Joan Lee, the wife of Stan Lee, passed away Thursday in Los Angeles after suffering a stroke earlier in the week.
Stan Lee and his family said in a statement to The Hollywood Reporter:
“I can confirm the sad news that Joan Lee passed away this morning quietly and surrounded by her family. The family ask that you please give them time to grieve and respect their privacy during this difficult time.”
The two were married on Dec. 5, 1947. The pair had two children – J.C. (Joan Celia), who was born in 1950, and Jan, who died three days after her birth in 1953.
Marvel paid tribute to her in a statement on Thursday:
“We are so saddened to hear about the loss of Joan Lee. We lost a member of the Marvel family today and our thoughts and prayers go out to Stan and his daughter Joan in this difficult time.”
Lee credits Joan with inspiring him when he created the Fantastic Four. Depressed about his career and comics in general, Joan is said to have told him:
“Before you quit, why don’t you write one comic you are proud of?”
Joan Lee aherself wrote a novel, The Pleasure Palace, in 1987. According to her daughter, she had three more unpublished but finished novels.
Joan Lee was 95.
In some versions of the , . He was depressed about his career (Lee had dreams of becoming a serious novelist) and the state of comics (the industry in the 1950s was dominated by stories of war, science fiction and romance, genres he didn’t like) and contemplated leaving the business.
In 1981, the Lees moved from New York City to California so Stan could work on developing Marvel TV and film projects. Joan did voice work on two 1990s animated Marvel shows, Fantastic Four (as Miss Forbes) and Spider-Man (as Madame Web). She also made a cameo in 2016’s X-Men: Apocalypse.
On Friday, Stan’s Twitter account shared a cartoon of the husband and wife together, swinging off into the sunset.
R. I. P. May Christ save her.