HOLLYWOOD – Citing their popularity among fans, former Marvel president Stan Lee has vowed that his cameos in Marvel films will continue long after he dies.
“Realistically, my living body will only be able to appear in two or three more films,” said the 92-year-old Lee. “Fortunately, modern embalming techniques will help me bring joy into the lives of fans long after Death’s rough fingers have closed my eyes.”
Lee, best known to younger audiences for bit roles in movies like The Avengers and Ant Man, says his ragdoll body will appear as a corpse in the upcoming Avengers sequel, as a corpse in the upcoming Guardians of the Galaxy sequel, and as a billionaire playboy in the just-announced Captain America: Ceaseless Pirate.
“It’s always a lot of fun having Stan on set,” said Iron Man’s Robert Downey, Jr. “Honestly, it won’t be as fun to have him around when he’s dead, but hey, when life gives you a dead body, I guess you just have to make dead body lemonade.”
“Some sort of horrible lemonade from the dead body.”
The announcement has caused a flurry of speculation among fans.
“Is Lee going to go with a formalin/formaldehyde-type embalming? Or a more classic natron-and-canopic-jar process?” asked blogger and Marvel fan Joseph Halten. “Who knows? All I can say is, if he chooses the wrong one, he’s a sellout and I’ll hate him forever.”
At press time, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences had said they would consider Lee’s dead body eligible for future Oscars, as they did for Marlon Brando’s corpse in 1996’s The Island of Doctor Moreau.
