Stan Lee’s Best Movie Cameo Wasn’t Marvel, It Was ‘Mallrats’

I was never a big comic book kid when I was growing up, so I didn’t have any familiarity with who Stan Lee was. Which feels a little silly today considering nobody has to be (or have been) a comic book kid in order to know the most intimate details of the Marvel universe. I’ve never opened a comic, yet I know all about Magneto and Dark Phoenix and Venom and the Avengers and Thanos. And everything I don’t know, I can learn practically by leaning my head out the window to eavesdrop on passing conversations between people debating the merits and differences between the Marvel Comics universe and the lucrative Marvel Cinematic Universe. That’s the world that Stan Lee created, and after passing away at the age of 95 today, it’s the legacy that Stan Lee leaves behind.

But I didn’t know any of that back in 1995. I was a budding teenage cinephile, and as was likely on the radar of every cinephile back then, I was out to see Mallrats. (Actually, I snark, but there likely were a good handful of movie snobs out to see how Kevin Smith would follow up his 1994 Sundance hit Clerks, only to be disappointed by the mainstream antics at play in Mallrats.) As it turned out, Mallrats would end up being my first exposure to Stan Lee, either as a comic book creator or as an on-screen persona.

Lee plays himself in the film, legendary comic book creator Stan Lee, who comes across lead character Brody (Jason Lee), the irritable, putzy comic book lover who’s just broken up with his girlfriend (Shannen Doherty, probably the real reason I saw this movie) over, among other things, him being an irritable, putzy comic book lover. Brody is instantly star-struck and begins peppering Lee with a billion fanboy questions (most of them about superhero genitalia), but as Lee begins to level with him, the two end up having a really sentimental heart-to-heart about life and love. It’s honestly a great scene.

This was before Marvel began making movies, and certainly before the MCU took over Hollywood as we know it. Lee’s custom of making a cameo appearance in the MCU films became a sillier, winkier version of Alfred Hitchcock’s old habit. Before Mallrats, Lee’s screen appearances had been mostly as narrators to a few Marvel animated series. He played “Marvel Comics Editor” in 1990’s The Ambulance, but it wasn’t until 2000’s X-Men cast Lee as a hot-dog vendor that the cameos really started rolling in. Lee has played security guards, delivery men, and any number of bystanders. He’s there as a little nod to the creator within the work of fiction. He’s also there so fanboys can elbow their companions in the ribs and go, “That’s Stan Lee.”

The Mallrats cameo will always feel more substantial to me. I didn’t recognize Lee by sight, so I only knew of his importance through how the other characters reacted to him, as if he were godlike. (This, by the way, is exactly how I found out who Stephen Sondheim was via watching the indie movie Camp.) And while it’s Brody’s fan worship on screen, it’s Kevin Smith who’s the real fanboy. Smith’s love and enthusiasm for Lee and his lifetime of work radiates off the screen.

And Lee gives as good as he gets. While the MCU cameos devolved into winky, funny-grandpa one-liners, Lee gets to really play a scene in Mallrats, waxing rhapsodic about young couples in love and deftly parrying Brody’s interrogations about The Thing’s wang to connect with the boy about things like love and regret. Throughout, he keeps up an almost preternatural cheeriness (we find out later it’s because Brody’s best friend paid Lee to talk some sense into him) that never takes the easy way out to a vulgar punchline. It’s honestly one of the best scenes in the movie.

With Stan Lee’s passing, it’s the end of an era for one particular aspect of fanboy culture. But this particular scene will stand the test of time better than most. It’s the best encapsulation of the way that the fan community felt about their beloved icon. It’s worth a look, even amid all the dick and fart jokes.

Where to stream Mallrats