Stan Lee

It still remains to be seen if Disney and Marvel’s Big Hero 6 will ever get a second life in theaters, but the upcoming 2017 animated continuation is no slouch when it comes to casting. Not only will stars like Maya Rudolph and Scott Adsit return, so too will Sherlock and The Walking Dead stars join the mix.

For decades, Marvel has benefited greatly from having Stan Lee as the unofficial ambassador of all things comic book-related. Over the past few years, though, director James Gunn has given Lee a run for his money with his (relative) candor about the Marvel Cinematic Universe and the challenge of keeping the characters and mythology of the comic books all in a row. When Lee is finally ready to hang up his Marvel hat, Gunn might be the obvious chose to succeed him as the creative face of the company. And that makes the two of them working together on Lee’s MCU cameos just about the perfect match.

He’s had a hand in creating some of the most beloved superheroes of all time for Marvel, but now comic-book icon Stan Lee is getting the hero treatment. 20th Century Fox has reportedly acquired the rights to Lee’s life story with the intention of turning it into a fictional action-adventure movie set in the 1970s, with Lee as a James Bond-style protagonist — now there’s a series of words you’d never conceive of stringing together.

The fact that Stan Lee is guaranteed to appear in nearly every single Marvel movie is one of those small little charms of the Marvel Cinematic Universe that I hope never goes away. Sure, some people probably view it as an annoying break in the fourth wall, but it also reminds audiences that we are watching a superhero comic book movie. These movies don’t need to choose between being cartoonish and deadly serious; they can be both, often at the same time, and Stan Lee always helps drive that point home.

Late last week a pretty substantial rumor surfaced suggesting that Zenadaya’s secret role in Spider-Man: Homecoming is actually Mary Jane Watson. While neither Marvel nor Sony have confirmed or even responded to those rumors, it elicited an unfortunately predictable reaction from several fans who were unhappy that a woman of color would be playing a character traditionally depicted as a white redhead. James Gunn already weighed in with his thoughts, and our own Matt Singer wrote an excellent piece on the matter, and now Stan Lee himself has offered his reaction to the recent casting rumor.

It’s not brought up too frequently in the recent waves of D.C. and Marvel blockbusters, but it’s kind of messed up that all the superheroes appear to be headquartered in New York. Yes, Manhattan magnetically attracts mega-powered megalomaniacs like mosquitos to a BBQ, but the rest of America, not to mention the rest of Earth, needs help as well...

Disney may be having itself quite a weekend, but another corner of the empire will start to pull focus in 2016, as Marvel fans gear up for Captain America: Civil War. 2016 will also mark the 75th anniversary of the character, for which ABC has drafted an hour-long Cap special to air just before the Season 2 premiere of his best gal, Agent Carter.

The works of William Shakespeare are hardly immune to modernist revisions, from Baz Luhrmann’s ‘90s take on Romeo + Juliet to Michael Almereyda’s Hamlet with Ethan Hawke — not to mention the various ways the bard’s works have been repurposed in rom-coms for decades. But none of these adaptations have anything on Romeo and Juliet: The War, a graphic novel retelling of Shakespeare’s tragic love story featuring cyborgs and genetically-enhanced humans.

Stan Lee is perhaps the closest thing we’ll ever have to continuity between all the Marvel films. The legendary comic book creator has had cameos in just about every single Marvel movie regardless of studio affiliation, including X-Men, The Avengers and Spider-Man. He’s the only free agent able to move between properties, offering up silly little appearances in each Marvel movie with a friendly grandpa wink and a nod.

Marvel’s ‘Agent Carter’ series took the week off to accommodate President Ellis Obama’s State of the Union address, but next Tuesday will see Peggy back in action, with Howard Stark in tow as thumbs circle “The Blitzkrieg Button.” See the return of Iron Man’s pappy and a mysterious new villain in the first photos from next week’s ‘Agent Carter!’