( CNN ) -- Editor 's note : Watch CNN 's TV theme week Comic Book Heroes from June 10-17 on World Report , CNN Newstream and I-desk . Last week a smartly dressed elderly gentleman sat patiently in a crowd on a sunny afternoon in New York City awaiting his part in a super-hero movie . Unusually , for an extra , the man was attracting as much attention as the film 's A-list cast . While Spider-man sweltered beneath his lycra suit , 90-year-old Stan Lee coolly answered questions from fans of his own , eager to know how he helped create the webbed super-hero , along with Iron Man , Thor , X-Men , The Hulk , The Fantastic Four and scores of other heroes of the Marvel Comic books . In an interview with CNN , the Godfather of comic book heroes downplayed his role in history , claiming he just did as he was told : . `` The publisher had me doing western magazines , crime magazines , men 's adventure magazines , even romance and teenage magazines and one day he came to me and he said you know one of our competitors has a book called The Justice League and it 's selling well and it 's a bunch of superheroes , why do n't we do some superhero magazines ? I said OK , I wanted to keep my job so I came up with The Fantastic Four and the others and that was the only reason . If my publisher had n't said 'let 's do superhero stories ' I 'd probably still be doing A Kid Called Outlaw , The Two Gun Kid or Millie the Model or whatever I was doing at the time . '' Lee admits that the superhero universe he co-created more than fifty years ago was almost entirely devoid of super-heroines . `` The reason there have n't been as many super-heroines as superheroes is when we first started doing these kind of stories , when Marvel was first doing The Fantastic Four and Spiderman and The X-Men there were many more men , there were many more males than females buying comic books so we always really directed our stories towards the male reader and we had male readers and male super-heroes . '' Nowadays he says , the female audience for comic book heroes is huge and hopes to see the shift reflected in the stories and their characters . More from Comic Book Heroes : Islamic superheroes team with Superman . `` Little by little this field became so popular that the boys ' sisters started reading the stories and getting interested in them . Now when we have a movie like Thor or the Avengers or Iron Man , you 'll get as many females going to the theatre as males therefore I predict you will see pretty much as many super-heroines as superheroes as time goes by . '' After half a century of seeing U.S. comic book giants Marvel and DC Comics exporting American heroes to the world , Lee feels it 's time for a change . `` We figured it 's about time that we had heroes who were n't just all American and what we would be more and what would be more interesting than having a superhero who is Chinese ? So Stan Lee created The Annihilator -- an animated character which he hopes will become the star of a super-hero movie co-produced with China . `` He has many of the Chinese characteristics and virtues that one would expect in a Chinese movie but we have successfully transferred them to a movie of worldwide appeal but we have n't lost the feeling of what it 's like to be a Chinese young man who is suddenly thrust in to an adventure which involves a super power and a super foe but he 's guided by the background , his own background and his Chinese heritage , the things he 's learned , the things he 's experienced . '' But how will China react to such an imported hero ? `` I see no reason why a Chinese audience would n't love a Chinese superhero created by an American or created by anyone else as long as the character is exciting and authentic and interesting . '' More from Comic Book Heroes : Test your knowledge in our superhero quiz ! Lee is also working on the launch of a digital comic book hero for India -- Chakra the Invincible . `` I think that audiences throughout the world love superheroes . I mean you could go back to the time of The Odyssey , whether it 's William Tell or El Cid . Every type , every nationality , every culture has had superheroes in their legends . People love that sort of thing . The Greek gods and so forth . '' He hopes the rise of the super-hero blockbuster movie will inspire young fans to follow in his footsteps . `` Every generation has its brilliant young people who want to do these films and I think that more and more talented people get involved and as long as that happens we will always have new and exciting themes for these films . '' Lee believes that this will ensure continuing interest in comic book characters which have stood the test of time . `` The thing about superhero stories , they are like fairy tales for grown ups . Every child loved reading fairy tales when he or she was a child . They were stories about monsters and witches and giants and magicians , well superhero stories have that same flavor but they are done for adults as well as for children . ''
Stan Lee is CEO of POW ! Entertainment . Spider-Man , Iron Man , Thor , X-Men , The Hulk , The Fantastic Four are some of the characters he has helped create . The female fan audience has grown over the past years , creating a market for more super-heroines . Lee is exploring new markets . Comment: