Disney+ Removed Tributes to Late Stan Lee and Reg E. Cathey From Marvel Shows

By Daniel S. Levine

The version of an episode of The Punisher available on Disney+ is reportedly missing its Stan Lee tribute card. An episode of Luke Cage also misses a tribute to Reg E. Cathey, the beloved character actor who played the Rev. James Lucas in the series. It is unclear why these tributes are missing, and Disney has not commented on the situation.

The Stan Lee tribute was included at the end of an episode of The Punisher, just after Frank Castle (Jon Bernthal) was seen shooting down a group of people, notes The Direct. The card read "In loving memory of Stan Lee" and was included when the episode was released on Netflix in 2019. A tribute to Lee at the end of Jessica Jones Season 3 is still present on Disney+. Lee, who co-created many of Marvel's best-known characters, died in November 2018 at 95.

At the end of Luke Cage Season 2, producers added a tribute card to Cathey reading "In memoriam Reg. E. Cathey Forward Always." This is surprisingly not included on Disney+. Cathey died in February 2018 after a battle with lung cancer.

There still has not been any explanation from Disney about why these tributes are missing. The Lee tribute might have been removed because Disney felt it was in poor taste at the end of a violent scene. One theory is that Disney used an older video file of the episodes that did not have the tributes when they posted them on Disney+. The tributes could resurface at a later date.

Luke Cage, The Punisher, and Jessica Jones were among the shows Marvel Television produced for Netflix, alongside Iron Fist, Daredevil, and The Defenders. The shows disappeared from Netflix on March 1 and resurfaced on Disney+ on March 16. Disney added new parental controls to Disney+ since all six shows are rated TV-MA and more violent than the Marvel Cinematic Universe shows. The company also dropped the Netflix logo originally seen at the start of each episode.

While no other edits to the Marvel Netflix shows have been discovered yet, The Direct and other social media sleuths discovered that episode three of The Falcon and the Winter Soldier appeared censored. A source later told Entertainment Weekly that this was all a mistake. Someone uploaded a new version of the episode to correct a credit, including earlier versions of two scenes. Disney hopes to fix the issue soon.

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