There are a lot of unanswered questions about the upcoming, still-untitled Avengers 4. How will beloved but dusted heroes with confirmed upcoming movies, like Spider-Man and Black Panther, be brought back? How will Captain Marvel fit in? Will it really be three hours long? When will we get a trailer? And why won’t they just tell us the name of the damn thing already?
And now, following the death of Marvel legend and unofficial mascot Stan Lee at 95, fans have something new to stress about: how are we supposed to keep our s**t together when we see his last ever proper Marvel cameo?
https://twitter.com/harleivy/status/1062066550398767104
When ‘Avengers 4’ ends and the credits say “Dedicated to Stan Lee”… pic.twitter.com/2aSZRxkEq4
— Lights, Camera, Pod (@LightsCameraPod) November 12, 2018
Avengers when they see thanos in avengers 4
Give stan lee back pic.twitter.com/8IPFjZ6ako— The Doctor of Philosophy (@zackzack8888) November 12, 2018
Everyone was already going to be crying at the end of Avengers 4…
But now I'm sure it will end with some sort of tribute to Stan Lee in the credits. The entire theater is going to be sobbing.
— Jack “CouRage” Dunlop (@CouRageJD) November 12, 2018
when ‘In Loving Memory of Stan Lee 1922-2018’
pops up at the end of the Avengers 4 credits pic.twitter.com/67UenYyXzF— ⎊ sᴛᴇᴘʜ ➐ (@fuckn_marvel) November 12, 2018
So I'm going to have watch all my favourite Avengers make their last appearance and then see "In memory of Stan Lee" once the movie is over. pic.twitter.com/sEQLVq6Njp
— common Disney fan (@commondsneyfan) November 13, 2018
When I watch the Stan Lee tribute at the end of Avengers 4 for the 57th time in theaters pic.twitter.com/XZ0AxxoEmR
— X (@XLNB) November 12, 2018
There was briefly some concern that the cameo king’s final appearance would be in Venom – hardly a fitting send-off for anything except the prospect of a Tom Hardy Venom franchise. But existing interviews with Marvel honcho Kevin Feige and directors the Russo Brothers showed that they’ve already filmed Lee’s Avengers 4 scene.
While Lee was still pretty spry, he was well into his 90s, so the studio began shooting his iconic cameos in bulk to minimise travel and disruption for the former Marvel president – and the last batch they shot covered the final few movies of MCU Phase III, which includes Captain Marvel and the last movie of this cycle, Avengers 4.
And there’s plenty of room for visual cameos from Lee, well, infinitely – Marvel properties from Netflix’s Jessica Jones and Pixar’s Big Hero 6 to this year’s Deadpool 2 have used his image for major plot points or blink-and-you’ll-miss-them shout outs.
One of the best things about seeing MCU movies in a packed cinema is being one of a couple of hundred nerds all waiting for Stan, and then cheering as one when he pops up as a galactic playboy or a cantankerous janitor.
Now, Avengers 4 had better build in a little moment for everyone to collect themselves after Lee’s cameo. If there’s a particularly important bit of exposition in there, it’ll be lost in a flood of tears and yelling “EXCELSIOR!” and popcorn-flinging, and also however the people who aren’t me react.
The next MCU film to come out will be Captain Marvel in March, and yes, it’ll be emotional when Stan shows up in 1995.
But the closure we’ve been promised in A4 – from the resurrections of half the cast to the predicted death of franchise anchor Captain America – makes it the obvious choice for a tribute that will utterly wreck us all. It is now all I care about. Excelsior!