Stan Lee’s Star Trek Connections

On November 12, 2018 the world lost one of the most prolific and beloved creators of modern mythology with the passing of Stan Lee. While Stan “The Man” is usually associated with iconic superheroes, he also has some connections to Star Trek.

Professionally, Stan Lee’s connection to Star Trek began in 1979 as a publisher when Marvel Comics published an on-going adaptation of Star Trek: The Motion Picture which continued to run for two years with a total of 18 issues. These Star Trek comics began with the phrase “Stan Lee Presents” above the title. Later in 1996, Marvel Comics re-acquired the license to Star Trek comics, publishing comics based on Deep Space Nine and Voyager, the annual Star Trek Unlimited series which covered The Original Series and The Next Generation, as well as two original titles Star Trek: Early Voyages and Star Trek: Starfleet Academy. At this time in the ’90s, Stan Lee had stepped down from regular duties but was still with Marvel as Chairman Emeritus.

In 2011, Stan Lee appeared in Rod Roddenberry’s documentary Trek Nation discussing his appreciation for Gene Roddenberry’s character-focused approach to storytelling. You can see the full unedited segment with Stan Lee in Trek Nation Director’s Log: Episode 7 “Fans and Stan Lee”.

Voted “King of Cameos” by fans on IMDb, Stan Lee has made cameo appearances in every major Marvel-based feature film as well as in animation and video games. Stan brought his star power into the final frontier when in 2015 he filmed appearances for two Star Trek fan film productions. Fan Film Factor posted two clips of Stan Lee’s guest-starring roles for the unreleased finale of the web series Star Trek: Farragut and the pilot of its spin-off Trek Isolation. To learn more about these clips and the fan films, visit the Fan Film Factor website.

With the out-pouring of love and memorials for Stan Lee, several photos were shared on social media of Stan Lee with Star Trek actors.

I am very sad about Stan Lee's passing. Because of Stan, all of us who worked on the X-Men films were always very much aware that no matter our superpowers, we were all human beings at the core. Thank you, Stan. Your legacy and humanity will live on in all of us. pic.twitter.com/7hry5yIWAy

— Patrick Stewart (@SirPatStew) November 15, 2018

Was watching an interview you did with Stan Lee a moment ago. "Hiya, Bill, my hero!" "You're my hero, Stan Lee!" Such an incredible legacy he left behind and redefined what it means to be a hero. His impact in culture is now everywhere you look and will live on. Excelsior! pic.twitter.com/CeNcJa8xNS

— iToko@MFF (@TokoGT) November 12, 2018

The cast of #StarTrek: The Next Generation and Stan Lee, captain of the USS Excelsior! pic.twitter.com/nkeFOgXQPT

— Killer Kitsch (@killer_kitsch) August 20, 2016

#StanLee hand & footprints in front of #TCLChineseTheatre in Hollywood pictured with actress Nichelle Nichols of #StarTrek @ABC7 pic.twitter.com/Omnhunl7AA

— Darsha Philips (@abc7darsha) July 18, 2017

And we came across this 10-second video of Stan Lee with Leonard Nimoy from “DCC” which is presumably Dallas Comic Con.

by Deyvid