Last November, soon after the passing of Stan Lee, Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige teased the fact that many of the comic book legend’s upcoming cameos in MCU films were already in the can. Fans got a look at one such cameo this week in Captain Marvel, which not only functioned as a touching send-off for Lee, but also completely changed the game in terms of MCU canon.
(The following contains minor spoilers for Captain Marvel.)
According to Nerdist, Lee’s brief appearance in the film—which takes place in 1995—finds him reading the script for Mallrats, the Kevin Smith comedy from that same year in which Lee has a substantial cameo. This means that, as opposed to playing a hapless museum security guard or FedEx delivery man as he has in previous Marvel films, Stan Lee is meant to be playing himself here. And this is about the point where the universe begins to bend back on itself.
You see, when Stan Lee meets Brodie in Mallrats, he discusses the fact that he created the Hulk and Spider-Man, two characters we know to physically exist in the reality of the MCU. So, what came first? Did Stan Lee think up these super-powered characters only to have them manifest in reality? Or does this imply that Stan Lee is more of journalist in the MCU, taking ideas from the world around him and putting them to paper? Also, how can a movie like Mallrats, which focuses on a group of emotionally stunted, comic book-obsessed suburbanites, exist in a world where there are literal comic book heroes?
For answers to these mind-boggling questions, we need only look back to Lee’s appearance in Guardians Of The Galaxy, Vol. 2, in which his character references one of his previous cameos. “Stan Lee clearly exists above and apart from the reality of all the films,” Feige said at the time. The thought of Lee continuing on in the MCU as some sort of eternal, intergalactic comic relief is a comforting one. After all, it’s Stan Lee’s world, we’re just playing in it.
Send Great Job, Internet tips to [email protected]
256 Comments
Could they not have de-aged him at all for the cameo? Or was all the de-aging money used up on Fury and Coulson?
I think de-aging requires a lot of scans of the actor’s face that would have been much more taxing on Stan than his quick cameos, which could be filmed in an afternoon.
How would that be taxing though? Put some dots on your face and spend maybe a hour recording that single line of dialogue or just facial movements? I get he was really old, but it seems like it wouldn’t be too terrible. Not to mention it wouldn’t have been as taxing as his other cameos.
How taxing is it to suspend your disbelief for 10 seconds?
Ya got me. Smells like someone shit in their cereal.
Bong!
Bong!
Don’t even get me started.
Too taxing, apparently.
When you’re over 90 and a victim of elder abuse, even the most mundane task is taxing.
Yeah, but Stan Lee has looked like that since Spider Man and His Amazing Friends. What could CGI accomplish for him that a little shoe polish in his ‘stach wouldn’t?
Because he was in his fucking 90s genius, and IF you look at him before he died, he sure as shit was NOT in the greatest of health….Its not that god damned hard to suspend disbelief for 10 seconds than it is to make a fucking 90+ year old man in poor health due stupid shit to please neckbeards….
Slow your damn roll, dude. Calm down, breathe. Count to 10. You’ll be alright.
i agree, i think it’s terrible that they let old people be in movies – ugh, so gross. I mean if they can’t go to the decency of de-aging old people even fro a brief cameo, than don’t put them in the movie, right? Who wants to see old people? Even little kids are scared of old people, and with GOOD reason! Old people are scary and ugly, what were they thinking putting Stanlee in the movie all au naturale?
OK, don’t try to put words in my mouth. That is absolutely not what I was getting at. I was making a comment that I’m sure some also thought. This was in no way an ageist comment, and the fact that you went there (not I) kinda speaks more to your character and your poor attempt to call someone out for an innocuous comment. So go join DeadpooliO in the safe space corner and calm yourself.
I mean it wasn’t intentionally so but thats how it read to me
ahaha – too funny! you are the one who asked why they didn’t de-age Stan Lee, not me.
PS. Whether other people were thinking the same thing or not doesn’t make your thoughts any less ageist.
You know he was like 95 last year right?
I think it’s hard to overstate how poorly Lee was doing in the last two years of his life.
I could be quite incorrect but I thought the key to making the de-aging work is the film library of the actor at the younger age. RDJ, Michael Douglas, Michelle Pfeiffer, and Samuel L Jackson all have a ton of video available of their face from other roles at more or less the ages being modeled. I would think Lee doesn’t have nearly the same quality of video available.
I also imagine people like Samuel Jackson have hour and hours of good digital footage documenting his entire aging process over his long career that make it easy for special effects artists to draw from to create Young Sammy J. There is a lot of Stan Lee footage, sure, but nothing close to someone like Jackson.
Lets keep it real: im going to believe that 1995 Nick Fury is but Jules Winfield, who in 1994 felt touched by a higher power and after walking the earth for a moment, found some answers with SHIELD. He also ceased using activator.
There was an Infinity Stone in that briefcase
Oh snap…
I hear most of it was used on the cat. Little orange fucker got PAID.
There were 5 cats.
Then four of ’em got screwed.
I’d think they’d want people to recognize him. Stan Lee’s been an old man for all of his Marvel cameos.
Why would he need to be de-aged if he isn’t actually playing the same person in each of these cameos? He’s just a dude in the background not the same dude in the background, so his age doesn’t matter.
Perhaps Lee actually looked like that back in the ‘90s, when not wearing makeup…
This is from Mallrats, the script he was reading on the train.All I’m saying is they could’ve gotten a wrinkle or 2 out, darkened his hair and beard some. Didn’t seem like he was wearing those shades either, but I could be wrong. They were pretty iconic shades.
