Stan Lee, the creator of iconic superheroes such as Spider-Man, Iron Man, the Hulk, Black Panther and a cavalcade of other Marvel Comics superheroes who went on to enthrall generations of young readers, died this morning in Los Angeles at age 95.

Lee was best known for creating memorable superheroes for Marvel which became the world's most popular publisher of comic books, and the basis for a long series of Hollywood blockbusters based on the characters, including The Avengers movies, in which Lee made cameo appearances.

His daughter J.C. said an ambulance rushed to his Hollywood Hills home on Monday morning and he was taken to hospital, where he died.

She said: "He felt an obligation to his fans to keep creating. He loved his life and he loved what he did for a living. His family loved him and his fans loved him. He was irreplaceable. My father loved all of his fans. He was the greatest, most decent man."

In collaboration with artists such as Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko he created superheroes who would enthrall generations of young readers.

Lee began with The Fantastic Four, going on to create the rest of the inhabitants of the Marvel univers

Stan Lee was as extraordinary as the characters he created,” Bob Iger, Chairman and CEO of The Walt Disney Compnay, said in a tribute to the comic legend. “The scale of his imagination was only exceeded by the size of his heart,” he added.

Born in 1922 to poor working-class Jewish immigrants from Romania, Stanley Martin Lieber got a job in Timely Publications - that would eventually become Marvel Comics - a company owned by a relative, reported BBC.

He was assigned to the comics division and - thanks to the reach of his imagination - rose to editor by the age of 18.

Americans were already familiar with superheroes before Lee, in part due to the 1938 launch of Superman by Detective Comics, the company that would become DC Comics, Marvel’s archrival.

For more than 20 years, he was "the ultimate hack" - knocking out crime stories, horrors, westerns, anything to sate the appetite of his juvenile readership.

Words of more than two syllables were discouraged. Characters were either all good or all bad, with no shades of grey, he recalled.

So embarrassed was Lieber by much of what he was writing that he refused to put his real name on the by-line. He assumed the "dumb name", Stan Lee, which he later legally adopted.

By the time he was 40, Lee had decided he was too old for the comic game. His British-born wife, Joan, suggested he had nothing to lose and, for his swansong, should write the kind of characters he really wanted to create.

After a rival comic had come up with a superteam consisting of Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman, Timely needed to respond.

Lee's answer, in 1961, was the Fantastic Four - a team of astronauts who gained super powers after being bombarded with cosmic rays.

They were to change Lee's life, and the comics industry, forever.

Lee gave each character individual, everyday teenage problems such as dandruff and acne. They would frequently fall out with their parents and each other.

The fan letters poured in. Without immediately knowing it, Stan Lee had ushered in the so-called 'silver age' of comics, and his imagination was rekindled. His Marvel universe spawned the new title of Marvel Comics.

Soon after, nerdy Peter Parker was transformed - after a bite from an irradiated spider - into someone who could crawl up the sides of New York's skyscrapers. Spider-Man was born.

He was to become an icon of modern popular culture. Spidey, as he is affectionately known, had quite extraordinary powers - yet he had problems at work, at home and with his girlfriends.

Lee was known for his cameo roles in most Marvel films, pulling a girl away from falling debris in 2002’s “Spider-Man” and serving as an emcee at a strip club in 2016’s “Deadpool.” In the 2018 box-office hit “Black Panther,” which featured Lee’s leading black superhero, he was a casino patron.

In 2009, Disney bought Marvel Entertainment for $4 billion to expand Disney’s roster of characters, with the most iconic ones having been Lee’s handiwork.

“There will never be another Stan Lee,” said Chris Evans, who starred as Captain America in Marvel movies. “For decades he provided both young and old with adventure, escape, comfort, confidence, inspiration, strength, friendship and joy.”