The following story is going to get into spoilers for The Marvels, so stop reading now if you don’t want to be spoiled on some of the juiciest developments in the MCU.
Stop me if you have heard this before. You just came out of the latest Marvel Studios movie. You mostly enjoyed it. It had some good scenes. But you left talking about the teasy end-credits scene, and what it might mean for future stories. In The Marvels, we skipped over to an alternate universe with Monica Rambeau (Teyonah Parris), where she reunited with a variant of her mother, Maria Rambeau (Lashana Lynch), and an OG member of The X-Men, Beast (played by Kelsey Grammer). It sounds really exciting for what that payoff could be… only, add it to the ridiculously long list of teases that Marvel has dropped recently that haven’t paid off, and maybe never will.
Marvel has a major teasing problem, and to be honest, it has become more frustrating than exhilarating. Teases in mid-credit sequences date back to the very first MCU movie, Iron Man, when Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) told Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) and the Avengers Initiative.
It was exciting. And it paid off! For the bulk of Phases one and two, the mid-credits scenes teed up whatever was coming next. We saw Thor’s hammer? Thor was the next movie. In time, the universe grew. But it has gotten too unwieldy. Now we get teases for stories that likely won’t happen for years… if they ever happen at all. Let’s run through a partial list of things that have been introduced courtesy of recent MCU mid-credits scenes:
Clea recruits Doctor Strange
In the closing moments of Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, Clea (Charlize Theron) appears on a New York City street, warns Stephen (Benedict Cumberbatch) that he has caused an incursion, and that they must now fix it. She tears the fabric of reality to reveal the Dark Dimension, home of Dormammu. They hop into the portal, to go and fight… well, who knows what.
The Ten Rings are sending out a signal
Wong (Benedict Wong) is analyzing the Ten Rings at the end of Shang-Chi. He’s assisted by Bruce Banner (Mark Ruffalo) and Carol Danvers (Brie Larson). They determine that the Rings are incredibly old. And they are sending out a beacon. To what? No clue, and that was two years ago.
There’s a Council of Kangs
And they are gathering. This happened at the end of Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania. They all came together following the death of Kang the Conqueror (Jonathan Majors), and they probably will be made aware of the events in the TVA at the conclusion of Loki Season 2. We know that one of the upcoming Marvel movies is Avengers: The Kang Dynasty, so we assume that’s when this tease will pay off. But that movie, if it happens, is currently dated for 2026. 2026!!
Most of the mid-credits scenes just introduce new characters. Harry Styles showed up as Eros in The Eternals. Apparently, the voice of Blade also appeared in that movie, whispering to Kit Harington as he stared at the Ebony Blade. Thor got a daughter. Hulk got a son. Kamala Khan recruited Kate Bishop for a Young Avengers team, which some of the actors have stated they’d like to see as a movie. Sounds great. When?
Logistically, none of this seems feasible. Blade keeps getting pushed back. And if/when it does happen, will it include the Black Knight? Unlikely. About as unlikely as Eternals 2, which currently isn’t on the studio’s radar. Young Avengers sounds like a solid plan, and introducing so many potential members – America Chavez, Kate Bishop, Kamala Khan, Cassie Lang, Hulk’s son Skaar – feels like a set up for that adventure. Except, Marvel already has announced two Avengers movies in Kang Dynasty and Secret Wars, so would a Young Avengers movie happen before them? After them? In between them? Does anyone at Marvel even know?
The Beast tease from The Marvels probably will get picked up on in Deadpool 3, which we think is going to be a multiversal hop through the existing Marvel Fox universe. The rest are anyone’s guess. In addition to possibly paying off these set ups, Marvel needs to introduce its new take on The Fantastic Four, figure out what is going on with Daredevil: Born Again (which apparently had to start over from scratch), and iron out the kinks of its ongoing Disney+ stories.
Here’s my advice, which Marvel can take or leave. Stop teasing things, unless you know for certain when they are going to pay off. Go back to using the mid-credits scenes to set up the next story, and not a possible story arriving in theaters in 2027 (or beyond). Teases like that make the MCU feel like homework, and not the wildly popular diversion it was in its prime.