Yeah let’s waste the CGI budget on a cameo
By all means, inconvenience the old dude more as he’s in the last months of his life because some nerd wants a time-appropriate cameo. Lolno.
They did de-age him. Turns out he looked as old back then as he did just before he died.
So the Watchers are doing more than watching…
Nnnneeeeerd.
this might have been my favourite cameo by Stan the Man, the fact that it’s referencing another cameo had me laughing out loud in the theatre.
Fans: Bring the X-Men into the MCUKevin Feige: So how do we get Jay and Silent Bob to travel to Wakanda?
I very, very, very much want to see Jay comment on Black Widow’s ass and get electrocuted by her “widow bite”. And he’ll like it.
Avengers: Endgame. Thanos is defeated when someone stinkpalms the Infinity Gauntlet
Would you like a chocolate covered reality warping ingot?
That was James Gunn’s alternate Yondu death, since Michael Rooker already knew how to mimic the StinkPalm stomach contractions.
Read that in Rocket Raccoon’s voice.
Shit, now I want to see that too. And Jay would definitely like it, lol.“Yo baby! You ever have your asshole licked by a fat man in an overcoat?!”
“Lunchbox, I think I’m in love.”
I have never wanted a movie more than I want Jay and Silent Bob vs Black Panther.
Lots of opportunities for accidental casual racism. For humor purposes, of course.
Call me corny, but I still want to go to the timeline that got the Jump Street/MIB crossover.
What’s a Nubian?
Shit I’d watch that movie though
Interestingly Jay and Silent Bob do exist in the CW Arroverse weirdly!
Clearly Deadpool needs to step in and fix the MCU’s fourth wall…
Please, no. NO!
I think you’re confused. The Stan Lee you see in the Captain Marvel movie is Earth-199999 reading the Earth-199999 version of the Mall Rats script.
The Stan Lee who acted in the Captain Marvel movie is the Stan Lee from Earth-1218 who appeared in the Earth-1218 version of Mall Rats.
I hope somebody got fired for that blunder.
If they did get fired, i’m pretty sure a wizard did it.
Congratulations, you just won a No-Prize!
Holy cow it’s been eons since I heard No-Prize. Ever win one?
I wish.
I won a No-Prize, received the empty envelope, and then…threw it out when we moved, because it was just an empty envelope. Gaaaah.
That true? Was there anything special about the envelope?
Yup. The No-Prize can be seen here:http://copiouscollections.blogspot.com/2011/03/in-which-no-prize-was-awarded.html
Oh yeah, sure, get stars for stating the obvious.
What is this gif from? She looks so familiar, but I can’t place it.
I get that reference.
That would apply in the DC universe but not in the Marvelverse as far as the multiple earths go. There’s only 1 Stan Lee!
you can tell because a much older Stan Lee is reading the Malllrats script in 1995 in Earth-199999. now if they had digitally de-aged him, it’d be really confusing.
In that universe, he was the face of Malibu Comics.
Nah, it means that the man reading the Mallrats script was to play the character “Stan Lee” in a movie that takes place in a world where there are no superheroes, only comic books where Stan Lee is a big name. This man has had several jobs over the years, FedEx and security guard being some of the many he took after his acting career in the 90’s didn’t take off. I don’t think he’s ever referred to by any name in any of the MCU cameos.
I think sometimes we might kinda read a bit too much into these movies.
What, you don’t think Spider-Man is going to wonder why Mace Windu is giving him orders in Spider-Man: Homeward Bound: The Incredible Journey?
given that he didn’t know Hoth by name, i don’t think Peter Parker is that big of a fan.
I’m pretty sure more people could tell you that Samuel L Jackson was in the Star Wars prequels than could name the snow planet at the start of Empire.
What if the prequels (and everything else that came after) didn’t exist in MCU’s Peter Parker timeline. Like, only the “old movies” (the original trilogy) were the only Star Wars canon – along with the novels for the extended universe. That would help set that inconsistency right.
Well obviously the prequels never happened in the MCU
How many times do we have to go through this? Nick Fury wears an eyepatch. Mace Windu doesn’t wear an eyepatch.
Kind of like a Clark Kent glasses thing?
He didn’t wear one yet, the Star Wars stories take place a long time ago.
The Jedi power of disguise!
He takes it off when he transforms.
That was always a funny thing. In the Civil War film, Spidey references Empire Strikes Back. So the Star Wars franchise exists in that universe. Which means the prequels exist. Which means Mace Windu exists. So who was the actor that played the role? And would he coincidentally look exactly like Nick Fury? Did Spidey ever ask Fury about how he looks just like the Mace Windu actor in those films?
Or are “Last Action Hero” rules in effect?
Nick Fury got to watch Sam Jackson’s head get decapitated in Attack of the Clones.
Hey man, that’s the great thing about fandom. You can take it at face level, or you can go so deep that you ask questions no one else has imagined.Personally, I don’t have an investment in Marvel, MCU, whatever. But, I think it’s really cool that some people get invested enough to ask these questions.
