Fans of the late Stan Lee will want to tune into Sunday's episode of
Marvel's Avengers: Black Panther's Quest as it will feature the Marvel Comics legend in what is his final appearance in animation.
Lee will appear alongside fellow guest stars Mark Hamill and Hayley Atwell, and will play an Army General. While it's likely just a cameo appearance, Lee's character makes a very powerful statement about intolerance which you can catch in the clip below.
Black Panther (James C. Mathis III) discovers secrets about his grandfather, T’Chanda, in an episode that involves scenes set in the 1940s and include Captain America (Roger Craig Smith), Peggy Carter (Hayley Atwell), and the villainous Arnim Zola (Mark Hamill). In his final animation performance, Stan Lee speaks about the evils of hate.
Speaking to Marvel.com, Marvel Senior Vice President of Animation & Family Entertainment, Cort Lane, briefly reflected on the lasting impression Stan Lee had on him growing up.
“It made an impression, the things that Stan had to say about prejudice and hate. He always stood up. I actually have the Stan’s Soapbox from 1968 that was distributed pretty widely after he passed. He talked about hate and that hate will never win. And that stuck. For me personally, that was the year I was born - I have those comics. That’s always been very meaningful for me. I’ve worked with Stan dozens of times, but we wanted to capture that essence in the speech that the General has in this episode because it’s set during World War II and that’s when Stan started writing comics. A lot of the comics he wrote were about the evils of the Nazis. So without being that explicit, we wanted to capture that. So it had personal reasons for me and for Stan to talk about the evils of hate. We were inspired by that 1968 Stan’s Soapbox column.”
Lane recounted about all the past recorded sessions he's shared with Lee, who visited the Marvel Animation's studio nearly 40 times to record cameos and even full-fledged episodes. But it's this particular episode that has personal meaning for him, he said.
"That particular episode [of "Marvel's Avengers: Black Panther's Quest"] has personal meaning for me. I believe it’s his last recorded appearance in animation. It’s bittersweet, but I’m so glad we were able to capture a message that was very true to how Stan felt about the world and that inspired him to write a lot of the stories that he did.”
Appearing alongside Stan Lee in the animated show will be Mark Hamill who is known for voicing many villains in animation, including Arnim Zola. Both Hamill and Lee sat down together for an interview when they recorded the episode together, so be sure to check that out below as well.
You can catch Stan Lee's final animated appearance when
Marvel's Avengers: Black Panther's Quest airs Sunday, January 13 at 9:00 p.m. ET/PT on Disney XD.