Excelsior!

The Titan's Grief

The news spread throughout the Multi-Verse, to those with the wisdom to hear it. News of a master of imagination; a creator, who had sparked life into characters and set the stage for legends unlike any before. So many times, he'd brought his creations over death's threshold and back. So often had he helped heroes and villains alike succum and retaliate against the definer of mortality.

Now, that master of words, the man who had given a body to the mistress Lady Death, found it was his time to accept her embrace. He was human, but his legacy is immortal. He grew old, yet his work is still loved by even a child. He's gone his way into history, but will never be forgotten.

In your world, he may simply be a man, who along with creating countless characters and building an amazing world around them, saw it his duty to ensure that his own reality not be lost to darkness and hatred. But in another world, no further from yours than a page in a book, or a film on screen, he was a god. At his whim, they were conceived and at his whim they could be destroyed.

He had left, in this universe, the essence of the six key elements he'd used to masterfully craft it; the Power of the written word to evoke emotion and an image of a world beyond ours. He gave Space to the environment, building a world for his characters to live in. He'd grounded them in a sense of Reality, to ensure that however fantastic or bizzare the worlds became, they could be believable. To ensure they never seemed one dimensional, he sought to give each person he created a Soul; their own personality, motivation, desires, ambitions. He used his Time wisely, carefully crafting both the world and its sequence of events. Finally, to seek inspiration, he sought the vast imagination of his own Mind.

One being in the universe he'd created now posessed all 6 elements through finding the physical manifestations they had taken: Stones. Thus, he'd received the knowledge of their creator's passing. It was in another plane of existence, where the Stones' power would be for naught, with this one exception.

Understanding now the respect owed to the creator of his existence, the Mad Titan utilized the Space stone to transport him to a cemetery on an Earth just outside of the one where he'd Snapped. His boots sank softly into the dirt as a drizzle of rain had softened it. He walked slowly, eyeing each headstone carefully. Within a few moments of looking, he found it. It was a modest grave, a headstone of white marbel about 20 feet wide, a tall, spiraling bush flanking either side. On top of the stone was a statue of a perched figure: the spider-dressed boy with the red suit, whom Thanos had fought on Titan. The stone itself read:

Stan Lee

1922-2018
"Til the end of the line, true believers! Excelsior!"

Thanos slowly kneeled on his left knee, the Gauntlet resting in a fist on the ground.

"Forgive me, Stan," he whispered. A tear escaped his eye. "You created my universe, and the Stones, simply to know the joy of creation. In my hubris, I sought to take your work into my own hands. I sought to destroy half the universe to create a balance I thought overlooked. But never did I consider if I would destroy its creator."

He looked down at the damaged metal of the glove on his left hand. He activated the Time Stone and rotated his hand counter clock-wise. Slowly, the Gautnlet was restored to its former integrity. He slowly slid his hand out of the glove and laid it against the tombstone.

"I abused your creator's power," Thanos said. "It belongs to you once more. May you finally rest, Stan Lee. I hope they remember you."