Completely agree. It can be fun reading into things and coming up with theories but sometimes you just need to sit back and enjoy the ride. If you get too invested and read too deep into things it can make the movie experience less enjoyable.People might disagree but I feel like that’s what happened with The Last Jedi. People had all their thoughts and theories about what was going to happen and what should and shouldn’t happen in a Star Wars movie and because of that they were unable to enjoy what, I felt like, was a fun movie. At the end of the day, for the most part, these are things that we became fans of and fell in love with as kids. I think that’s important to remember. Have fun with it but don’t take it too serious or think too hard about it.
Next they will do a deep dive into why Captain Marvel (or any Superhero who has superpowers) has fight scenes where she’s punching and kicking people, when she could just simply blow them to bits. Or why any villain would even remotely try to get in a fistfight with Superman. IT’S A MOVIE. It was a very nice, sweet, touching tribute to Lee. Let’s just leave it at that and stop trying to figure everything out.
WHERE’S JACK KIRBY’S CAMEO?!?
AMEN. Took ten minutes of scrolling to get to a comment mentioning The King, but glad to finally see it. Too bad they’ll never understand the truth behind the MCU, and who the real creator of the Marvel Universe was. Rest in peace, Mr. Kurtzberg.
Remember when we could just watch movies and have fun instead of creating pointless articles simply because you knew they’d get clicks?
It gets better. In the Marvel Universe not only does Marvel Comics exsists and publishes the same comics as our world, but said comics are legally admissible in court.
Wasn’t that a major plot point in Logan, actually?
That’s from She-Hulk, right? I loved that series
Single Female (Hulk) Lawyer!
Also there are a group of people from OUR world that used comics from OUR WORLD to help them save people and help people.
Except when they’re not. There was a mini event Marvel did decades ago where they showed what comics look like in the Marvel Universe. Rick Jones and Steve Rogers wrote and drew the Captain America one. Let’s just say, canon was a little different.
it’s almost as if there are multiple creative teams doing their own things across time, without much need for everything to be perfect.THE SCANDAL!
I’d almost forgotten about that.
Way back in the 60s, the Fantastic Four mentioned that the Fantastic Four comics were based on their adventures and help fund all their crazy science.
And yet Stan and Jack weren’t invited to the wedding. Ingrates
What comic is that from? Im So intregue now and really need to find out how it ends…
Dan Slott’s She-Hulk run.
At the very least, the fantastic four comics exist. They were in Moon Girl recently too:
Reed explicitly states that he marketed the hell out of the FF when they first arrived—from costume to media appearances—because he was smart enough to realize any goodwill that people had for them when it became public knowledge they got their powers from an accident would evaporate the instant anything about their lives went sideways. So, it’s a deliberate move, in-canon, for some superheroes to have their own comics (the Cap. America and early Avengers ones are part of the US propaganda machine, for example) while others do not.Hence the comics also being admissible in court, since its assumed they’re autobiographical.
There was a really great book from the 90s called “How To Be A Superhero,” written by Mark Leigh and Mike Lepine. It was a tongue in cheek “how to” manual that covers everything from how to get your powers, find sidekicks, etc.
A couple of chapters include tips on how to get a comic book, touch up the truth (one sequence has the hero pulling his sidekick in front of him to block ninja stars while showing what happened, while the comic version has the sidekick making a heroic sacrifice), and even how to use your comic book covers to enhance your reputation.
One example of the latter has, under the Torpedo-Man title, the tag line, “He’ll rip off your nuts and feed them to chipmunks.”
Dan Slott’s She-Hulk was a great take on breaking the fourth wall. I’d very much like to see something resembling an adaptation of Single Green Female, but if I’m not mistaken, the rights are tied up with Universal.
Only on a solo film, they can put her in The Avengers, or A-Force, or any other team NOW
I love that She-Hulk run so much.
I read the words, but all I saw was “I have a word count!”
“This means that, as opposed to playing a hapless museum security guard or FedEx delivery man as he has in previous Marvel films, Stan Lee is meant to be playing himself here.”
Or, and hear me out, it’s just a fucking joke.
Yeah.. it’s not Stan Lee’s world. Stan Lee is but one tiny part of the Marvel Universe as a co-creator of some of Marvel’s characters. Acting like he created the whole thing by himself may be part of Stan Lee’s great myth, but it’s not reality and it denigrates a ton of amazing creators including ones Lee stole credit from.
Don’t erase their work. Thanks.
Not going to get into the “stolen credit” debate but to say that Lee is “but one tiny part of the Marvel Universe” is insane thing to say. He had a hand (however big or small you believe it to be) in basically every-single-one of Marvel’s biggest creations. His editorial oversight shaped Marvel (and the creation of it’s shared universe) in a major way. And the way he worked to make himself and the “Merry Marvel Bullpin” the faces of Marvel, undeniably infulenced how the company was recieved and accepted by it’s audience.
I do agree that it is not Stan Lee’s world though.
Clearly, Stan Lee transcends time, place, and our shallow existence. Sigh <3
It is very important to care about this.
What are you talking about? Feige already confirmed that Stan Lee is Uatu the Watcher.
I was going to make a joke about how Stan Lee was really playing Uatu the Watcher in the Marvel films so I googled to see if Uatu had already appeared (I thought we’d seen a Watcher in a montage or something) and of course there’s already a Stan Lee = Uatu fan theory, complete with explanatory youtube videos and an opinion from Kevin Feige about it. {sigh}I’m never going to get used to nerd shit being this popular. When I was a kid it was kind of amazing that there were Secret Wars toys. I was in a toy store a couple years ago and saw an action figure of Puck from Alpha Flight. To the best of my knowledge, no one likes Puck from Alpha Flight, but even he gets an action figure. I’m glad it’s popular, it’s just still weird.
