Another script-to-screen leap by ‘Stan the Man’

When the Fantastic Four make their big-screen debut on July 8, nobody will have a bigger smile than their postman, Willie Lumpkin. As readers of Marvel Comics already know, the bespectacled Lumpkin delivers mail to the FF’s headquarters -- that would be the world-renowned Baxter Building. In the newest Marvel Comics superhero flick, Lumpkin is played by none other than Stan Lee, who together with illustrator Jack Kirby created the Fantastic Four way back in the early 1960s.

While Lee is best known in comic book circles as “Stan the Man,” he also might be called “King of Cameos.” His turn as Lumpkin marks his sixth appearance in movies based on his Marvel characters.

It takes a sharp eye to catch Lee in his past movie roles, but if you look closely enough, you can find him in “X-Men” as a hot-dog vendor; in “Daredevil,” in which his life is saved by a young Matt Murdock; in “Hulk” as a security guard alongside Lou Ferrigno; and in the Spider-Man films, where he plays a hero in his own right, pulling a girl out of harm’s way in both.

“I love doing these cameos -- they’re just so much fun, “ Lee said. He noted that his appearance in “Fantastic Four” -- which pits the stretchable Mr. Fantastic, the Invisible Woman, the Human Torch and the Thing against their archnemesis, the steel-faced Doctor Doom -- has a special significance. Not only is it based on the first of the new superhero characters he created for Marvel, but it marks the first time he gets to play one of his own creations -- albeit a relatively obscure one.

Lee introduced Lumpkin to readers way back in “Fantastic Four” No. 11 (he wrote the first 100 or so issues), and since then he’s made just a handful of appearances. In one issue, Lumpkin managed to cross paths with Doctor Doom, and in another issue he actually saves the team, though inadvertently, from the clutches of a villain called the Mad Thinker.

No such heroics for Lumpkin this time around, but Lee still made the most of his scene with Mr. Fantastic’s character, Reed Richards (played by Ioan Gruffudd.)

“I’m supposed to say something like ‘Welcome back to the Baxter Building, Dr. Richards,’ and walk by, which wasn’t so bad since it’s a whole line,” Lee said. “But then I said to the director, Tim Story, who is the nicest guy, ‘You know, I need more screen time.’ So the second time I went, ‘Welcome back to the Baxter Building, Dr. Richards. How are you?’ And the third time I went, ‘Welcome back to the Baxter Building, Dr. Richards. How are you? Good to have you back!’ ... Pretty soon we had a whole dialogue going.”

“Of course, they’re just going to use ‘Welcome back to the Baxter Building, Dr. Richards,’ ” Lee lamented.

For Story, who grew up reading Marvel and DC comic books, continuing the tradition of a Lee cameo in Marvel movies was a no-brainer: “Stan is a legend, and we wanted to give a nod to the FF’s creator,” he said.

-- Alex Chun