Stan Lee Used His First Meeting With Tom Holland To Haze Marvel's Newest Spider-Man

It took Marvel Studios three Spider-Man movies to set up Tom Holland as the hero of his own film — a film that still hasn't materialized. Both producer Amy Pascal and Marvel Studios head Kevin Feige have seemingly confirmed a fourth Spider-Man movie starring the British actor is forthcoming, but just what form this will take and when it will arrive remain unclear. Which is a shame because, as mentioned, Holland has yet to really be the star of his own Spidey flick.

Debuting in "Captain America: Civil War," Holland went on to front three solo Spider-Man outings, but he always seemed to play second fiddle to either MCU world-building or other well-established MCU characters. But at the end of 2021's "Spider-Man: No Way Home," Holland's Peter Parker/Spider-Man was seemingly positioned to finally become the hero of his own story moving forward. In November 2023, however, the actor simultaneously confirmed things were moving forward on his next Spidey outing while also casting doubt on whether he was completely committed to the project. As Collider reported, the actor claimed he wouldn't "make another one for the sake of making another one." Now, amid confusion over the future of Holland's Spidey and talk of a potential Miles Morales live-action film, there's plenty of time to reflect on the actor's tenure as the wall crawler, which evidently started with some light teasing from Marvel great Stan Lee.

Lee, who passed away in 2018, was at least here long enough to witness Holland's first solo Spidey outing with 2017's "Spider-Man: Homecoming," and let's just say he didn't let the young actor off easy as his franchise journey began.

Before he passed, Stan Lee was still very much committed to his long-running tradition of showing up in cameo appearances for almost every Marvel film. "Spider-Man: Homecoming" was no different, with the Marvel legend appearing as irascible NYC resident Gary, who witnesses Tom Holland's Spider-Man accidentally webbing up his neighbor after mistaking her for a car thief. After yelling, "Don't make me come down there, you punk," Gary shares some pleasantries with his neighbor, Marjorie, thus ending Lee's one and only cameo in Holland's Spider-Man movie trilogy.

According to the book "MCU: The Reign of Marvel Studios," during his first meeting with Holland, Lee apparently took the opportunity to give the actor a Gary-esque ribbing. Authors Joanna Robinson, Dave Gonzales, and Gavin Edwards note that in 2016, Lee was called in to shoot several cameos during the filming of "Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2," which had taken up residence across eighteen soundstages at Pinewood Atlanta Studios. Director James Gunn was tasked with filming three Lee cameos at the time, in order to, as the "MCU" writers put it, "limit the number of times Lee, who was then ninety-three, would need to travel to Georgia." The authors continue: "When Gunn introduced Lee to Tom Holland, the newest Peter Parker, Stan the Man ribbed the young actor: 'Everyone says you're great! Personally, I don't see it.'"

How did Holland react to such a burn from the 93-year-old legend? According to Gunn himself, who held an Instagram Q&A back in 2020, everyone within earshot "died laughing" after Lee roasted the new Spidey star, so it all seemed to have been in good fun.

Fans of Marvel will know that Stan Lee never shied away from an opportunity to give up-and-comers a hard time. Just look at the time he hosted now-legendary comic artists Rob Liefeld and Todd McFarlane on his series "The Comic Book Greats" back in the '90s. From the outset, Lee proceeded to pick apart pretty much every aspect of the pair's art style and contemporary comic book aesthetics in general, critiquing their depiction of the character Overkill, which for him clearly represented the apotheosis of '90s comic book design excess. At one point, the Marvel icon nonchalantly delivered the ruthlessly sick burn, "You can think and draw at the same time?"

All of which is to say that it's not surprising Lee gave Tom Holland some light hazing when he first met him. By that point, Lee's sense of humor was accompanied by decades of experience with being in movies, so he likely viewed the whole thing with a healthy irreverence. But good on Tom Holland for taking it on the chin.

For now, we'll have to wait for confirmation of when the Brit will be back for a fourth Spider-Man movie. In the meantime, Disney's Stan Lee documentary, while it doesn't tell the whole Marvel Comics story, is worth a watch for anyone feeling nostalgic for the days when Stan the Man was around to give a good roasting to newcomers.