On November 12th, Marvel legend Stan Lee passed away at the age of 95 and the world is still reeling from the loss of the man who created so many of fiction’s finest superheroes. In a heartfelt tribute to Lee shared with Entertainment Weekly, Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige wrote about his final meeting with the comic book creator, saying the following:
“I went to his house to see him, and he reminisced about the cameos. We were talking about what was coming up, always looking to the future.
Did he know that his time was running out? I don’t know. In hindsight, he was slightly more wistful than I’d seen him before. He talked about the past more than I had ever heard him talk about the past. So maybe on some level, he knew.
When I sat down by his chair in our last meeting, the very first thing he said was: ‘I know you want me to star in the next movie, but I have to just stick to the cameos. You’ll have to leave the starring roles to the other actors. I’m sorry.’”
Lee’s final words to Feige sum up his ever-present sense of humor that made him so beloved by fans, and which he imbued his Marvel comics with back in the 1960s. More recently, his beloved cameos in every Marvel movie produced by Feige was where he was able to make us laugh.
Just this year, for example, Lee featured in Black Panther as an old gambler who took King T’Challa’s chips “for safe-keeping.” In Avengers: Infinity War, meanwhile, he was a disinterested school bus driver who tells his young charges: “What’s a matter with you kids? You never seen a spaceship before?” And finally, in Ant-Man and the Wasp, we see Wasp accidentally shrink his car as he delivers the hilarious punchline: “Well, the 60s were fun but now I’m paying for it.”
With three more MCU movies having already been filmed, fans are hopeful that we have a few more cameos from Lee left. In a previous interview, though, Feige was reluctant to either confirm or deny whether he’ll turn up in Avengers 4, Captain Marvel and Spider-Man: Far From Home, citing the great man’s love of surprises as the reason why he wouldn’t say.
Meanwhile, though it’s not part of the MCU, it’s been confirmed that Stan Lee will pop up in Sony’s animated Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse next month, so be sure to keep your eye out for him.
