Stan Lee is making a digital return in 2026 through a new partnership between ElevenLabs and Stan Lee Universe. Announced today, the collaboration will bring the Marvel legend’s voice and likeness to the company’s AI platform across voice, image, and music tools. The project is part of a growing push in entertainment to use AI technology to preserve the personalities and legacies of iconic creators.
The announcement also follows last year’s AI Stan Lee hologram experience at L.A. Comic Con, where fans could hold short conversations with a digital version of Lee and pose for photos. Organizers said the hologram was built using decades of interviews, footage, and recordings to ensure the experience stayed true to Lee’s personality and public image.
ElevenLabs is now taking a wider approach by integrating Lee into multiple creative products. His AI-generated voice is now available through the ElevenLabs Iconic Marketplace and the Eleven Reader app, using professional recordings designed to capture his recognizable warmth, humor, and storytelling cadence.
Founded in 2022, ElevenLabs is an AI-powered voice generation platform that specializes in high-quality text-to-speech (TTS), voice cloning, and AI dubbing, creating natural-sounding voices in 29+ languages. Late last year, Michael Caine partnered with them as well.
The partnership also launches the Stan Lee Book of the Month Club inside Eleven Reader. The initiative celebrates books Lee loved throughout his life, beginning with Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island. ElevenLabs says it plans to add one public domain title tied to the club each month over the next year.
Stan Lee’s likeness is also headed to the ElevenLabs Image & Video Marketplace. Users will be able to generate visual content featuring Lee in the spirit of his famous cameo appearances under approved safety guidelines for personal, non-commercial use. Licensed commercial projects will be managed through Stan Lee Universe.
On the music side, ElevenCreative Music is introducing two Stan Lee-inspired “Finetunes”:
- Superhero Cinematic Swells inspired by Stan Lee
- Retro Hero Fanfare inspired by Stan Lee
Both are available to all users without additional approvals.
Stan Lee at HASCON 2017.
The collaboration arrives amid continued debate around AI recreations of creators and celebrities, particularly as entertainment companies explore new ways to preserve iconic personalities through digital technology. In recent years, Bruce Willis reportedly shared his likeness for use in deepfakes, while more recently, Val Kilmer’s likeness will appear in a future film. With ongoing technological advancements, will actors like Leonardo DiCaprio, whom Lee said would be a great choice to play him in a movie, even be needed for biopics?
Stan Lee remains one of the most recognizable figures in comics history thanks to his co-creation of Spider-Man, the X-Men, Iron Man, Daredevil, Fantastic Four, and countless other Marvel characters, as well as his decades of convention appearances and Marvel movie cameos.
“This partnership was designed from the ground up to honor Stan’s legacy while giving fans something they’ve never had before: a real, living connection to the man behind the myths,” ElevenLabs said in its announcement.
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