By now you’ve seen Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 2 and know how awesome it was. The action, the effects, the humor and the music. Then there are the post-credit scenes. One of which confirms a fan’s theory about all of Stan Lee’s cameos and its implications not just in the MCU but all the other modern Marvel movies made.
Let’s list them down first.
- The trial of the Incredible Hulk (1989) – as a jury member.
- X-Men (2000) – as a hotdog vendor on the beach when jellyfish Kelly pops up.
- Spider-Man (2002) – part of a crowd during Spidey and Green Goblin’s first battle.
- Daredevil (2003) – old man crossing the street.
- Hulk (2003) – as a security guard. Lou Ferrigno’s colleague.
- Spider-Man (2004) – a bystander who saves a woman from falling debris
- Fantastic Four (2005) – a delivery man to the Baxter Building
- X-Men: The Last Stand (2006) – neighbor to a young Jean Grey
- Spider-Man 3 (2007) – stops Peter on the street and gives him some advice
- Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer (2007) – gatecrasher to Reed and Sue’s wedding
- Iron Man (2008) – guest mistaken as Hugh Hefner
- The Incredible Hulk (2008) – mistakenly drinks contaminated soda
- Iron Man 2 (2010) – guest mistaken for Larry King
- Thor (2011) – pick-up driver at the scene of Mjolnir’s resting place
- Captain America: The First Avenger (2011) – war veteran guest at Captain America’s honoring ceremony
- The Avengers (2012) – guy in a news report finding the existence of superheroes incredulous
- The Amazing Spider-Man (2012) – school librarian
- Iron Man 3 (2013) – audience to a beauty contest
- Thor: The Dark World (2013) – mental ward patient
- Marvel’s Agents of SHIELD Season 1 Episode 13 (2014) – train passenger
- Captain America: Winter Soldier (2014) – security guard at Smithsonian Institute
- The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (2014) – part of crowd at Peter’s graduation
- Guardians of the Galaxy (2014) – person conversing with woman on Xandar
- Big Hero 6 (2014) – as Fred’s dad
- Marvel’s Agent Carter (2015) – sits beside Howard Stark while getting his shoes shined
- Avengers Age of Untron (2015) – challenges Thor he can drink Asgardian ale
- Daredevil (2015) – in a photo at a NYPD precinct
- Ant-Man (2015) – as a bartender
- Jessica Jones (2015) – photo in another precinct
- Deadpool (2016) – MC in a nightclub
- Captain America: Civil War (2016) – as a FedEx delivery man looking for Tony Stank
- X-Men Apocalypse (2016) – scared citizen watching Apocalypse’s reign of destruction
- Marvel’s Luke Cage (2016) – photo in anti-crime poster
- Doctor Strange (2016) – London bus passenger
- Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 (2017) – man on the moon talking to Watchers
That’s right. Stan Lee is potentially a Watcher, maybe even Uatu himself. Yours truly also thought about this but had not the courage to post it online. It seemed obvious someone might post it before. The fan who did, deserves a jacket or maybe much more in case he planted the idea in Kevin Feige’s head if he hadn’t thought about it already.
What does this mean? This means two things. One, that all of Stan Lee’s cameos are actually in continuity regardless of which studio produced the movie whether it’s Sony, Fox or Universal. There’s an earth where Spider-Man is the only superhero; there’s a world where the Fantastic Four are the only heroes and there’s a world where there are mutants instead of Inhumans.
Two, that Marvel Studios can now use Watchers in their movies. The race of the Watchers is, or was Fox property as well as Ego, The Living Planet. This means that Fox and Marvel are holding talks about character and rights switching. They said before that Ego was the result of Marvel giving Negasonic Teenage Warhead’s power set for Deadpool 2. It’s unknown though what rights Marvel got when they gave Fox the X-Men TV rights so Fox could produce Legion and their upcoming X-Men series.
Now that The Watchers are part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and the Fantastic Four film franchise is practically dead, could Silver Surfer, Doctor Doom, Galactus and the Fantastic Four themselves be far behind? We certainly hope so especially since Reed Richards might make a return to comics in the upcoming Marvel Comics Marvel Legacy one-shot.
Almost forgot. Adam Warlock, another character who debuted in Fantastic Four comics is also in the MCU as shown in one of GOTGs post credit scenes. Instead of being created on Earth, Adam is part of the Sovereign race.
So Stan the Man is a Watcher. How will he be portrayed in Avengers: Infinity War?