How No Way Home Pays Tribute To Stan Lee (Without A Cameo)

Screen Rant

By Ari Kagan

Published Nov 16, 2022

Although Spider-Man's co-creator Stan Lee sadly passed away in 2018, he still managed to make a subtle cameo in Spider-Man: No Way Home.

Stan Lee may not have gotten to make one of his iconic cameos in Spider-Man: No Way Home, but he does manage to receive a subtle yet touching tribute. The co-creator of Spider-Man made his final cameo in 2019's Avengers: Endgame due to his passing in 2018, but the Marvel legend's presence continues to still be felt in the MCU years later. Lee left behind an incredible legacy, and Spider-Man is a major aspect of that.

During the first action sequence in Spider-Man: No Way Home, Tom Holland's Spider-Man fights Doc Ock atop a bridge. A taxi cab can be seen in the background with the number 1228 displayed on the vehicle. This was a reference to Stan Lee, who was born December 28, 1922. The tribute touches on the fact that Stan Lee appeared in almost all of the Spider-Man films in the form of a brief cameo, but director Jon Watts is also renowned for using comic issue numbers as license plates, so it was a unique way to continue this running Easter egg gag.

Stan Lee's "Cameo" In No Way Home Explained

Bizarrely enough, Stan Lee almost ended up making a cameo in Spider-Man: No Way Home, in the scene where Peter visits MJ at the donut shop after the world forgot who Peter is. Lee's "cameo" initially would have featured an elderly customer that appeared to be a Stan Lee lookalike. While the filmmakers could have easily used deepfake technology to essentially bring Stan Lee's cameos back to life, it wouldn't have made much sense in the grand scheme of things.

Jon Watts stated that it "felt right" that Stan Lee's final cameo was in Avengers: Endgame, so having the deceased icon reappear in a new cameo after his passing would have felt tasteless. It was right to cut Stan Lee's No Way Home cameo, because it would have felt insensitive to revisit Lee's time as the king of cameos since he had passed away. The best decision was to let it rest after his Endgame cameo, which felt perfect anyway since that film ended a 22-film narrative.

Spider-Man: No Way Home Also Honors Steve Ditko

While Stan Lee is arguably the most well-known Marvel figure due to his string of cameos and long-time tenure with the company, Lee was not the sole creator of Spider-Man or even Doctor Strange. Steve Ditko created these iconic characters, and he also received multiple tributes in Spider-Man: No Way Home. Most notably, Ditko's name appears as graffiti on Peter Parker's high school's rooftop. Later on in the movie, Steve Ditko's name appears once again on one of the F.E.A.S.T. vans.

The Stan Lee and Steve Ditko tributes that were featured as Spider-Man: No Way Home easter eggs were perfect because they worked in two separate ways. Firstly, they acknowledged the legacy that Lee and Ditko helped create - and secondly, they worked into the nuances of both Spider-Man's world and paying respect to departed creators. It was also a brilliant choice because the Spider-Man film itself paid tribute to 20 years of Spider-Man's cinematic history, which was already a major movie event thanks to an amazing MCU Spider-Man team-up.

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