Who Did Marvel's Stan Lee Inspire You To Be?

Image by Gage Skidmore @ Flickr

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By Asif Valiji, Associate Partner & Mentorship Coach, Lighthouse International

Last week saw the death of one of the fathers of modern-day imagination, Stan Lee, co-creator of the Marvel comic books.

Stan Lee died at the age of 95 and he was someone who helped us appreciate the power of our imagination and the choice we have to become whoever we want to be. The superhero characters he co-created have inspired generation after generation by giving us examples heroes who while infinitely powerful, were also flawed and relatable.

What Made Stan Lee Different To The Rest? 

Mr Lee had a unique perspective on comic book characters. His legacy will be remembered for many years to come through co-creating characters like Spider-man, Iron Man and Black Panther. Most notable of all, many people will remember him for how his characters made them feel. Stan Lee had a special intention which was to create human beings that had superpowers. That way, we could all relate to their unique challenges and situations. 

Whether it’s being driven by the fear of losing our loved ones like Tony Stark (Iron Man) or being riddled by the guilt of our past mistakes like Peter Parker (Spider-Man) we can all relate at some level to these very human challenges.

As Stan Lee said himself: 

“I don’t think superpowers automatically means there won’t be any personality problems, family problems or even money problems. I just tried to write characters who are human beings who also have superpowers."

Image by Raschu @ Flickr

In creating very human aspects of his superheroes; he made them much more relatable to every single one of us while remaining inspiring.

The message was - we can either live our lives empowered by the choice of our imagination to strive for something better and do what we can to help others or we can just settle and get by day-to-day by and not dream. The decision is ours.

Do we want to live our lives by design or by default?

Thank you for your example Mr Lee.

To honour Stan Lee and fire your own imagination, please share your answer to the questions below: 

I look forward to seeing your answers and I am sure, like Mr Lee, you can inspire someone today as well. Here's a tribute video to his life's work. 

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