In November of last year, the world lost the legendary Stan Lee. Thankfully, though, the comic book creator was still able to shoot a couple of his classic cameos before he passed away. March’s Captain Marvel, for example, saw an unusually meta take on the tradition, as Lee played himself reading for his part in Kevin Smith’s Mallrats.
In Avengers: Endgame, meanwhile, Lee brought his run of cameos to a close. If you’ve seen the movie, and we imagine you have given its box office haul, you’ll know that Stan shows up when Cap and Iron Man travel back to 1970 to retrieve one of the Infinity Stones. Specifically, they head to a military base in hopes of finding Howard Stark and Hank Pym, and it’s here that we see Lee. He doesn’t get much time on screen, but the legend quickly drives by in a car and screams out the window, “make love, not war,” before speeding off.
It’s an entertaining and sweet cameo for Lee, but unfortunately, he never got to see it, or the film itself. Speaking in a recent Reddit AMA, Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige revealed that Stan Lee didn’t get the chance to watch Avengers: Endgame before passing away.
Stan loved to wait to see the final movie at the premiere, so unfortunately he did not get to see the finished movie. Stan got a download of the full story the day he came and shot his cameo.
That’s certainly tragic, and given that Feige says he liked to wait until the premiere to watch the film, it doesn’t sound like Lee would’ve had the chance to see Captain Marvel, either. But at least he got to shoot cameos for both Carol Danvers’ solo debut and Avengers: Endgame, and though he didn’t do anything for the upcoming X-Men: Dark Phoenix, director Simon Kinberg has already revealed that the much anticipated sequel will still contain some kind of tribute to the man.
Similarly, though we’re told he didn’t film a role for Spider-Man: Far From Home, it wouldn’t be surprising if Jon Watts’ movie also found a way of referencing the wall-crawler’s co-creator. Fingers crossed, eh?
