Stan Lee Marvel cameo origin goes all the way back to the comic books

Stan Lee (L) talks to
Peter Parker (Tobey Maguire) in “Spider-Man
3.”
Sony/Marvel/”Spider-Man
3″

With the passing
of Stan
Lee on Monday at the age of 95, we don’t just say goodbye to
the face of the Marvel brand, but also the man of 1,000
cameos.

The former president and
chairman of Marvel Comics is known by many Marvel Cinematic
Universe fans as the guy who shows up in the majority of the
films released by Marvel Studios since 2008’s “Iron Man.” But he
started doing cameos long before there were superhero
films.


Going as far back as the 1960s, Lee’s likeness would be inserted
occasionally in covers and inside the pages of the Marvel comics
he was overseeing. And from what Lee told Business Insider back
in 2015
, it was never
his intention to pop up in all things Marvel.

“The artists back then would draw me in as a joke or just to have
fun,” Lee told Business Insider then. “And I would put some
dialogue balloons there and it looked as if I intended it. I
didn’t try to do cameos in those days.”

Here’s Lee and fellow iconic Marvel artist Jack Kirby
showing up on the cover of a “Fantastic Four” comic in the
1960s.


Wikipedia/Marvel

And Lee shows up in
this edition of the “Nova” comics in the
1990s.


Cyber
Space Comics/Marvel

“Anything that seemed fun and
anything that the readers seemed to enjoy we kept doing and those
things brought in a lot of fan mail,” Lee recalled. “And we
weren’t doing films or television, our whole existence depended
on comic books, so if you see that something is interesting to
the fans you stay with it.”

Marvel definitely stayed with it, making Lee the face of the
company. Over the decades, he also appeared in countless
cartoons, TV shows, and films ranging from Fox’s ’90s cartoon
“Spider-Man” to 1995 comedy “Mallrats”
where Kevin Smith used him as a voice of
reason. Lee in the final episode of the cartoon TV series
“Spider-Man.”Fox/Marvel/”Spider-Man”
(1994)

Lee said he particularly liked
his cameo in 2015’s “Avengers: Age of Ultron” because “it’s so
funny.”

That’s primarily why he also
has a fondness for his appearance in 2007’s “Fantastic 4: Rise of
the Silver Surfer,” in which he can’t get into the wedding of
Reed Richards and Susan Storm because the bouncer doesn’t think
he’s really Stan Lee. “I like any of them that seem a little bit
funny,” he added.

Lee in “Fantastic 4: Rise
of Silver Surfer.”
Fox/Marvel/”Fantastic 4: Raise of the Silver
Surfer”

You will next see Lee on the big screen for Sony’s “Spider-Man:
Into the Spider-Verse,” where he makes a cameo in animation
form. 

This story has been updated from its original
version.