Prior to Stan Lee's death in 2018, the legendary comic book creator shot a number of cameos for various Marvel Cinematic Universe movies.
The final time we saw him show up to surprise fans was in Avengers: Endgame, while the first movie to be released without an appearance from "The Man" was Spider-Man: Far From Home. Now, though, we've learned that James Gunn once had plans to feature Stan in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3.
That movie was written prior to when Lee passed away, and during the threequel's Director's Commentary, Gunn shared how he'd hoped to give the iconic co-creator of characters like Spider-Man and the Fantastic Four his due with a quirky voice role.
"I originally wrote Lambshank, the character that I played, for Stan Lee because I wrote the movie before Stan passed on," the filmmaker explains. "I knew he was also getting much older and it'd be harder to bring him to Atlanta to shoot."
"So I did a character that I could just animate and then have him do the voice and have a little Stan Lee-like face on that character. Unfortunately, Stan passed, who I really enjoyed working with and directing so many times through these movies."
Lambshank is, of course, the horrific-looking alien who scares Mantis aboard The High Evolutionary's ship, and it would have been fun to both see this alternate design for the creature and to hear Stan's take on it. Sadly, it wasn't meant to be, and Avengers: Endgame remains a fitting send-off.
Lee made cameo appearances in every single Marvel Studios movie from Iron Man to Endgame, and while Far From Home served as an epilogue to the Infinity War Saga, that means he was there pretty much from beginning to end.
Let us know your favourite Stan Lee MCU cameo down in the comments section.