Mid-credits and post-credits scenes in the Marvel Cinematic Universe
Mid-credits and post-credits scenes have been used in various Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) media, since the beginning of the franchise with the 2008 film Iron Man. The use of such scenes as a whole has changed movie-goer expectations, and has received both praise and criticism. Individual scenes have been widely discussed, ranked, and criticized.[1][2][3][4] In some cases, MCU films have multiple mid-credits and post-credits scenes, and MCU television series have employed them after some episodes.
The first post-credits scene involving
Scenes
The following table covers scenes featured in films, short films, television series, animated shorts, and television specials produced by Marvel Studios, and are organized chronologically by original release date. As of Echo (2024), the MCU has featured 81 post-credits scenes across 45 properties.
List indicators
- OS indicates this is a One-Shot.
- SH indicates this is a short.
- SP indicates this is a Special Presentation.
Phase One
Year | Title | Description of scene(s) |
---|---|---|
2008 | Iron Man | |
2010 | Iron Man 2 | In a cut-down scene from |
2011 | Thor | |
Captain America: The First Avenger | In a cut-down scene from The Avengers, Steve Rogers converses with Fury at a gym.[1][2][3] | |
2012 | The Avengers |
|
Item 47OS | Claire Wise spins in an office chair at S.H.I.E.L.D. Headquarters.[17] |
Phase Two
Year | Title | Description of scene(s) |
---|---|---|
2013 | Iron Man 3 | Stark finishes telling his story to Bruce Banner, who had fallen asleep near the beginning. Stark starts telling the story again.[1][2][3] |
Agent CarterOS | Howard Stark, marveling at two women wearing the newly created bikinis.[18]
| |
Thor: The Dark World |
| |
2014 | All Hail the KingOS | In prison, Justin Hammer complains about Trevor Slattery and talks about the parallels between himself and Tony Stark.[19]
|
Captain America: The Winter Soldier |
| |
Guardians of the Galaxy |
| |
2015 | Avengers: Age of Ultron | Frustrated with his minions' lack of progress in collecting the Infinity Stones, Thanos decides to get the rest himself.[1][2][3] |
Ant-Man |
|
Phase Three
Year | Title | Description of scene(s) |
---|---|---|
2016 | Captain America: Civil War |
|
Doctor Strange |
| |
2017 | Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 | |
Spider-Man: Homecoming | ||
Thor: Ragnarok | ||
2018 | Black Panther | |
Avengers: Infinity War | Before Fury disintegrates in the Blip, he uses a pager to call Carol Danvers.[1][2][3] | |
Ant-Man and the Wasp |
| |
2019 | Captain Marvel | |
Spider-Man: Far From Home |
|
Phase Four
Year | Title | Description of scene(s) |
---|---|---|
2021 | WandaVision episode 7: "Breaking the Fourth Wall" | Pietro".[20]
|
WandaVision episode 8: "Previously On" | Tyler Hayward reactivates "The Vision", with a now all-white, reassembled original body.[21]
| |
WandaVision episode 9: "The Series Finale" | ||
The Falcon and the Winter Soldier episode 5: "Truth" | Embittered by his discharge, and motivated by Captain America's shield, from scrap metal and his Medal of Honor, painted in the colors of the American flag.[23]
| |
The Falcon and the Winter Soldier episode 6: "One World, One People" | After receiving a full pardon, CIA and makes a phone call to an unknown person, stating that she intends to use this access to sell government secrets and resources.[24]
| |
Loki season 1, episode 4: "The Nexus Event" | TVA, awakens in the Void, and is met with four other Loki variants.[25]
| |
Black Widow | After Valentina Allegra de Fontaine at Romanoff's grave and receives her next assignment to take down Clint Barton, the man "responsible" for Romanoff's death.[1][2][3]
| |
What If...? season 1, episode 9: "What If... the Watcher Broke His Oath?" | In an alternate timeline, Hydra Stomper armor with someone inside.[26]
| |
Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings |
| |
Eternals |
| |
Hawkeye episode 6: "So This Is Christmas?" | The cast of the fictional Save the City".[27]
| |
Spider-Man: No Way Home |
| |
2022 | Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness | |
Moon Knight episode 6: "Gods and Monsters" | The Khonshu.[30]
| |
Ms. Marvel episode 1: "Generation Why" | At the P. Cleary and Sadie Deever discover a recording of Kamala Khan's incident at the New Jersey AvengerCon upon social media, and plan to capture her.[31]
| |
Ms. Marvel episode 6: "No Normal" | In a cut-down scene from The Marvels, Khan's power-bestowing bangle emits a strange glow before she suddenly switches places with Danvers.[32] | |
Thor: Love and Thunder | ||
I Am Groot season 1, episode 5: "Magnum Opus"SH | Groot's drawing of the Guardians is seen adrift in space.[33] | |
She-Hulk: Attorney at Law episode 1: "A Normal Amount of Rage" | Banner reveals to | |
She-Hulk: Attorney at Law episode 2: "Superhuman Law" | Walters uses her She-Hulk form to help her parents with chores around the house like mounting a flat-screen TV and moving large bottles of water.[16] | |
She-Hulk: Attorney at Law episode 3: "The People vs. Emil Blonsky" | Walters twerks with Megan Thee Stallion.[16] | |
She-Hulk: Attorney at Law episode 4: "Is This Not Real Magic?" | Wong and Madisynn King watch television on Wong's couch.[16] | |
