Stan Lee has a cameo in Big Hero 6, and here's why the Marvel Comics legend is in the movie. Walt Disney Animation Studios released Big Hero 6 in 2014. The futuristic superhero story follows a genius young boy named Hiro, who gets caught up in a dangerous adventure after his older brother's death. Hiro uses his knowledge of robotics to transform Baymax - a care robot created by Hiro's brother - and Hiro's friends into superheroes. Big Hero 6 is an underrated hit, receiving great reviews and making over $650 million at the box office.
Big Hero 6 features a talented voice cast that includes Ryan Potter, Alan Tudyk, Jamie Chung, Damon Wayans Jr., Scott Adsit, Genesis Rodriguez, and T.J. Miller. However, the most recognizable personality to appear in Big Hero 6 is one of its last. The post-credits scene for the movie featured a cameo by Stan Lee. The prolific Marvel Comics creator doesn't appear as himself but rather voices the dad of Fred, one of Hiro's friends. Lee's likeness can be seen before the scene in a family portrait, but he lent his voice to the film as well. But why was Stan Lee chosen for a cameo?
Lee's appearance in Big Hero 6 is directly tied to the fact that the movie is actually a very loose adaptation of a Marvel team of the same name. There are plenty of changes made to Big Hero 6's characters between the comics and the film, but the creative team still highlighted the comics' history through Lee's cameo. It became an unofficial tradition for Lee to appear in Marvel movies over the last few decades. He appeared in every MCU movie from Iron Man to Avengers: Endgame, every Spider-Man movie until the time of his death, most of Fox's X-Men movies, and various other Marvel movies and TV shows. Since Big Hero 6 has ties to Marvel Comics, that is why Lee appeared for a cameo.
The Big Hero 6 team first appeared in Marvel Comics in 1998. The Japanese based superteam was created by Steven T. Seagle and Duncan Rouleau and featured many of the characters who starred in the movie. Some prominent comics characters, like Silver Samurai and Sunfire, had ties to the X-Men, which explains why there were absent from the Big Hero 6 movie. The characters who do appear in the movie are often quite different from their comic counterparts, though. Baymax was a bodyguard robot in the comics created by Hiro, not a caretaker robot created by his older brother. Meanwhile, Go Go Tomago transformed into a ball of energy instead of utilizing the disks in the movie.
While Stan Lee wasn't responsible for creating the Big Hero 6 team and largely stepped away from comics by the time of their creation, his status as a pop culture icon explains his cameo in the movie. He's not the only Marvel reference included in Big Hero 6 either, as some characters from the comics, like Black Talon and Sleepwalker, are featured as Easter eggs. Now that Disney+ is producing a Big Hero 6 sequel series, it will be interesting to see if Fred's father appears at all.