What separated Marvel’s superheroes from their peers was their humanity.

Lee’s characters may have been able to turn invisible or set themselves on fire but they were real people first and foremost. They had foibles, they had weaknesses – and if they were Peter Parker they struggled to get a date.

“I tried to give them authenticity by making them more realistic,” Lee says of his original spandex-clad heroes. “Who do you know who has a really perfect life? I mean, I don’t care how rich the guy is, how sexy his wife is.

"There’s nobody who doesn’t have a hard time. I mean, when we were doing those books, Kennedy seemed to have a perfect life, and he got shot… Everybody has problems and everybody has secret sorrows.”