WELLLLLLLLYou could say Secret Wars was designed to sell the toys, not the other way around.
Secret Wars was FACTUALLY designed to sell toys…..Toy Biz was hired to make the toys and told Marvel they wanted them to do some kind of tie-in comic…Marvel made Secret Wars from that, which is why its garbage very short and barely ties to anything past, present and future….Its been widely talked about for years…..
Oh, I know. I just figured OP would be getting clubbed with the info by about 50 of us. And it became the new norm for cross-over events.
Off the top of my head Venom and The Beyonder(s) that played a role in the Avengers lead up to Hickman’s Secret Wars originated from Secret War, so there’s that.
Venom was a result of that but that wasn’t the idea when the suit was created. It was a costume variant to sell additional toys, I would be surprised if the Spidey writers knew ahead of time.And while I loved Hickman’s Secret Wars and the build up to it, the weakest point in the chain was the “revelation” that the Beyonders were behind everything. I’m not sure what else he could have done, to be honest, and expanding on the Beyonders lore is questionable at best (Shaper of Worlds, cosmic cubes, etc, etc, they’ve retconned Beyonders several times). It just felt that most of the factions vying for control were irrelevant compared to the Beyonders, who were focused on slaughtering Tribunals in the background.
I love the original Secret Wars, it’s what got me into Marvel Comics. It may have been poor for other folks, but I loved the whole year long series.
Sir or Madame, how DARE you malign Secret Wars, a mini-series that has Spider-man trounce the X-men, including back handing Wolverine across the room. Other cool stuff happened too.
The toys sell the characters which sell the other lines of comics which sell the toys which…….It’s like some sort of never ending snake thing that constantly consumes itself. HOLY CRAP! What an idea! Totally original!*runs off**runs back*DAMMIT!
You could say Secret Wars was designed to sell the toys, not the other way around.Don’t you mean Star Wars?.But I still hate Porgs.
I have to admit, in 2017 I never expected a naked cash grab like the Porgs in a franchise like Star Wars.Which makes me the idiot, I suppose.
Well that’s just crazy talk!
Which reminds me: Rom is still the best toy-based comic of all time.
Unless you ask Jim Shooter, in which case Secret Wars is an example for how to write the Marvel characters.
You COULD say that because that was common knowledge at the time (among adults, at least). I don’t think Marvel ever tried to represent otherwise. The comics were written expressly to give a ‘story’ reason for the toy line that had been developed.
Kids didn’t know or care, but Marvel was pretty open about it. And it wasn’t seen as a particularly bad thing, either.
Totally. I had the symbiote Spider-Man and Baron Von Zemo figures just because they looked cool and didn’teven know who Zemo was until Lego Marvel Super Heroes came out.
The kids don’t know what it was like, but you’re absolutely right. They don’t know what a desert it was, being a fan of some genre or property. How you starved for anything that even resembled the fantastic — or to meet other people who shared the same interests.Things have gone so far ‘round that I’m afraid it’s becoming cool to hate “nerds” and “geeks” again…
Boy – that first paragraph is spot on. I can’t tell you how many times I got shoved to the ground or laughed at after spending $1.00 on five Marvel comics. Yep. I’m that old.
https://goo.gl/images/Vrf8w5
So true. Finding a friend to share that joy with was monumental. The first time I discovered a comic shop (1973 in Seattle’s Pike Place Market) was a revelation!
Things have gone so far ‘round that I’m afraid it’s becoming cool to hate “nerds” and “geeks” again..I’m sorry, but that is a patently absurd statement. The only ‘nerds’ and ‘geeks’ it is popular to hate on these days are the objects of scorn not because of their nerdiness or geekiness, but because they have instead declared themselves the respective gatekeepers of their fandoms and try to dictate who is really a ‘nerd’ or ‘geek’.
“Things have gone so far ‘round that I’m afraid it’s becoming cool to hate “nerds” and “geeks” again…”I feel like it’s only a matter of time until that bubble bursts. Maybe I’m wrong but after close to a decade of superheroes and “geek shit” being cool there’s likely going to be a point where it’s too popular and therefore uncool.
I don’t think it’s ever not been cool to hate ‘nerds’ and ‘geeks’ in the real world. It’s mostly online that we have gone from talking more positively about ‘geek culture’ to painting the picture that most ‘nerds’ (the white male variety anyway) are misogynist bigots who hate everyone and everything.
Kind of like how it’s always been for women in any sci-fi fandom.
I grew up in the 80s. You, and people like you that blather on about this shit may have some issues. There were always people into this stuff, THAT’S LITERALLY HOW IT EXISTED AND SOLD. Our generation grew up and they’re catering to that now. The issue I’m referring to here though is that you’re at least somewhat defining yourself by the shit you buy and consume and how others view it. Most people grow out of this completely by their very early 20s at the latest. If you you truly believe your concern, just maybe it’s people judging you on these ridiculous opinions.
I think that Stan Lee = Uatu the Watcher is a good explanation for it and then everything can just kind of make sense.
