Getty Stan Lee at San Diego Comic-Con
The entertainment world mourned on Monday, as comic book artist Stan Lee passed away. Lee, 95, helped create some of the most indelible superheroes of the modern age and is seen by many as a legend in his own right, appearing in nearly every Marvel film adaptation.
Lee’s cameos have become something of a superhero tradition, particularly in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, where he appeared as a different character in each film. You can watch all of these Lee cameos, spanning 1989 to 2018, below, with interstitial credits noting the film they come from.
Stan Lee Appeared In Over 40 Marvel Films & TV Shows
Lee’s first cameo role was in the 1989 TV movie The Trial of the Incredible Hulk. He played a jury foreman in the trial of Dr. David Banner, and did not have any lines. Lesser known cameos in Lee’s resume can be found in 1998’s Blade, where he played a policeman who discovers a burning body, and the 2003 adaptations of Daredevil and Hulk, where he played a man walking on the street and a security guard, respectively.
Lee appeared in five of the eleven installments of the X-Men series, including 2000’s X-Men, 2006’s X-Men: The Last Stand, 2016’s X-Men: Apocalypse, and both of the Deadpool films. Lee’s presence, or lack thereof, has also been cited as the reason why certain Marvel properties fail to connect with critics and/or audiences. Notable examples include 2007’s Ghost Rider, 2009’s X-Men Origins: Wolverine and 2015’s Fant4stic. When asked about the failure of the latter, Lee told Larry King: “It’s probably because I didn’t have a cameo in it.”
Lee Joked That Certain Marvel Films Flopped Because He Didn’t Appear In Them
Lee told Marvel HQ that the prize for his favorite cameo goes to another 2015 film, Avengers: Age of Ultron. “Well, I think the cameo that’s my favorite is the one I did [with] Thor,” he said. “I’m standing in a bar with him and he’s drinking this Asgardian drink, which is very powerful, and I ask for a sip and he says, ‘No, it would kill you,’ and I insist. And he gives me a sip and then in the next scene, they’re carrying me out.”
“Now you’re saying to yourself, ‘Why is this Stan’s favorite cameo?’ and you haven’t thought of the real reason,” he continued. “It’s the only one I did that has two scenes. So I’m hoping it does well. Next time, they’ll give me three scenes. You never know where it’ll end.” The scene also features Lee saying his signature line “Excelsior!”
Lee Already Shot His Cameo for the Upcoming ‘Avengers 4’
Lee had an especially busy cameo year in 2018, as he appeared in Black Panther, Avengers: Infinity War, Ant-Man & the Wasp, and Venom. He also made an animated cameo in the DC release Teen Titans Go! To the Movies. Check it out above.
While Lee will no longer be on hand to cameo in future Marvel properties, director Joe Russo did confirm that he had already shot his cameo for the upcoming Avengers 4. “So, Stan, typically we try to get him out — he doesn’t love to fly — so we try to get him out for his cameos around the same time,” Russo told CBR. “So if we have other movies shooting on the same lot that we’re on, for instance Ant-Man 2 or Avengers 4, we group his cameos together and then move him from one set to the next and kind of get him through his cameos in one day.”
Avengers 4 is set for release on May 3, 2019.
