Yes, it’s true: Stan Lee recently revealed that he will not be appearing in Guardians of the Galaxy in any way. But that’s okay, we swear! The world isn’t ending. He’s got a perfectly reasonable explanation for why he won’t be there.
When asked in an interview with Dweebcast whether or not he’d appear in the upcoming film, Stan said that he wouldn’t be because it was “the one group” he didn’t create.
“I didn’t write Guardians of the Galaxy,” he continued. “I’m not even sure who they all are. I can’t wait to see the movie.” Oh, so that’s how it is, Stan? How do you not know literally every single thing about Marvel? Have you been a fake geek all this time, Stan?
Okay, we’ll stop. We’re kidding, of course (in fact, it’s actually kind of refreshing to know that not even Stan Lee knows all the ins and outs of such an extensive comic book universe) But this isn’t the first time that Stan hasn’t appeared in a Marvel comic movie — just the first Marvel-produced one. Supposedly a clause in his contract mandates that he be given a small part in any film about a character that he helped to create, though he did refuse to appear in X-Men: First Class and Days of Future Past due to convention-related scheduling concerns. So when they’re making films about characters that Stan wasn’t involved with, he usually doesn’t feel comfortable showing up in them.
To date, Stan Lee has appeared in all Hulk films,the Spider-Mans (both regular and “Amazing”), the Thors, the Iron Mans, the Fantastic Fours, X-Men, X-Men: The Last Stand, Daredevil, and Captain America.  By contrast, he skipped out on Elektra, X2, all the Punisher films, all the Ghost Rider films, the Blade sequels, and all of the Wolverine-specific films.
Of course, you can argue that Stan Lee didn’t actually create Captain America, and you would be right because he didn’t — Jack Kirby and Joe Simon did. But he was pretty pivotal in bringing the character back in the ’60s by using the old “Time-travelling cap-sicle” trick, and he’s also an army man himself, so we’re not going to fault him for getting a speaking role in The First Avenger.
If we’re going to get really technical, Stan Lee did help to create Groot, a member of the Guardians who will appear in the film. But if Stan doesn’t feel comfortable inserting himself into, well, the galaxy, then it’s up to him. We wouldn’t quite know how to put him in the film anyway, considering that most of it probably takes place in alien-filled outer space. Maybe if he changes his mind, they can ADR him over a hyperintelligent shade of the color blue, perhaps?
(via io9, original image via  Gage Skidmore)
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