Kevin Smith Pays Tribute to Stan Lee Two Years After His Death

November 12th was the second anniversary of Marvel legend Stan Lee’s passing, so many of his fans and collaborators took to social media to pay tribute to him. Guardians of the Galaxy director James Gunn shared a fun story about Lee, and he wasn’t the only one. Kevin Smith, who had a long history with Lee, also took to Instagram to say some kind words about the iconic comics creator. Smith and Lee go all the way back to 1995 when the latter made a cameo in Mallrats. The iconic movie moment was even referenced in Captain Marvel, which marked one of Lee’s final cameos. Here’s what Smith had to say this week about his friend:

“Yesterday marked 2 years since @therealstanlee crossed the rainbow bridge, called back to wherever heroes rest eternally, after being on loan to Earth for nearly a century. His death was a great loss, but his life was filled with huge wins,” Smith wrote.

“These pics were taken at the @legionmofficial shoot, when I interviewed Stan for a VR retrospective of his entire life and career (which is still forthcoming). I remember I was walking to @jaymewes’ house when I got the news from @jordanmonsanto. It was a gut punch on a lot of levels, made worse by the fact that I was scheduled to go see him the following week. I still get glassy-eyed thinking about how lucky I was to not only meet The Man, but also to work with Stan so many times. But even more than that! I got to be a friend. Thanks for everything, True Believer. Miss you much. Excelsior forevermore.” You can view the post below:

Smith often shares throwbacks of Lee, and recently spole with ComicBook.com’s Nicole Drum about the impact of the Mallrats shoutout in Captain Marvel.

“This is me presenting this guy who the world doesn’t know, to a new generation be like this is a guy that created Spider-Man, man. And so I felt like I was doing him a solid in ’95,” Smith explained. “So, it was me shining spotlight on him and still the movie that like eventually nobody saw when it first came out. Years later, he goes and does Captain Marvel … there Stan reading the script for Mallrats is by Kevin Smith. You know that to me is my Oscar. They’ll never give me an Academy Award. That’s totally fine. But this, that moment was like my Oscar.”

He added, “Like it was almost like he was paying me back. He gave me back the relevancy that like we thought we were lending him with the Mallrats cameo. But we were never doing Stan a favor. He was always doing us a favor, like that buoyed the movie a decade later.”

You can read more from our Smith interview here.