Stan Lee could be explained as Uatu or another Watcher but a better explanation is “The One Above All”. Described in the comics as a comic book artist/story creator , Lee or Kirby fit the mold that the entire multiverse starts from the stories of a some entity writing comic booksIn that aspect, he could write himself in anywhere and however he wanted, with complete creative license. Check out the One Above All. Deadpool, knowing he is a comic book character, seeks him out. Do you know if you are part of someone’s whimsical universe or not? I can’t tell…
in GotG 2 he is literally sitting there talking to Watchers. In my head canon, that is what he is.also, this isn’t anything new. comics have been breaking the 4th wall for decades. white hot room, anyone? reality punch? the One Above All?
(I like Puck from Alpha Flight)
I would be so down with an Alpha Flight TV show / movie / animation / anything right now…
(I also like Puck from Alpha Flight – he was pretty popular wasn’t he?)
(Me too, but I didn’t care much for the storyline where it turned out his dwarfism wasn’t natural but that he was a really tall guy who had been magicked or something stupid)
I enjoyed the 3 issues he appeared in the original Wolverine ongoing series with my favorite artist Marc Silvestri on pencils. They worked out his relationship with Logan with the backdrop as the Spanish Civil War. It was Logan, Puck and Earnest Hemingway drinking beer and fighting nazis!great issues!
Yyeah! Byrne’s version……not the idiotic supernatural retcon!
I mean Puck is the character that Peter Dinklage was born to play. Who doesn’t like Puck and why wouldn’t you?!? Now Marrina can go get bent but I will admit a Guillermo Del Toro directed Alpha Flight would be epic though.
Whow that suggestion just blew my mind!!! That would be a hell of a movie!
I did too. I liked most of the old Alpha Flight team, although I lost interest after it was obvious the book had no direction.
Do you have any idea how much different my social life would have been if nerd culture shit had been this popular back in the 70’s?
Well, when my wife and I went to see The Avengers, we ended up sitting behind two teen girls, who did not in any overt way appear to be geek girls. One could imagine them playing, say, junior Spirit Squad members on Degrassi. One girl only knew the Marvel movies. The other was patiently explaining aspects of the Marvel comic-verse to her friend before the film.
Yeah, 14 year old me would have never believed how popular all the nerdy shit I loved would become. I used to get constant ridicule from thh “cool kids” for my nerdy hobbies.
Yeah I bitch about that to my wife a lot. Back in high school it was still “uncool” to like computers and shit. Now you’re a tool if you don’t look at one for at least 50% of your day.Back in the 80s-90s, if you were into vampires/werewolves you were a D&D nerd or something. But now you are just the minority of a group of a gajillion 20-40 y.o. women.It’s 1994, you’re wearing high-water pants. You’re a dork with absolutely no style.
It’s 2019, you’re wearing high-water pants. You’re at the top of the fashion food chain.
That’s why it chaps my ass when all of these people nowadays — people my age (’m 42 and did the bulk of my early comic book reading between 1990-96) — claim to have been super fans of X-Men or Captain America, or some other comic book when they were kids.
No, motherfucker, you weren’t. You sure as shit never strolled into any local comic book store I visited or talked about that when we were in high school together. You were actually having a life in high school while I was a friendless dweeb you never would have given the time of day to. You jumped on the nerdy hype train with The Dark Knight, like the rest of mainstream America. Quit trying to steal my thing.
A few years ago I was watching an episode of Family (the Sada Thompson drama series) from the mid-70s and I was pleasantly surprised that the son was going to a Star Trek fan convention and this was treated matter-of-factly. He just talked with a friend and they were going. No jeering, no making fun of costumes, none of that. It was so very rare. And still is.
I remember Puck being hugely popular back in the 80’s. No pun intended.
Hey, just be happy you don’t have JJ and Kurtzman taking a torch to everything you loved. *cries into his Romulan ale*
Our comic shop had a screening of Captain Marvel last night at a theater near a local college that my fiance and I went to. When we were walking out she commented on how many laughs the 90s stuff got, and I had to be the one to break it to her that a good chunk of that crowd of adults was born after the 90sBeing a fan has fundamentally changed, I feel like I’m one of the last off the line from the era where nerd shit wasn’t mainstream and I had to feel defensive about it. But honestly being in that crowd and feeling that energy (there were women there who had been literally waiting to see a woman lead a Marvel movie since they were 8), I really don’t mind feeling like a dinosaur if the next generation is finding that kind of meaning in it
There were one or two moments that I think my wife and I (mid-40s) were the only ones who laughed, and I definitely thought that said something about how much time has passed.
I just hope one of the upcoming cameos is Stan Lee with a snow globe……Reference: https://thetommywestphall.wordpress.com/
Damn, I did not know there were Alpha Flight action figures. I would have been all over them at the time. And what’s the complaint about Puck? Damn fine book when Byrne ran it. (One of my cherished comics is AF #1 signed by him and Terry Austin when they visited the Museum of Cartoon Art when it was still in Westchester NY)
Back in the day, you either played sports, or you played video games.Today, fricken everyone plays videogames. Pro athletes, couch potatoes and anyone inbetween. You just have to have been born some time after the launch of the original Playstation and this applies seemingly without fail almost. 😛
hehehehe. While not entirely true, it is true enough for comedic effect.My senior year of college, they recruited this big, goofy looking Polish kid from NJ to be my wrestling backuppartner
eplacement. Like, 6’4. a head that looked like it was a lump of clay and a particularly deliberate way of speaking. This kid really leaned into the “goofy polack” and “dumb jock” stereotypes, which thankfully would be revealed as more act than truth as the year went on.Anyway, he was a good kid and took his daily beatings in practice well. Then he came over my house one Friday before a match, saw the bookcase full of comic books, video games and (if i recall) a Kingdom Hearts statuette of Sora.In one of the funniest moments of my life, this kid lost his damn mind. “You’re telling me, the kid kicking my ass everyday is some comic-book reading nancy? I USED TO BEAT KIDS LIKE YOU UP, THIS IS NOT HOW THE WORLD WORKS!”Over a decade later, it still absolutely rankles him when he is along on camping trips and he has to listen to us talk Star Wars or something.