She-Hulk: Attorney at Law episode 9: "Whose Show Is This?" | Emil Blonsky, having been returned to prison for violating his parole by becoming Abomination, is again broken out by Wong.[16]
| |
Black Panther: Wakanda Forever | Shuri travels to Haiti where she burns her funeral ceremonial robe, finally allowing herself to grieve and mourn T'Challa. There, she is met on a beach by Nakia and learns that Nakia and T'Challa have a son, Toussaint, who Nakia has been raising in secret far from the pressure of the throne. Toussaint reveals his Wakandan name is T'Challa.[34]
| |
The Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday SpecialSP | Rocket and Cosmo are decorating Groot as a break the fourth wall and say that now they will need to do another special.[35]
|
Phase Five
Year | Title | Description of scene(s) |
---|---|---|
2023 | Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania |
|
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 |
| |
I Am Groot season 2, episode 3: "Groot's Snow Day"SH | Groot drinks a hot chocolate, which is too hot. He swipes the mug off the table and it smashes, causing Rocket to shout.[41] | |
Loki season 2, episode 1: "Ouroboros" | Sylvie emerges from a time portal on Earth in 1982 and enters a McDonald's restaurant, where she says she wants to try everything.[42] | |
The Marvels | Hank McCoy / Beast enters and tells Monica she was found in space by Binary (Maria) and that they believe Monica is in a parallel universe.[43]
| |
What If... Iron Man Crashed into the Grandmaster? "
|
The still alive Topaz to collect his puddle form.[44]
| |
2024 | Maya "
|
Kingpin, on a plane back to New York, arranges a meeting of the heads of all of the crime syndicates, and then watches a news report indicating that New York voters would support an outsider who is "a bare-knuckle brawler" in the upcoming mayoral election.[45]
|
Reception
The MCU has been described as having "made the post-credits scene commonplace",[46] and as being the media that "uses them to the greatest effect", and having "reset moviegoers' expectations about when a film is actually over".[47] Post-credit scenes often contain humor,[46] or Easter eggs referencing matters ranging from the significant to the obscure that would be of interest to fans of the media. Peter Cullen Bryan "examines the interplay within modern superhero blockbusters, which grants the geek a degree of social power: Marvel's use of the post-credits scene is indicative of the larger process, creating a ritual enacted by fans, who interpret the scene for the uninitiated".[48] In the MCU, these scenes often "tease future plotlines and characters that will be introduced down the road".[46]
Post-credit scenes have also often been used in the MCU to highlight new releases that are still forthcoming at the time that the media containing the post-credit scene is released, a practice that has been criticized as detracting from the importance of the films to which the scenes are attached.[49] Such scenes are also criticized on the grounds that they usurp meaningful film endings with cheap gags; a review in The Guardian stated that "if you can't find a way to incorporate it into the actual movie instead of ruining its afterglow, maybe it wasn't meant to be in there".[50] A 2022 review in Total Film observed that "[t]he recent wave of Marvel post-credits scenes do not seemingly lead into any known sequel, instead offering a scattergun approach to the future". They felt that a road map was needed for where the credit scenes were heading and that "Marvel popularized the post-credits phenomenon – now it needs to reinvent them."[51] Multiple other critics have shared the same opinion about the growing number of unresolved teases from Phases Four and Five.[52][53][54] Screen Rant added that one of the major issues with the credit scenes in Phase Four and early Phase Five was the amount of new characters introduced. The MCU's first three phases introduced eight new characters over the eleven-year span, while Phases Four and Five had already introduced more by early 2023, which was only a two-year span from the beginning of Phase Four.[55] Writing for Digital Spy, David Opie singled out the credit scene in The Marvels featuring Beast by saying that it could be years before the scene pays off with there being no plans in the near future for a live action X-Men project. He said "the X-Men are a huge deal and it makes sense that their full-on return might take some time", but added that the issue is this was not the first time that Marvel played the long game with their credit scene teases and that there have been many huge developments over the recent years, "then never mentioned again".[52]
Marvel Comics characters outside the MCU
A number of films, television series, and other media not occurring in the MCU, but featuring characters from Marvel Comics, have also had post-credit scenes. In some cases, the relationship between these properties is blurred because the characters have later appeared in the MCU, or because the post-credit scenes themselves implicate events in the MCU.
Marvel films outside the MCU
In X-Men: The Last Stand, Charles Xavier is shown to be alive after his apparent death by the hands of the Phoenix earlier in the film.
Other media outside the MCU
In
See also
References
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