and Kirby, was the most influential of all as these reflected social issues prevalent in the USA at the time. The X-men depicted persecution of 'mutants' by humans, which is often compared with real-life conflicts that were experienced by minority groups in USA.
Around 1972, Lee became the publisher and 'face' of Marvel Comics. He tried to take the content mainstream. He regularly attended Comic Conventions. He took Marvel Comic's characters to newspaper strips.
Around 1980, Lee moved to Los Angeles with hope of launching his characters on television and movies. Cartoon shows featuring the characters were already hits. Television shows featuring Spider-man, Hulk and other characters received mixed reactions.
Movies sector was still a territory where DC Comics had already made its mark with movies featuring Superman and Batman in the 80s and 90s.
This changed around 2000 when director Bryan Singer's version of X-Men became a blockbuster. Iron Man (2008) starring Robert Downey Junior also enjoyed phenomenal success.
But, due to dwindling revenue, Marvel Entertainment was bought off by The Walt Disney Company around December 2009. As a result, Disney now owns comics, television, characters and movies of Marvel.
Till Ant-Man and the Wasp (2018), Lee's characters featured in movies, have made a combined $17.60 billion at the box office. The popularity of Lee's characters is still riding high.
Despite all his success and accolades, Lee was mostly a polite person. He liked to help budding artists and writers. He regularly attended comic book conventions to meet his fans even during the last few years of his life.
On his death, Marvel Comics remembered Lee with a quote by himself: "I used to be embarrassed because I was just a comic-book writer while other people were building bridges or going on to medical careers. And then I began to realise: Entertainment is one of the most important things in people's lives. Without it, they might go off the deep end. I feel that if you're able to entertain, you're doing a good thing."