New superhero Dirt Man will continue Stan Lee’s legacy posthumously

Stan Lee’s legend will continue in perpetuity, but his daughter has promised continued work on a new superhero to extend that legacy.

Stan Lee took Marvel Comics to a new level, as the creator of iconic characters like Spider-Man, Iron Man, the Incredible Hulk and the X-Men. As those characters have extended into movies, Lee’s cameos were memorable and often funny.

Lee passed away earlier this week,at age 95. His legacy is pop culture is incredible, and his Marvel movie cameos won’t be going away with confirmed appearances in the upcoming Captain Marvel and Avengers 4. The Marvel movie and comic universes can go on via existing characters for as long as anyone can imagine, but Lee’s daughter has unveiled work on a new character.

In an interview with TMZ, J.C. Lee said she and her father had started work on a superhero called Dirt Man. The concept was her’s originally, but Stan Lee had joined the creative process and was apparently working on the character as recently as last weekend, just before his death.

Lee vowed to continued developing Dirt Man in her father’s absence, though it’s unclear if the character would appear in comic or film first. As for Dirt Man’s powers or origin story, Lee only said “it’s very interesting” without offering any further details.

Dirt Man seems like a fairly tongue-in-cheek superhero name, not unlike Ant-Man. It also invites the idea he can manipulate dirt to fend off evil foes, or there could be some sort of environmental advocacy angle hidden in plain sight. If there’s one thing Stan Lee did best it was creating superheros who were relatable in their normal lives, so his influence on the creation of Dirt Man should be obvious (and welcome).

The myriad of current Marvel characters will keep Stan Lee’s legacy going virtually forever. But if Dirt Man sees the light, hopefully it’s a worthy, posthumous extension of that legacy.