Stan Lee

A big part of every D23 convention is the Disney Legends Awards, where the company honors its own, celebrating artists and executives who have made major contributions to the Walt Disney Company. This year’s honorees include Oprah Winfrey, Mark Hamill, and the late Carrie Fisher. The Marvel portion of the event honored two of the comics company’s most important creators: Writer and editor Stan Lee and artist Jack Kirby. Kirby passed away in 1994, so his son accepted his award on his behalf, but Stan “The Man” was on hand to accept his Disney Legends honor. He gave a great speech, and a very emotional one as well.

Even though he should have been hard at work on The Winds of Winter, George R. R. Martin took some time out of his week to appear on History Channel’s new documentary series Superheroes Decoded, all about how today’s culture became so dominated by the creations of Marvel, DC, Dark Horse, and the like. Martin shared a fan letter he wrote to Marvel Comics, praising one of the issues of Fantastic Four, and the entire magazine.

‘Big Hero 6’ may only be tangentially related to the Marvel comic on which it is based and completely unconnected to the larger Marvel cinematic universe, but it still has the obligatory Stan Lee cameo. Yes, this is an animated movie featuring an animated version of the legendary comic book icon/Marvel mascot. But hey, it’s a tradition at this point.