Though he died last month, Marvel Comics legend and Spider-Man co-creator Stan Lee pre-recorded several cameos for upcoming films before he passed—including a touching, animated appearance in Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. Loaded with a heavy significance that resonates independent of his death, this emotionally resonant appearance is nothing like the zippy, superficial live-action and animated appearances Lee made in the past. That’s because the Spider-Verse filmmakers were determined to honor Lee’s legacy by breaking open narrow definitions of what it means to be a hero—and because of some personal events in Lee’s life that made his Into the Spider-Verse cameo particularly weighty. (The cameo also happens to be wickedly funny, which is part of Lee’s legacy as well.) The filmmakers—including Into the Spider-Verse’s three directors—took Vanity Fair behind the scenes of Lee’s appearance, as well as the in memoriam title card that closes out the film.
This may spoil the movie—so go see Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse in theaters before reading any further!
Stan Lee’s easiest-to-spot appearance in this film is as a shop owner who sells Miles Morales the baggy costume he wears for much of the movie. When Miles asks if he can return the costume, Lee’s character grins and says, “It always fits, eventually” before his grin hardens and he points to a no refunds sign. Though there is, of course, a simple, surface-level reading of this scene, the inclusion of words like “always” and “eventually” point to Lee’s long journey with Spider-Man.
Because the messaging of this particular film so closely aligns with Lee’s life-long endeavor to make superheroes and comics inclusive, the filmmakers wanted his appearance in it to have a bit more weight to it. “We’re trying to capture the spirit of that guy in the movie,” director Rodney Rothman said, “which we can’t do—but we can certainly try.”
But the spirit of Stan Lee involves as much impish humor as it does emotional heft—and so the filmmakers wanted to be sure Lee’s appearance also ended on a joke. “You get a good laugh at the end,” director Peter Ramsey explained. “He wouldn’t want us to sit there and be sad,” producer Avi Arad added. “Stan was fun-loving, really.”
And that’s only one of several appearances Lee makes in the film. Director Bob Persichetti said that if you comb the movie frame-by-frame, you may also see Lee walking the dog that sniffs Miles and Peter on the ground in the middle of a busy intersection (a continuation of his Venom post-credits tease), or popping up in the background on subways and trains. “That guy is all over New York. He’s a busy man.”
For a number of reasons, though, the main cameo nearly didn’t happen at all. When the filmmakers wanted to record his part, Lee’s wife of 70 years, Joan, had just passed away. Ramsey said that they weren’t at all sure if Lee would be up for recording the part, or if asking him to participate at all would be in poor taste. Heavy, also, on their minds was another question: “how much longer is Stan going to be around?” Arad, whose relationship with both Marvel and Lee stretches back years, said he was concerned—after recording Lee’s cameo for Venom—that the comic-book legend was “quite frail.” Arad, however, also said that Lee had a passion for cameos: “He loved, he lived for these cameo roles. That was more important to him than anything else, because he understood that his personality, his legacy will always be there. He knew how much people loved it.”
Because of Lee’s fragile health, the production came to him in 2017. Lee welcomed them all into his home for what producer Christina Steinberg called “one of those amazing days.” Lee fell in love with the early artwork he saw from the film, and “was so excited about the Miles Morales story.” Though they had Lee set down several alternative lines, the one that made it into the final cut was the one he loved best—for its wit as well as its emotional impact.
“On a lot of levels, it already had this weird resonance to it,” Ramsey said, “and now the completed scene on the finished movie even more so because of him. But it’s also a real cathartic release for people. People just explode when they see him on-screen.” The film ends with another nod to both Lee and his Spider-Man co-creator Steve Ditko, who died in June—just a few months before Lee. The title card came together at the last minute after news of Lee’s death had reached the filmmakers. “It was one of these moments where we were struggling,” Arad said. “What do you do at the end of a movie that respects this auteur, genius?”
The team settled on a cartoon rendering (seen above) of Lee’s iconic glasses, paired with one of his more famous quotes: “That person who helps others simply because it should or must be done, and because it is the right thing to do, is indeed without a doubt, a real superhero.” The card then pays more direct homage to Lee and Ditko with the overarching mission statement of the film itself: “Thanks to Stan Lee and Steve Ditko, for showing us we’re not the only ones.”
“None of us would be here without [Lee and Ditko],” Persichetti said. “So it’s just saying thank you for being who you were and are still because he lives on every day in this movie and every other comic that he helped create.”
This story was originally published by Vanity Fair
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