Spider-Man Star Tony Revolori Reflects on Flash Thompson Casting Backlash and Stan Lee’s Approval

Tony Revolori plays the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s Flash Thompson in Spider-Man: Homecoming and Spider-Man: Far From Home. As the child of Guatemalan immigrants, Revolori doesn’t fit the description of Thompson as drawn in the universe of the Marvel Comics. There, Flash is a caucasian blond. This change to Thompson caused some backlash with Marvel fans, but all of that fell away when Revolori met Stan Lee.

On an episode of ET Live, Revolori recounted the story of how he met Lee at San Diego Comic-Con after the first Spider-Man: Homecoming footage debuted in Hall H. “Later on that day, I was walking around at Comic-Con, which was very difficult at this point because now everyone knew who I was, and at the Marvel booth, they have a little…behind a green room. And I went and a buddy told me, ‘Stan’s coming. Why don’t you wait and meet him?’ And I was like, ‘Oh my god, of course. I’d love to meet him.’ When I was there, you know, someone whispered in his ear who I was and, you know, I was there also with Jacob [Batalon] and they told him and he was very kind, he was very nice, you know, he was like — he made a joke saying, ‘I bet you’re mad that I didn’t give you super speed’ or something like that. And I remember he sent one of his assistants off to go get something and thought nothing of it. We started talking or whatever.”

As Revolori goes on to explain, Lee had a sense of what fans would think of him as Flash Thompson. Lee gave Revolori a gift and some words of encouragement.

“And then I was leaving. I had to go do press or something like that, so I had to leave,” he says. “But before I left, he gave me — he stopped me and he said ‘Wait one moment.’ And the guy came back with a issue of Spider-Man that was the issue where Flash Thompson shows you how much he admires Spider-Man, how he lost his legs, and then ultimately becomes Agent Venom. And he wrote a couple of words on the comic and he signed it for me and he was like, ‘Here you go. And I know the fans can be terrible but for what it’s worth I think you’re going to be the best Flash.’ And, I mean, he didn’t have to say anything like that, but it made me well up. There was definitely a tear in my eye. And I thought you know, ‘He could just be saying this’ but he was genuine and it really, it hit home. So after that, it kind of felt like people could say whatever they want to say. Here’s the man who created the character and he said it was okay.”

What do you think of this Stan Lee story? Let us know in the comments. Spider-Man: Far From Home is now playing in theaters.