I played both and I was born before NES was released.
There’s always statistical outliers of course. 🙂
If I ever see that Puck figure, I am going to buy five of them.
I liked the nerd stuff being fringe. I know Star Wars sold a shit ton of merch when I was a kid, but still I was the only one of my friends to have; the others had GI Joe. I liked Doctor Who being shown late night on PBS stations. It was like being part of this cool club that nobody else knew about, only we knew we weren’t actually cool and we didn’t care.
Massive Alpha Flight fan here and no I can’t say I care for Puck.
a lot of words just to say “i knew about this before you all did na na na boo boo”
I’m thinking MCU one above all
I agree 100%. It was amazing when I was 8yo and I found a Wolverine figure from Secret Wars and I actually had the money to buy it. When I was in Junior High and I found the one Wolverine shirt I ever saw in the 80’s I nearly wore that shirt to rags.Now you can find anything and it seems less special (Until a comics accurate movie like Deadpool or Logan hits and it turns it all around for me)
what you got against Puck? Puck rules!
It’s cyclical. The comic industry goes through booms and busts. In the 90’s there was a huge boom not because the comics were any better but because someone sold an old spider-man comic for thousands of dollars so suddenly comics were seen as an investment and more went into production due to increased interest and some of these were great because the authors had stories they wanted to tell and now they had a chance and then they ran out of ideas but they had a market so they did stupid shit like killing Superman…. with 4 variant covers and 4 new Supermen…. which killed the market. Not because the story was stupid, people loved Broly… I mean Doomsday, sorry neither has a personality beyond “hulk smash” (prior to the new Broly movie). What killed the industry was that The Death of Superman comics had no value, they weren’t anywhere near as collectible as people thought and when Superman returned it decimated any perceived value these comics had left. It’s the Beanie Baby effect, nobody cared about Beanie Babies until some of them went out of production but instead of putting it like that they said it was “retired”. Nobody bought the thing so it was rare and that’s why it’s production run was canceled but then some collector paid like 3k for it and everyone jumped into the beanie baby speculation market because they had a perceived value but eventually everyone realized the only reason a market exists was because they thought there would be a huge payoff in 10-20 years and that nobody was going to give a crap about beanie babies in 2019 so they didn’t retain any value and the market crashed. Marvel is hot right now so they are selling anything they can get on the shelf. It won’t last forever.
Except that theory makes no sense since we see actual Watchers in the MCU…
And you run, and you run
To catch up with the sun,
But it’s sinking.
Racing around
To come up behind you again.
The sun is the same
In a relative way,
But you’re older,
Shorter of breath,
One day closer to death.
Every year is getting shorter,
Never seem to find the time.
Plans that either come to naught
Or half a page of scribbled lines
Hanging on in quiet desperation
Is the English Way.
The time is gone;
The song is over.
Thought I’d something
More to say?
Time makes fools of us all, they say. In one way, nerd-ish stuff is now more widely accepted. However, in many other ways, the interconnectedness of living in a world where we can talk to literally anyone on the planet who also wants to talk to us has almost created a sort of cultural miasma where the lines between social standings in our world are alternatively broken, blurred, or no longer have the meaning they used to (or any meaning).
Is everyone now a nerd because no one has to ask what a computer does or what the internet is, anymore? Is science fiction now nearly meaningless because we are able to achieve many of the advancements it imagines in reality?
…Are there really such things as ‘social strata’ in this world anymore? Were there ever? Or were we just imagining them because it seemed that way back when the world was not so complex and and impossible to explain to ourselves?
I believe James Gunn said he got the Idea to Have Lee with the watchers from the existing fan theories
Holy shit, dude. I was reading the piece and thought, “Maybe he’s secretly the Watcher in another guise” and then YOU. Cool.
“To the best of my knowledge, no one likes Puck from Alpha Flight”.You are CORRECT, sir! 😛
I remember when Alpha Flight first arrived (yes, I am that old), and Puck was actually fairly popular in my circle of geeks. Of course, we were Canadians, so Alpha Flight was very popular.In Canada, we give hockey pucks to babies for teething purposes.
You could have completely left out the phrase “Puck From” and still meant the exact same thing. LOL
He is hanging out with another Watcher in Guardian if the Galaxy 2.
It was such a comic genre desert that I’d wait in anticipation for the Spider-Man Marvel Productions logo at the end of Muppet Babies. I do not miss those days. Plus there was that one time Wolverine was Australian.
its not the same. the kids today watch the movies but dont read the comics. they play d&d’s nerfed down 5th edition. they aren’t nerds.
He’s a Time Lord, without the shape shifting.
Recently I went my local comic book shop, picking up a few things, looked at the clerk and saying “You know why I’m bummed today?” He said “Because Stan Lee died?” I said “Well that and the fact that I just read in the Marvel continuity that Deadpool is the only person who knows it. That just totally ruined my day. I had to come here to cheer myself up.”
