Larry Lieber

Lawrence D. Lieber (; born October 26, 1931) is an American comic book writer and artist best known as co-creator of the Marvel Comics superheroes Iron Man, Thor, and Ant-Man. He is also known for his long stint both writing and drawing the Marvel Western Rawhide Kid and for illustrating the newspaper comic strip The Amazing Spider-Man from 1986 to 2018. From 1974 to 1975, he was editor of Atlas/Seaboard Comics. Lieber is the younger brother of Stan Lee, who had been a writer, editor, and publisher of Marvel Comics.

Early life Larry Lieber was born in Manhattan, New York City, the second child of Romanian-Jewish immigrant parents Celia (née Solomon) (1894–1947) and Jack Lieber (1886–1968), and the brother of Stanley Martin Lieber, later known as Marvel Comics editor and impresario Stan Lee. When he was six months old, the family moved to The Bronx, settling at 1720 University Avenue, which Lee described as a one-bedroom, "third-floor apartment facing out back", with him and Larry sharing a bedroom and his parents using a foldout couch. At "about ten-and-a-half", with his brother in the U.S. Army, Lieber and his parents returned to Manhattan, moving to the Washington Heights neighborhood. Lee elsewhere described that move to a two-story, three-bedroom home at 1084 West Broadway as occurring in 1949, when Larry would have been 17 or 18. As Lieber recalled it to comics historian Daniel Best, "My mother died when I was 16. My brother was back from the Service, he was just married and he moved out outside of New York to Long Island. I lived with him for a while and it didn't work out so well. I wanted to leave, so I left. I was very young and I had a couple of jobs."

At 17, Lieber became a messenger for The New York Times and also found work at the Times Square studio of Sam Furber, a letterer whose work included movie posters. For roughly a year and a half, he lived in the since-defunct Hotel Manhattan Towers, a residence hotel at Broadway and West 76th Street in Manhattan.

Career

Early work In 1941, Lee was made the editor of Timely Comics, the future Marvel Comics, then a division of a publishing company owned by a relative, Martin Goodman. There Lieber began illustrating comic books; his first known credit is penciling and inking the four-page crime comics story "Cop on the Beat", by an unknown writer, in All True Crime #44 (cover-dated May 1951).

In 1951, he enlisted in the U.S. Air Force, beginning four years of military service. He again drew for his brother, editor Stan Lee, at the 1950s forerunner of Marvel Comics, known generally as Atlas Comics, though whether on staff or freelance is uncertain. Regardless, his next confirmed credit is penciling and inking the three-page story "A World to Conquer" in Journey into Unknown Worlds #52 (Dec. 1956), followed by stories in such Atlas romance comics as Love Romances, Love Tales, Stories of Romance, True Tales of Love and The Romances of Nurse Helen Grant in issues cover-dated April to August 1957 and July 1958. In 1958, following an economic downturn for the publisher and the firing of virtually all the comics staffers save Lee, "Stan said he wanted somebody to help him write, and he had nobody then; he was doing it all himself. I said, 'I'm not really a writer.' He said, 'Oh, I've read your letters.'"

Marvel superheroes and the Rawhide Kid Under Stan Lee plots, Lieber would go on to script the debut origin stories and other early appearances of the superheroes Thor (co-created with artist Jack Kirby) in Journey into Mystery, Iron Man (co-created with Kirby and Don Heck) in Tales of Suspense, and Ant-Man (co-created with Kirby) in Tales to Astonish.

As Stan Lee recalled, in his trademark jocular style, in 1974,

Lieber in 1999 remembered circumstances less hyperbolically: "Thor was just another story. I didn't think about it at all. Stan said, 'I'm trying to make up a character,' and he gave me the plot, and he said, 'Why don't you write the story?'" Under Lee's plotting, Lieber's eight Thor stories also introduced the Marvel characters Loki, Odin, and Balder, from the pantheon of Norse mythological gods; their home, Asgard; and Bifrost the Rainbow Bridge, which connected that realm to Earth.

