Warning – this post contains spoilers!
Videos by ComicBook.com
Ant-Man and the Wasp is the third Marvel Studios movie release of 2018, which means it’s the third opportunity for Stan Lee to make a big-screen cameo appearance in 2018! Ant-Man and the Wasp may have one of Lee’s best Marvel Cinematic Universe cameos to date – read below for the details and judge for yourself!
*
Stan Lee’s Ant-Man and the Wasp cameo occurs later on in the film, during an epic car chase sequence through the winding, hilly, streets of San Francisco. As #TeamPym is trying to outrun black market tech dealer Sonny Burch (Walton Goggins) and phase-powered covert operative Ghost (Hannah Jon-Kamen), the chase wreaks all kinds of property damage across the Bay Area. We see an elderly motorist trying to get into his car, which is then hit by a wayward shrinking disc being fired off by Evangline Lily’s Wasp. When the car shrinks from sight, it’s revealed that the motorist is in fact Stan Lee, and he drops a particularly funny line to the effect of, “The ’60s were great, but now I’m paying for it.”
This line of dialogue in Lee’s 21st MCU movie appearance isn’t just rich because of its obvious reference to psychedelic drug use in the ’60s heyday of the hippies, but also because of just how much it bittersweetly embodies Stan Lee’s current real-life situation.
Lee had plenty of fun co-creating Marvel Comics alognside Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko in the 1960s, but that time has fizzled out into a late sideshow of scandals and troubling reports from Lee’s life, not to mention the loss of the lion’s share of profits for the Marvel brand he helped pioneer. If you haven’t been following, Lee has reportedly been the victim of elder abuse by those closest to him – with the primary abuser being Keya Morgan, his former manager. Morgan has been accused of misappropriating Lee’s funds in some very shady real estate and promotional deals – including selling the Marvel icon’s blood in the form of bio-autographed comics. After Lee and Morgan started having a major falling out over use of Lee’s likeness on social media and in other venues, two armed men were sent to Lee’s house (allegedly on Morgan’s behalf) to extort money from him.
Lee is now trying to turn things around, by taking the reigns of his own Twitter account, and rehiring his former lawyer Tom Lallas to preside as guardian over Lee’s estate and finances. As stated, those personal troubles add some weight to this Ant-Man and the Wasp cameo – but can’t stop it from being a whole lot of fun!
****
Which MCU Stan Lee cameo is your favorite? Watch the video above and let us know in the comments!
Ant-Man and the Wasp opens in theaters on July 6th. Avengers: Infinity War is now playing in theaters. Other upcoming Marvel Cinematic Universe movies include Captain Marvel on March 8, 2019, the fourth Avengers movie on May 3, 2019, the sequel to Spider-Man: Homecoming on July 5th, 2019, and Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 in 2020.
