March’s Captain Marvel was the first MCU movie to be released following the sad passing of Stan Lee last November, and Marvel Studios made sure to include a touching tribute to the man who made it all possible. As well as his customary cameo in the film itself, the movie opened with a twist on the typical Marvel Studios fanfare.
With Captain Marvel gearing up for home release, the tribute has now found its way online and you can give it a watch down below to remind yourself of how it got us all teary before the film even started. In place of the usual character artwork and clips from previous entries in the franchise, it’s instead accompanied by art of Stan himself and snippets of his various cameos. A message then reads: “Thank you Stan.”
Of course, Lee’s cameo in Captain Marvel was also one of his most memorable – and meta. Carol Danvers passed him on a train, where he was reading the script for Mallrats and practicing his lines. This was a nod to the fact that Stan had a cameo in the 1995 Kevin Smith movie, meaning this was one of the few cameos where the comic book legend played himself.
This was followed by his role in Avengers: Endgame, which we’re told was the final cameo Stan recorded and allowed the Marvel creator to get in on the de-aging game, with CGI used to shave 45 years off as the film featured him as a hippy driving by a S.H.I.E.L.D. base in the 1970s.
It’ll be heartbreaking when Spider-Man: Far From Home rolls by and doesn’t feature a cameo from Stan the Man, but at least we’ve had years and years’ worth of walk-on parts for the legendary comic book writer, something this Captain Marvel opening fanfare reminds us of.
