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If the recent news of Stan Lee’s passing brought tears to your eyes, you’re certainly not alone. He will be sorely missed by so many people around the world. More than just a creator, he was an inspiration – a true, living superhero in his own right.
And in just about all of his movies, he also played many other characters as well. As you likely know, he’d make these fantastic little cameos for which we’d always be on the lookout.
His first ever, to our knowledge, was in the 1989 TV movie “The Trial of the Incredible Hulk.” (He played a juror.) In cinemas, his first cameo was as a hot dog vendor in 2000’s X-Men. Since then, there have been somany instances of him making appearances in Marvel films. It’d honestly be tough to list them all, though we have managed to compile a list from the last decade.
How many of these do you remember?
In 2008’s original Iron Man, Lee is mistaken for Hugh Hefner by Tony Stark. It must have been all the beautiful women – and perhaps his attire.
In The Incredible Hulk, his cameo was actually pretty important to the plot. He played an unfortunate Milwaukee resident whose guarana soda had “a little more kick than he was looking for.”
Lee is again mistaken by Tony Stark in 2010’s Iron Man 2. Only this time he appears to be Larry King.
A year later, he unsuccessfully tried to move Thor’s hammer with a pickup truck.
Also in 2011, he made a cameo in Captain America: The First Avenger as an Army general.
In 2012’s The Avengers, he was playing chess in the park when he was interviewed on the news. “Superheroes in New York? Give me a break,” he says.
(He technically made two cameos in this film, but the second was cut for time. You can see it in the deleted scenes, however.)
That same year he played a librarian in The Amazing Spider-Man
It wouldn’t be an Iron Man movie – or any Marvel movie for that matter – without a Lee cameo. In 2012’s Iron Man 3, he plays a beauty pageant judge. He even gives one lucky contestant a perfect 10.
Later that year he played a mental patient in Thor: The Dark World.
In 2014, he played a Smithsonian security guard in Captain America: The Winter Soldier. He also worries about getting fired after Cap’s uniform disappears from the museum.
In The Amazing Spider-Man 2, which hit theatres also in 2014, he attends Peter Parker’s high school graduation.
Lee stayed pretty busy in 2014, but not so busy he couldn’t be a casanova, too. In Guardians of the Galaxy, Rocket Racoon notices him on planet Xandar, flirting with a young woman.
Additionally, he made a few TV appearances this year as well on Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. and Agent Carter. In later years, he also made appearances in several other Marvel television shows as well.
While it’s not a live-action cameo, his first animated cinematic cameo was in 2014’s Big Hero 6. He was Fred’s father.
The next year, Lee popped up in Avengers: Age of Ultron as a military vet. He also partakes in a bit too much Asgardian liquor.
Also in 2015, he made an appearance in Ant-Manas a bartender.
Never too old to have fun, in 2016’s Deadpool he plays a strip club DJ.
Later that year, we find he’s working as a Fed-Ex deliveryman who happens to have a package for Tony “Stank.” Err, Stark.
This 2016 cameo features not only Lee, but also his wife Joan. The cute couple were simply citizens watching a nuclear missile launch.
In 2016’s Doctor Strange, he was still just an ordinary citizen, this time seen reading on a bus. If you’re curious as to what he was reading, it was The Doors of Perception by Aldous Huxley.
In Guardians the Galaxy Vol. 2, released in 2017, Lee is seen wearing a spacesuit and talking to The Watchers. This was a fun nod to a fan theory that Lee is the same character in all of his cameos. Perhaps he is really Uatu the Watcher, an alien assigned to observe earth. It seems that explains why he’s always present in one way or another.
Poor Thor had to get a haircut in 2017’s Thor: Ragnarock. Lee was just the barber to do it.
“Don’t make me come down there you punk,” he warns Spider-Man as he yells from a window. Yes, in 2017’s Spider-Man: Homecoming, he plays Gary, a man shouting from his apartment window.
In this year’s blockbuster smash, Black Panther, Lee plays a “thirsty gambler” in a South Korean casino. He even has the audacity to steal T’Challa’s chips, too!
In 2018’s Avengers: Infinity War, Lee plays a school bus driver driving a panicked bus full of kids. (Also on the bus was Peter Parker.)
“What’s the matter with you kids? You never seen a spaceship before,” he complains to the rowdy kids.
We expect there will be a Stan Lee cameo in the next Avengersinstallment as well. Unfortunately, we’ll have to wait until 2019 to see it.
