The Avengers: Possible Uncredited Cameo

Almost unnecessary spoiler warning: This post will be about Stan Lee's cameo in The Avengers. (If you consider finding out that Stan Lee has a cameo in The Avengers to be a spoiler, then you really have not paid any attention to any of the other Marvel movies and are somewhat self-absorbed, to boot.). If you do not want to have Stan Lee's cameo spoiled, then retreat and read no more.

Towards the end of the movie, Stan Lee has his usual 2- or 3-second cameo, which is quite standard for Marvel productions.  He is being interviewed, sitting in a park, looking away from a chess board.  You can see his chess partner in the background, an older gentleman, appearing somewhat out of focus.

I swear the chess partner is Ian McKellen. (If not, then it is a very reasonable facsimile.)

This would, of course, be a nice little wink to the ending of X-Men 3, where McKellen's Magneto finds himself alone at a chess board in a park.

Over the last couple days, I have repeatedly googled all sorts of combinations of search terms to find some reference or confirmation. All I can dig up is two other individuals, one on tumbler and one on an Australian discussion board (to which I could not respond) who are also wondering if it was McKellen.

So either the producers succeeded in including a very, very subtle Easter egg reference to the X-Men, so subtle that only three people spotted it, or I am completely nuts.

And, as always, I am not discounting completely nuts.