The billions earned from characters Stan Lee co-created, charted

Stan Lee’s death on November 12 has brought new attention to the value of the cast of superheroes and villains he co-created with artists like Jack Kirby, and Steve Ditko. Many of the hundreds of characters he is associated with turned into multi-million and -billion dollar franchises.

Films based on characters Lee created have grossed about $27 billion worldwide, even before adding in the revenue from comic books, lunch boxes, action figures and the like.