Marvel Fans Rediscover Stan Lee’s Greatest Manga Cameo

Fans and industry veterans alike are paying tribute to Stan Lee after his passing earlier today, and anime and manga fans were instantly reminded of the work Lee has done in Japan over the course of his career.

This naturally lead to the rediscovery of a manga series Lee collaborated on with the creator of Shaman King, Hiroyuki Takei, in which he played the series’ villain.

In 2008, Stan Lee and Pow Entertainment collaborated with Hiroyuki Takei on the series Karakuri Doji Ultimo, or “Mechanical Boy Ultimo.” Lee wrote for the series while Takei provided illustrations, but fans noticed the two had fun with the series’ villain Dr. Dunstan. In Ultimo, Dr. Dunstan creates mechanical children who are embodiments of pure good, or pure evil, that only desire to do battle with one another.

As for his appearance, it’s a vigorous and more eccentric version of Lee himself. Even getting to cry out Lee’s favorite “Excelsior!” exclamation at points in the series. Making Lee the villain is a great bit of meta humor in the series as well as Dunstan originally creates the 15 children to do battle as a wild kind of experiment to test the boundaries of what is good and evil.

The series focuses on a man who lives through several phases of the Doji’s fights over many decades. His goal is to meet each of the 15 and get to know why they fight before Dunstan forces them to fight to the death.

Stan Lee wanted to create a manga in which Japanese and Western audiences would love to read, and imagined the initial concept because he had yet to write a story about two supremely powerful robots of the same strength (with one robot not being as heroic as the other). The series has since been licensed for an English release by Viz Media, and there are 12 volumes of the series overall.

Stan Lee not only dabbled in manga, but in anime series as well. Lee has a featured cameo in other anime projects he had a hand in such as Heroman and The Reflection.