Stan Lee’s Final MCU Cameo Could Have Been More Impactful — Here’s What Fans Wish Had Happened
For Marvel fans, Stan Lee is more than just a funny cameo; he’s also the godfather to the entire Marvel Cinematic Universe.
While he didn’t have a big hand in making the movies, the characters that he either made or helped made have become some of the most popular characters in the world.
As an homage to all the work that he’s done for the world, Marvel movies have almost always given him a cameo. That said, Lee unfortunately died in 2018, and as such, his cameo in Avengers: Endgame may be his last. That said, while it was a touching moment, some fans think that Marvel could’ve improved on Stan Lee’s final cameo.
Stan Lee’s cameo in ‘Avengers: Endgame’
Three MCU movies have been released since Lee died, and they were Captain Marvel, Avengers: Endgame, and Spider-Man: Far From Home. Lee only made a cameo in Captain Marvel and Avengers: Endgame, and both were touching moments for fans.
In Avengers: Endgame, the team has traveled back to 1970, and they’re trying to find the Space Stone at an army base.
Shortly after they arrive, a car pulls up by them and the driver, who’s played by Lee, shouts at them, “Make love, not war!” He then drives off into the sunset with a woman next to him.
According to Radio Times, the woman in that scene could have been an homage to his real-life wife, Joan Lee. This touching send-off was a big moment for fans. But now, fans think that it could’ve been better.
Some fans want Stan Lee to get ‘snapped’
Fans on Reddit said that one way that Lee’s cameo could’ve been better was if Lee had gotten snapped. The idea is based on the beginning of Avengers: Endgame, when Ant-Man is trying to find his family, and he looks at some memorials to see whether or not his family had been snapped. Fans wanted Lee’s name to show up briefly on one of those memorials, to imply that he had been snapped.
This was a controversial idea, as there were positives and negatives. On one hand, since Lee was snapped, fans know that he will be back, since of course, at the end of the movie, everyone who was snapped came back. On the other hand though, this idea meant showing, or at least, implying, Lee getting dusted, which is just not in good taste since Lee had died a few months earlier.
There was, however, a better idea on Reddit.
Stan Lee saves the Marvel Cinematic Universe?
Also at the start of Avengers: Endgame is a direct follow-up to Ant-Man and the Wasp, which came out a few months after Avengers: Infinity War did. At the end of Ant-Man and the Wasp, Ant-Man gets trapped in the quantum realm because everyone around him got dusted.
Five years later and at the start of Avengers: Endgame, the van that Ant-Man is trapped in is now sitting in a storage area collecting dust. Randomly, a rat presses the button that un-shrinks Ant-Man, returning him to normal size. This allowed him to, eventually, help save the world; without Ant-Man, the Avengers wouldn’t have been able to travel back in time, collect the Infinity Stones, and ultimately, beat Thanos.
So, in a way, a rat saved the world. But, fans want Lee to have been the character that saved the world. Fans on Reddit say that Lee could’ve just been a janitor who randomly pressed the button to un-shrink Ant-Man, and this would’ve ultimately meant that Stan Lee saved the MCU. This was such a good suggestion that some fans said that they wish that Disney would make an alternate cut of the movie where this happens.
