Marvel Legend Stan Lee Returns as an AI Hologram to Chat With Fans at L.A. Comic-Con

Stan Lee is about to show up at L.A. Comic-Con again — not in the flesh (obviously), but as an AI-powered hologram you can literally talk to. Yes, that sentence feels a little sci-fi and a little awkward at the same time.

How the Stan Lee hologram works at the con

• Location: It lives inside the Stan Lee Experience, an enclosed booth on the show floor.
• Price: Getting into the booth runs $15–$20, according to THR.
• What you can buy once you are in: Paid photo ops with the hologram and a one-on-one, AI-driven conversation that lasts about three minutes.
• Roaming cameos: Organizers say the hologram may also pop up in surprise spots around the convention.

The tech comes from Proto Hologram — they’re the company pushing a so-called holographic communications platform that’s been showing up at events and activations. The voice and responses, per the people in charge, are built from decades of Stan talking on camera about pretty much everything.

"We’ll never put words in his mouth that aren’t in line with things he spoke about in his lifetime," said Bob Sabouni, Head of Stan Lee Legacy Programs for Kartoon Studios. "Fortunately, with decades of footage capturing his thoughts on so many subjects, we can build a voice that stays true, not always word for word, but always faithful in spirit, context, and intent."

For timeline context: Lee died in 2018 at 95 — nearly seven years ago.

Here’s where it gets complicated

As novel as the tech is, the whole idea of paying to chat with a simulated Stan Lee lands awkwardly given how messy his final years were. There were allegations of elder abuse from people close to him, and repeated claims that his inner circle kept pushing him through grueling convention appearances — signings, photos, endless meet-and-greets — when he wasn’t up for it.

A new documentary, 'Stan Lee: The Final Chapter', leans into that history. It was shot by Jon Bolerjack, who worked as Lee’s assistant for the last four years of his life. Bolerjack filmed behind the scenes during that period and says the footage shows colleagues exploiting Lee and business partners squeezing every drop of his celebrity. He says Lee asked him to capture those final years and to share the material after his death, and that watching a handful of people repeatedly betray a weakened, elderly Stan left him feeling obligated to tell that story.

So: on one hand, a slick, nostalgia-fueled hologram that lets fans 'meet' Stan again. On the other, a fresh reminder of how hard he was pushed at the end — and a new doc arguing it was worse than most of us knew. Where do you land on this? Cool tribute, or way too weird for comfort?