Excelsior!: The Amazing Life of Stan Lee

The man behind Spider-Man, The X-Men, The Incredible Hulk, and a legion of other superheroes tells his own amazing story in a book packed with punch, humor, anecdotes, and a gallery of never-before-seen photographs.

Stan Lee is the most legendary name in the history of comicbooks. The leading creative force behind the rise of Marvel Comics, he brought to life some of the world's best-known heroes and most infamous villains. His stories, featuring super- heroes who struggled against personal hang-ups and bad guys who possessed previously unseen psychological complexity, added wit and subtlety to a field previously locked into flat portrayals of good vs. evil. Lee put the human in the super-human. In the process, he created a new mythology for the twentieth century.
In this treasure trove of marvelous memories, Stan tells the story of his life with the same inimitable wit, energy, and offbeat spirit that he brought to the world of comicbooks. He moves from his impoverished childhood in Manhattan to his early days writing comicbooks, followed by military training films during World War II, through the rise of the Marvel empire in the 1960s to his recent adventures in Hollywood.
The story of a man who earned respect by blazing new creative trails in a storytelling form once dismissed as just for kids, Excelsior! is an inspirational story about following one's vision, no matter the odds. Yet it's also the story of how some of the most exciting and memorable characters in the pop-culture universe came to thrill a generation.

Stan Lee (1922–2018) began his long career with wartime Timely Comics, but “the Man” made comic book history with Fantastic Four #1, harbinger of a bold new perspective in comic book writing that endures to this day. With some of the industry’s greatest artists, he introduced hero after hero in The Incredible Hulk, The Amazing Spider-Man, The Uncanny X-Men, and more, forming a shared universe for rival publishers to measure themselves against. After a lifetime’s worth of writing and editing, Lee was involved in movies and television via his company POW! Entertainment. He was Marvel’s chairman emeritus and best-known public representative.