After the debut Iron Man story in Tales of Suspense #39 (March 1963), however, Lee replaced Lieber with Robert Bernstein, writing as "R. Berns", for the next seven issues before Lee took over the reins himself for a few stories. Don Rico, writing as "N. Korok", followed for a two-issue stint. Lee then took over as regular writer for the next few years. Lieber wrote the first nine Ant-Man stories (following the character's non-costumed introduction months earlier) in Tales to Astonish #35-43 (Sept. 1962 - May 1963) before veteran Ernie Hart did five issues, followed by Lee taking over. As Lieber explained, Lee

... wasn't always the most patient person and I had problems [writing] the dialogue and he said, "Why did you say that? You could have said it this way, or this way or that way," and I'm realizing, yeah, I don't think of it that way or this way. So at any rate finally I think at one point he got a little exasperated and he said..."I'm going to hire some of the old pros." He remembered writers from the past. ... He still gave me work, he didn't want to take work away, but they were putting out a few more books. So he hired somebody and then the next week when I came back to him he said..."Larry, you know something, you're no good, but you're better than these other guys". So that was my first victory if you want to call that a victory, right. The others are worse than me.

Lieber largely left superheroes to write and pencil what would be his signature series, the Marvel Western Rawhide Kid, beginning with issue #41 (Aug. 1964) and continuing through 1973 (after which it became a reprint title).

... I'm a little unclear about leaving the superheroes and going to Rawhide Kid. I know that at the time I wanted — what's the expression? — a little space for myself or something, and I wanted to do a little drawing again. With the end of his run on Rawhide Kid, Lieber found little further Marvel work. He scripted and occasionally also drew the odd Western or Sgt. Fury war-comics story or a standalone tale in one of the Marvel line of black-and-white magazines such as Vampire Tales or Haunt of Horror. He considered seeking work at rival DC Comics, as some other Marvel writers and artists did, but found, "I was the only one who could never do that because that was the price for Stan being my brother. So I could never do that. ... They would have thought Stan Lee is sending over a spy or something you know. I would see what they're doing and go back or whatever the hell it was. So I couldn't do that, I couldn't work."

As Lieber, in a 1999 interview, described his experience as editor:

When I went there, Martin put out two kinds of books. He was putting out color comics, and he was also going to put out black-and-white comics like Warren and Marvel. Now, I knew nothing about black-and-white comics, right? My only experience was in the color comics. Jeff Rovin came from Warren, and he knew nothing about color comics. Martin unfortunately put Jeff in charge of all the color comics and put me in charge of the black-and-white books. It was an unfortunate thing, and basically what happened was that Jeff's books didn't turn out so well ... Martin had to pay high freelance rates, because otherwise nobody would work for a new and unproven company ... It didn't work out too well, and Jeff finally left angrily or something, and I had to take over all his books. At this point, business was bad, and I tried to do what I could. One of the things I had to do was to cut rates and tell people they were going to make less money, which was not an enviable position. Lee then offered him the editorship of Marvel UK, the New York City-based imprint that produced black-and-white reprint comics for the UK market, as well as new stories of the superhero Captain Britain. With co-scripter Gary Friedrich primarily, Lieber wrote the hero's seven-page lead feature in the weekly Captain Britain #24-37 (March 23 - June 22, 1977), and, with co-writer Jim Lawrence, Captain Britain adventures in Marvel UK's Super Spider-Man #233-246 (July 27-Oct. 26, 1977). Lieber also wrote and penciled two Spider-Man stories, in Web of Spider-Man #21 and 25 (Dec. 1986, April 1987). written by Lee and syndicated by the Register and Tribune Syndicate. He additionally began writing it in early 1979. Though he gave up the role of regular artist in Spring 1979 and the role of regular writer in mid-1982, he would still write and draw the occasional installment until the strip's end in September 1982. Lieber said Lee gave a rare compliment on the Hulk strip, telling his brother, "t's very good. Also I think it's even more dramatic than [the] Spider-Man [comic strip]". Lieber also penciled the Sunday page again from 1990 through at least 1995. He retired from pencilling the strip in July 2018. His final strip ran September 8, 2018.

Awards Lieber was a recipient of the San Diego Comic-Con's 2003 Inkpot Awards. In 2008, he was one of two recipients of that year's Bill Finger Award, which annually honors one living and one deceased comics creator. The award was presented on July 25, 2008, during the 2008 Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards ceremony at San Diego Comic-Con. In 2025, he was awarded the Inkwell Awards honorary Keeper of the Flame Award, for his seven decades of career achievements in the comic book industry as a writer, editor, and artist, including inking.