A Stanception?
Hear me out. In Captain Marvel, Stan Lee plays an actor, Stan Lee, who appears in the movie Mallrats, a fictional tale of a world where super heroes do not exist and are only written of in comic books. In this fantasy comedy, Lee plays an author of these books, a sort of hero figure to other authors. So in Captain Marvel, a world where Heroes exist, Stan Lee plays a man who plays a man that is a hero in a world where they don’t exist.Think about it.
So did they film his cameo before or after he was #MeTooed?
Saw Captain Marvel yesterday (and really rather liked it!), and the Lee cameo was indeed very touching.Personally I feel Marvel should stop with them from here on out, even if there’s more of them actually filmed (which feels weird; how many Marvel movies are there in post-production at any one time, exactly? :P)It was cute when he was alive; now that he isn’t it would just feel creepy and exploitative to see him show up again and again. Kinda like Steve Jobs still having his fucking office at the former Apple HQ in Cupertino, untouched like it was when he still inhabited it, now coming up on a decade after he died.I’m not much for cults of personalities, honestly.
I think Endgame should be the last. It would just be perfect timing.
There’s probably one in Endgame, given that it was shot back to back with Infinity War, and that would be a really good send off. After that the only one he could appear in would be Spider-Man: Far From Home, it started filming in July 2018.
Hm, well, the way I see it they should put any remaining appearances in with the deleted scenes/extra contents. He already appeared once in Infinity War (as Spidey’s busdriver), and it’d be weird (weirder than normal) to see him show up again in what is essentially a two-part film… *shrug*That’s how I feel anyway.
I don’t really understand this. I can’t claim to speak for the man, but… he always seemed to enjoy being in the films, and wanted to be in them. He shot cameos for the films. Do you have reason to believe he would have wanted the cameos to be thrown out?
Except, he’s dead, so he can’t enjoy being in the movies anymore, and since he’s dead he can’t shoot any more scenes anyway, barring an actual superhero/deity coming along and resurrecting him.So better to end it with a nice scene without morbidly dragging it out.Put the remaining scenes in the extra contents, like I said… 😛
There’s a difference between not making more scenes (which they shouldn’t do) and cutting scenes that he already shot.
I kind of hope they keep the Cameos but switch them to physical stuff like a poster or having Uatu shapeshift from his likeness the first time we see him or something.The kind of “oh look its Stan Lee doing a thing” kind of cameo should stop though I agree
just one more. last cameo in Endgame, seems fitting.
Is it really exploitative when he participated in the filming for the sole purpose of putting them into the movies planned? It’s not like they are using cg or a hologram. They are using stuff he consented to for this exact use.
There are only two cameos left. One will be in Avengers 4 and the last will be in Spiderman: Far From Home. Fitting as that is the character nearest and dearest to Stan’s heart.
Stan Lee was creepy and exploitative. I’m sure he’d love it.
Stan Lee is the avatar of an autistic boy staring into a snowglobe.
I believe this mystery is best addressed by “the Last Action Hero.”There exists a universe in which Arnold Schwarzenegger doesn’t exist and The Terminator stars Stallone.Likewise, in the MCU, Stan Lee didn’t create Hulk and Spider-Man. He probably talks to Brody about creating The X-Men, or maybe even Green Lantern or something.
Exactly. Frog-Man is probably a popular Marvel character in this movie.
Well, in Into the Spiderverse Spiderman talks about having a comic book, so it all fits.
Apparently you are unfamiliar with the “One-Above-All.”
Carol; “I’m the first Marvel Captain Marvel to be worth doing any more than the de minimus one issue every two years for trademark retention. I was there in the beginning, in 1967 when you realized it was up for grabs and had no idea it’d take DC and Fawcett five more years to get their act together.Yet, it took another 45 years and six other Captains Marvel before you finally gave me the title. What do you have to say about that?”Stan Lee; “Hey, at least I’m not responsible for the Split/Xam guy!”
completely changed the gameBloggers sure love using this phrase for things that definitely change very little.
Stan Lee appears in just about every Marvel movie as a different character, but THIS appearance changes EveRYTHINGGgg!It’s almost like… it’s a cameo appearance done for fun with no real importance to the production or plot or movie.
Yeah. Alfred Hitchcock liked to have cameos in his movies too, although a bit more subtle — he was typically a character doing something in the background without any speaking lines.
I won’t say that I’ve ever spent entire movies doing nothing but looking for the cameos, but…
Fun trivia fact: Alfred Hitchcock was also playing Uatu the Watcher.
Or was Alfred Hitchcock actually the real Uatu the Watcher?
In the words of William Shatner, “get a life”.
Also, how can a movie like Mallrats, which focuses on a group of emotionally stunted, comic book-obsessed suburbanites, exist in a world where there are literal comic book heroes?Why not? The emergence/existence of super heroes in that world did not become public knowledge until well after the movie was made, so they were certainly free to obsess over comic books all they want…
Didn’t GotG2 confirm Stan Lee as the Watchers’ informant? (From a movie fan who doesn’t know the comics, for what it’s worth.)
I know one thing.
Kevin Smith will never stop talking about this. It may even eclipse the number of times he mentions Clerks if that’s possible.
Soooooo…. Stan Lee is The Beyonder? and not The Watcher?
