Amazingly there are a few people out there that would likely claim that Stan Lee doesn’t deserve a street to be named after him, but when you consider how much the man contributed to pop culture in this country, which is more important than some might want to believe, it’s definitely fitting and easier to agree with Craig Elvy of Screenrant and many others. As a lot of us know Mr. Lee passed away in late 2018 after a long and prosperous life spent bringing joy to a great many people. In truth naming a street after him doesn’t seem like quite enough, but when one looks around they might be able to see that Lee has been immortalized in a big way already, even if it would seem that he’s deserving of much more. Comic books fans weren’t so much devastated as they were respectful of the passing of this individual as he managed to bring a great deal of enjoyment to so many during his time. For a long time Stan Lee was who people thought of when it came to Marvel comics. Of course favored artists and writers were prominent throughout the decades, but Lee was almost at the top of the pile, guiding the company and bringing up new stories and characters, or helping along the way, as the company continued to grow.
To date Marvel is one of the biggest powerhouses in entertainment, and after the coming of the MCU it was apparent that the legends of the comics were bound to be immortalized in a way that would make certain that they will remain for generations to come. Now the city that birthed and housed the man responsible for so much of the MCU’s creation will be given another small but meaningful bit of respect that will continue to remind people that he was in fact here, and that his name and his presence were in fact important. What we do in this life is, as many might know, what is used to procure our legacy for future generations, to insure that we’re remembered when we’re long gone and little more than a fond memory. Many of us fade away and don’t garner the consideration that is afforded to others who have stood in the spotlight and all but shouted their names so that others can hear, but through the legacy left behind in our many workings and contributions to society, we might find that so long as a few people remember what we’ve done and who we were, our memory won’t ever fade completely.
Stan Lee is a man about which many things can be said. He wasn’t perfect by any means, he wasn’t beloved by all every moment of his life, but his legions of fans and those that read the comics that he helped to start are likely to remember his name in a fond manner for many years to come. Those in New York will now have a chance to commemorate his existence in another way as streets tend to keep the names they’re given for quite some time. It’s easy to think that there might be an influx of selfies and pictures taken of this historical moment and those who want to prove that they’ve been to the street in the days and months to come, but it’s just as easy to think that in time people will simply come to know the street as a usual part of their lives, a bit of history that might need an explanation, but also one that will come with an interesting story.
Instead of giving the reader a long-winded history lesson on Lee and how Marvel was started, where he came from, and what his motivations were when getting into the business, it seems better to simply sit and reflect on the man and what he did meant to so many. You can read anywhere how he started out, what his life was like, and what he did during his time as the head of Marvel. What a lot of people seem to miss out on is the simple joy of walking into the comic store, or simply standing at the newsstand looking to see if a new issue came out or if there’s something worth looking at again. That simple enjoyment of picking up a comic with its bright display of color and taking a trip with the heroes and the villains as they progressed through their own stories, battling one another across cityscapes and other worlds, and sometimes across the very galaxy itself, was a joy that many of us can still likely remember. It’s one of the simple things in life that was brought to us by a very extraordinary man that dreamed of heroes, villains, gods, and other things that in time became the stuff of legend that we subscribed to. For that, Lee is bound to be remembered for many generations to come.
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