Stan Lee, trends’ creator: superheroes and young culture in the 1960s

Abstract

In this article we will use the essay mode to explain the market games present in the communication strategies of Stan Lee and Marvel. In the same way we will expose how Stan took advantage of the efervescent 1960s’ youth culture to create trends and benefit from the fashions that were emerging. As advertising agencies struggled to understand the young audiences, who wanted to break away from both childhood and square adults, Stan Lee filled college audiences and was applauded by students. We will attempt to explain how the charisma of Stan Lee has brought him closer to a status of visionary leader capable of manipulating modern symbols and myths and transforming them into a sort of cult through superheroic narratives. We will seek to elucidate how his existence helped to consolidate a community of fans and expand it to the huge box-office success that his creations have become and that persist beyond his death in the year 2018.