Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige Posts Touching Tribute To Stan Lee

President of Marvel Studios, Kevin Feige posted his fond farewell to Stan Lee on Monday after the iconic writer passed away.

Lee passed on Monday at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, according to a report by TMZ. His cause of death was not immediately revealed, though the 95-year-old has had health problems on and off all year. Social media quickly filled with tributes, including one from the film producer that has rendered Lee’s stories onscreen — Kevin Feige.

“No one has had more of an impact on my career and everything we do at Marvel Studios than Stan Lee,” Feige wrote on Twitter. “Stan leaves an extraordinary legacy that will outlive us all. Our thoughts are with his daughter, his family, and his millions of fans.”

Feige added the hashtags “Thank You Stan” and “Excelcior!” to his tweet.

Feige is often considered the mastermind of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, overseeing all of the disparate productions and ensuring that they hold together seamlessly. While it is now one of the most unstoppable forces in the film industry, there was a lot of doubt early on that a shared superhero universe across different franchises could work. Feige made it a reality, and he is the first to admit that he owes it all to Lee.

Lee is credited with creating the idea of a shared universe — a now ubiquitous aspect of superhero comics. He expanded on the team-ups of Golden Age comics, implying that all of Marvel’s heroes co-existed in one world — and often one city. He drew fans in with this strategy, while laying the groundwork for nearly a century of storytelling.

That groundwork is now the foundation of a multi-billion dollar film enterprise that Feige hsa responsibility for. He wrote about the gamble in a new book celebrating the MCU’s 10th anniversary, Marvel Studios: The First Ten Years, where he admitted that even he did not know if it would work at first.

“I think it was The Avengers,” he said. “The success of Iron Man was amazing. That gave us the confidence to do another Iron Man film, a Captain America film, and to introduce Thor. The success of The Avengers taught us that the audience really gets what we’re doing, and really enjoys the crosspollination of all of these different film series. And the audience told us unequivocally they were with us. That allowed us to plot out everything that we’ve done since then, and everything specifically building to Infinity War.”

Now, after decades of Marvel movie cameos, Stan Lee has one more appearance coming up — in the still-untitled Avengers 4. Whether that will be his last is still unclear, but at least fans will see him smiling up on the screen one last time next spring.