Stan Lee Thinks The World Is Going To Blow Itself Up

According to Stan Lee, the world will end not with an invasion from Galactus, but with, well, nuclear holocaust.

It’s a surprisingly sober prediction from the man who’s built an empire of doomsday scenarios and planet-decimating plots. But, Lee recently revealed that he thinks mankind will ultimately destroy itself by lobbing one missile too many sometime in the future.

“Eventually someone is going to come along, and launch a missile against another country. Then they’ll throw one back there. Then before you know it—poof,” Lee explained in an interview with electronic musician Steve Aoki for Wired. “Maybe I’ve been writing to many comic books, so maybe that’s been indoctrinated into my mind too much.”

That last sentence may be a bit of an understatement.

Either way, even Lee recognized that his vision may be a little too bleak for his own good, and retracted that prediction for a much more optimistic one. In the 2.0 version of Lee’s future, humans might live on to create a “neon” utopia with self-flying cars.

You can check out the rest of Lee’s conversation below, where he discusses his amazement with modern technology and fascination with science.

Here’s hoping that the latter of Lee’s predictions comes true.