Captain Marvel is poised to be the first major blockbuster of 2019, with fans eager to get what could be the biggest year for the MCU yet started. However, amongst all the excitement, there’s a note of melancholy. After all, Captain Marvel will be the first Marvel Studios effort to be released since Stan Lee died last November.
His cameos in comic book movies have become iconic, with generations of new fans learning to recognize and appreciate the man responsible for their favorite heroes. Thankfully, then, Lee will be making a cameo in Captain Marvel (and given that he filmed his roles for multiple projects in one block, he may well be appearing in Avengers: Endgame and Spider-Man: Far From Home, too), but that’s not the only tribute the movie will pay to him.
Spoilers to follow…
In previous MCU films, the studio’s opening sequence has shown off their heroes in their most iconic moments. The first iteration had flashes of panels from the comics, with the current one showing us the heroes of the MCU in person. But Captain Marvel‘s opening sequence is different, giving us a short compilation of all of Stan Lee’s cameos from across the Marvel Cinematic Universe movies. Given that I got a bit of dust in my eye at Lee’s cameo in Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, I expect this is going to be a pretty emotional experience.
Obviously, I’m not looking forward to the day when we get a Marvel Studios movie without an appearance by Lee, so hopefully, they can figure out some kind of visual motif or Easter Egg that references one of the true icons of comic book history and reminds us whose imagination these characters sprung from. Until that day, I’m going to savour every single second of Lee we get in the MCU until then. Including what we see of him in Captain Marvel.
