We’ve come upon the third anniversary of the legendary Stan Lee’s passing away, and the passage of time doesn’t make his loss any easier. Lee’s legacy carries on at Marvel Comics, as the company continues to publish stories starring many of the characters he helped guide during his illustrious career. Marvel Studios is chugging along as well, especially with Disney+ Day falling on the anniversary of Lee’s death on November 12th. Fans around the world have taken to social media to commemorate Stan Lee and how he has touched their lives.
“Stan Lee” began trending on Friday with many tweets featuring fans posing with Lee, along with some of his most iconic cameos in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Audiences had become accustomed to seeing Stan Lee pop up in MCU films each year, and now it feels odd to not see him delivering a humorous line to the likes of Simu Liu’s Shang-Chi or any of the Eternals. Some of the many hashtags found on Twitter include #StanLee and #StanLeeForever.ย
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Many of the projects featured on Disney+ Day have a link back to Lee, who helped shape the Marvel Comics Universe. If it wasn’t for his stamp of approval on heroes like Spider-Man and the Avengers, we wouldn’t be getting new projects like Marvel’s Spider-Man: Freshman Year, X-Men ’97, or all the Avengers spinoffs in the works.
Last year, Kevin Smith posted a heartfelt message on the two-year anniversary of the Marvel legend’s death. “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.
“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 to ComicBook.com about Mallrats nod to Stan Lee. “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 doesย Captain Marvelย … there Stan reading the script forย Mallratsย 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.”