‘Avengers: Endgame’ Stan Lee Cameo Is Special For One Reason
It's not only funny and heartwarming, it's brilliantly metafictional, too.
This article has been updated.
After his sad and unexpected passing last year, comic book fans all over the world have been reflecting on the legacy of Stan Lee. Largely, Lee lives on in the beloved superheroes he helped create for Marvel, which is no more apparent than the massively popular films everyone you know will be talking about this weekend. With Avengers: Endgame an era of superhero movies certainly comes to a very definitive end, and with it several movie traditions, too.
One of those Marvel traditions is Stan Lee’s hilarious and metafictional cameos in all of the various films. From the guy who cut Thor’s hair in Ragnarok to the bus driver in Infinity War and all the way back to his “Larry King” cameo in Iron Man 2, Lee has shown up in a variety of guises. And this particular version of himself is…himself!
Spoiler incoming!
In what looks to be the final Stan Lee Marvel cameo, Stan Lee plays Stan Lee! When Captain America and Iron Man travel back ton 1970, a car whizzes past the secret base they are infiltrating. The car has a bumper sticker that says “‘Nuff Said,” which was the way Lee signed-off many of his editorial letters in Marvel Comics. And the man at the wheel of this car, saying “Make love, not war!” is none other than a ’70s Stan Lee! (To be fair — as some readers have pointed out — Lee also played himself in Captain Marvel, just a few months ago.)
Through time travel and nostalgic love, Marvel delivered the most endearing and heartfelt Stan Lee cameo of them all. It’s only fitting too. As one chapter of the Marvel movies ends, the grandaddy of it all gets to smile from beyond the constraints of time, looking like a groovy badass the whole time.
