Five Years Ago: Creating Superheroes and Cameos
Kids, teenagers, and adults of all ages got weak in the knees around Marvel icon Stan Lee. Yet, talking to them moments after meeting him, you could hear the joy in their voices. Some shed tears of happiness. Universally, they looked frozen in the moment of delight — as if they were opening Christmas presents or getting ready to blow out candles on their birthday cake.
I chatted with a 50-something father who confessed that taking his teen daughter to meet Stan was a bucket list kind of event, one that they were able to share together. He wiped tears from his eyes as he reminisced about watching Marvel films with his daughter and how Lee’s cameos were a bonding moment for them.
Stan Lee on cameos in Marvel films
These clips are from a September 26, 2017 newspaper piece on Stan's appearance at a comic book convention in Madison, Wisconsin, (about a year before he died).
The sentiment demonstrates his significance as the symbol of Marvel and Marvel Studios for so many fans. There has never been a phenomenon quite like Stan’s cameo roles. His brief blip on the screen frequently caused the audience to break out in applause. For many fans, the cameo was as necessary and elemental as the film itself. One could not exist without the other.
Anyone else remember going to a Marvel film and hearing spontaneous applause when Stan's cameo rolled?
Stan Lee's co-created superheroes an inspiration
Stan Lee's co-created superheroes have served as an inspiration for generations because he gave them human traits. This idea — so novel in the early 1960s — caught fire during an era where novelists, screenwriters, and others were challenging conventional norms about what it meant to be a superhero.
Learn more about Stan’s epic tale in Stan Lee: A Life (Rowman & Littlefield).
Stan Lee: A Life by historian and biographer Bob Batchelor