Just accept the Stanception.
I’m going the ‘Watchmen’ route. Within the universe of the film, Stan Lee is a creator of extremely popular pirate comics. MCU Kevin Smith, a huge pirate comics nerd, wrote a character into his film ‘Mallrats’ who is also a huge pirate comics nerd. In the scene in question, Brodie asks Stan Lee if Captain Bloodbeard has a wooden appendage where his dick should be.
I feel like this is a little too much over thinking for a fun cameo. I doubt the filmmakers put much thought into it beyond “the film takes place in the 90s, we need a scene for Stan, what if he’s reading a script for Mallrats?”I actually didn’t even notice it was a script for Mallrats when I saw the film last night. Wasnt really paying attention that much and just thought it was a new paper or book.
I like how Brie Larson gave Stan Lee a smile 😊
Headcanon proposed and accepted: Kevin Smith’s Askewniverse exists within the MCU, and Stan is its creator. He just sometimes takes the form of Alanis Morrisette.
“Why are we here?”
“Bwerp.”
I just saw Captain Marvel and I’d like to think Stan Lee was a semi-retired actor who took a fun gig in a movie where he claimed to make comic books that didnt exist. The Hulk and Spiderman read these and realized their lives were somewhat similar to the characters in the invented stories for Mallrats.
Ish.
I was expecting this to be stupid and it reached beyond levels of stupidity I could even fathom. Good work, I guess.
The new Marvel opening that uses Stan Lee in place of all the heroes (even partially replicating those scenes through color use etc) … caused me to shed a few tears. Stan Lee is just a cultural icon..and … will be…missed…but never forgotten.
Well, I assume that in the MCU version of Mallrats there are no references to the Hulk, Spider-Man, etc., because in the MCU’s 1990s they didn’t exist yet.
As we saw from the cutscrene with him hanging out with Watchers, he’s a cosmic being outside our reality who can take various forms and roles in whatever timeline or reality he visits.
It’s not that complicated.
: )
Didn’t Stan Lee also technically play himself as he actually is in one of the Captain America movies? He was one of the war veterans the Captain was reminiscing with, and he did indeed serve in World War 2.
Or they just had the old guy for 5 hours and had to create a lot of generic cute spots in front of a green screen. The next 10 years of Stan Lee walking a dog, and driving a bus are going to blow minds if you take it too seriously.
Jokes aside, I think this is the worst Stan Lee cameo so far. They weren’t even trying to hide that Larson and Lee were filmed separately, and the cameo felt really out of place.The tribute at the beginning of the movie was sweet, though. I hope Endgame and Far From Home will still have Lee cameos and would send him off better.
They’ll have a hard time topping Into the Spider-Verse’s perfection.
Probably. I just feel the one on Captain Marvel felt really lazy and slap-dashed.
Jokes aside, I think this is the worst Stan Lee cameo so far. They weren’t even trying to hide that Larson and Lee were filmed separately, and the cameo felt really out of place.The tribute at the beginning of the movie was sweet, though. I hope Endgame and Far From Home will still have Lee cameos and would send him off better.
I won’t lie, I actually teared up at the opening of the movie.
We really don’t have to worry until Stan Lee cameos in the Darkest Night movie.
The Stan Lee in this universe is doing a cameo for a different Mall Rats movie.
Actually, the meta-cameo has also made infrequent appearances in the comics: In this case Stan and Jack would be like the Greek Gods who occasionally visit their creations.
nothing can be worse than abusing his verified twitter handle to promote new movies
I was born in 1962, so I’ve been a comic book nerd for a long time and if there was anything I learned it was anything was possible in the MCU you don’t necessarily need to have a rock solid back story I’m just glad to see most of my childhood heroes are still around and hopefully once the movies start to fade into Hollywood history the comic books will still be bringing some happiness into a new generation of kids, Stan Lee you maybe gone, but you’ll never be forgotten thanks for all the great childhood memories.
I know lots of people have referenced him being Uatu, but I see it more as him being the One Above All.
Maybe he is one of the Eternals? That would be awesome!
Sounds like the base prelude to certain self aware wall breaking entities splicing their way into the MCU! If stan was essentially aware as canon even if it was in a reporting or describing the universe around him through comics type of way. TeeHee lol.
The Watcher made an appearance in Guardians of the Galaxy 2 within the Stan Lee cameo.
It is weird that Marvel had reduced him into a product or a prop to be used in their film
Deathpool will unite with CGI Stan Lee to fight against Thanos, or someone, by bending the cosmic picking order and breaking a serious amount of fourth walls.
I think Stan Lee’s Avengers: Endgame cameo needs to be, they reverse the snap and you see all these people coming back to life. And one of the people who returns is Stan. I dunno if that’s a great or tasteless idea
Also, how can a movie like Mallrats, which focuses on a group
of emotionally stunted, comic book-obsessed suburbanites, exist in a
world where there are literal comic book heroes?
The same way there are emotionally stunted suburbanites obsessed with wrestling, politics, videogames, or anything else?
Also, Stan Lee is totally Uatu.
Maybe it’s like Last Action Hero and Stan Lee is a massive name for DC comics in the MCU 🙂
In the Marvel Comics there is a company called Marvel Comics that produces comic books – some based on the exploits of the Marvel Universe characters and some created whole cloth with similar names. In the late 90’s early 00’s they published a mini series of in world books. So it isn’t problematic at all.