‘Captain Marvel’ Pays Touching Tribute to Stan Lee

Captain Marvel‘ has whizzed into our theaters today, March 8, 2019, and the film will make you tear up with the touching tribute it paid to the late Stan Lee, the man behind Marvel’s success. The very first thing that audiences are made aware of when the film starts is the love ‘Captain Marvel’ shows to the great Stan Lee in its opening sequence.

Marvel movie lovers must be aware by now of the usual opening sequence of their films. We are shown MCU footage reels that play within the logo that used to read ‘Marvel Studios’ and now reads ‘Marvel Stud10s’. However, ‘Captain Marvel’ decided to shake things up and the reel we see during the Marvel Studios opening sequence is completely dedicated to all the Stan Lee cameos in the Marvel movies. Once the logo sequence is over, the screen goes blank and the audience is shown a heartfelt message which simply reads, “Thank you, Stan”.

To jog your memory, Lee passed away on November 12, 2018, at the age of 95. ‘Captain Marvel’ is the first major MCU film to be released after his death, so it was expected that they would come up with a tribute that would be befitting of Lee’s legacy. They did not disappoint in this sense, and as we are subjected to a flood of footage from the various cameo roles Lee played, we are reminded of the fun and active role the comic genius played even within the MCU. However, we also cannot help but realize that we only have a few more precious cameos left to enjoy before they are forever left behind only in our memories.

Apart from the tribute, Lee also enjoyed a traditional cameo in the film itself and one might argue it is one of Lee’s best yet. Even those who have not watched the film might have caught the scene where Lee makes his appearance, in the trailer. When Brie Larson‘s Captain Marvel follows a Skrull, a shape-shifting alien disguised as a human, onto the subway, we see Lee riding the same train. Lee can be seen seated with a script of ‘Mallrats’ as he practices the ‘Trust me, true believer’ line under his breath. Movie aficionados will love the reference in this cameo. Firstly, ‘Mallrats’ came out in 1995, which is around the same time that ‘Captain Marvel’ is set. Further, this was the first of Lee’s cameos, that was for the fans and paid tribute to the fan culture surrounding this comic book legend. Therefore, Lee reading the script is a meta-reference to the cameo that set up the tradition of Lee appearing in MCU films as a sort of tribute to the creator.

However, fans need not worry, because this is not the last we will be seeing of Stan Lee. Marvel Studios president, Kevin Feige, had already confirmed that Lee had shot a couple of cameo scenes together and thus would be appearing in MCU films that came out after ‘Captain Marvel’ too. Among these, the most important is, of course, ‘Avengers: Endgame‘ which is releasing on April 26, 2019. Lee’s cameo should be pivotal here and it would be very fitting if that were to be Lee’s last cameo since it would mark the end of an era of Marvel films that has been building to this climax from the very beginning. However, there is a high chance that Lee can also be seen in the new ‘Spider-Man: Far From Home‘ movie, that will be arriving in theaters on July 5, 2019, and will mark the beginning of a new phase of Marvel films after the events of ‘Avengers: Endgame’.

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