Comic book legend Stan Lee, who co-created some of the world's best-known superheroes, including Spider-Man, X-Men and the Hulk, has been recruited to create a new line of characters for Sir Richard Branson’s upstart Virgin Comics.

The new venture will see the 85-year-old, former president of Marvel Comics, back as both a writer and editor, overseeing a line of new comics that will be launched next year, including a title he is writing himself.

While sources at Virgin Comics would not provide information on the new characters, it said that it would centre on a team of ten superheroes of various backgrounds and origins.

"Stan Lee is a cultural icon and we welcome him to his new home, Virgin Comics, for this bold new chapter in his great legacy," said Sir Richard Branson, Virgin Group president and founder.

Virgin Comics, which was launched two years ago, recently announced that it is developing stories with celebrities such as Dave Stewart, Nicolas Cage and Guy Ritchie. Branson has also brought back vintage comic book hero Dan Dare.

Mr Lee ended his exclusive relationship with Marvel in the 1990s but still has ties to the company, including cameo roles in films Iron Man and The Incredible Hulk. He trained some of the industry's most influential figures in the industry under a system called the ‘Marvel Method’. While not commonly used in the industry today, Mr Lee's process enables the writer and artist to sculpt the story together from the ground up in iterative stages, rather than writers just delivering a full script to an artist.

As editor of this new superhero universe at Virgin, Mr Lee intends to work with artists in a similar fashion.

Virgin Comics launch in November 2005 saw Virgin Group enter a partnership with Gotham Entertainment Group, South Asia's leading comic publisher; Shekhar Kapur, the filmmaker, and Deepak Chopra, the author, to launch two companies, Virgin Animation in Bangalore and Virgin Comics in New York.

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