Spoilers to follow.
In November of last year, we lost legendary comic book creator Stan Lee, though as we’ve been told, he was still able to shoot a few more of his patented cameos. Last month’s Captain Marvel, for example, brought us an unusually meta take on the tradition, as Lee appeared as himself reading for his part in Mallrats.
With the upcoming Avengers: Endgame, though, Lee is finally bringing his run of cameos to a close and we now have all the details on how he factors into things. Admittedly, it’s not his best or most memorable appearance in an MCU movie – or any movie, for that matter – but it’s certainly nice to see him on screen one final time.
The cameo occurs when Cap and Iron Man travel back to 1970 to retrieve one of the Infinity Stones. Specifically, they head to a military base where they hope to find Howard Stark and Hank Pym, and it’s here that we see Lee. The comic book legend drives by in a car and screams out the window, “make love, not war,” before speeding off. And as quickly as he appeared, he’s gone.
So, that’s Stan’s last cameo, and though there was speculation that he could show up later this year in Spider-Man: Far From Home, the tradition has indeed come to an end with this month’s Avengers: Infinity War sequel. That being said, while the upcoming X-Men: Dark Phoenix won’t see Lee appear in the flesh, director Simon Kinberg has said that it’ll still have some kind of tribute to the man.
Regardless, as the conclusion of over a decade of superhero cinema, Avengers: Endgame seems like about as perfect a place as any for Lee’s last on-film cameo, and we imagine audiences around the world will be delighted to see him show up on screen one final time when they pack into theaters this weekend.