The newest Marvel Cinematic Universe film, Doctor Strange, hits theaters this weekend.
With that in mind, I tried to think about a post that I could do that would tie
into the MCU in honor of its release. The only thing is… I’ve obviously done
many, many posts on the MCU over the years. I’ve done rankings of the films
themselves as well as for the villains and the scores. Earlier this year when Captain America: Civil War came out, I
did a ‘Story So Far’ post detailing everything that had occurred in the MCU up
to that point, which I felt was fitting at the time seeing how that film served
as the start of Phase Three of the MCU. So, what can I do this time? Well, I
decided to do a rankings list of one of the most notable elements of the Marvel
Cinematic Universe; the post-credit stingers. Obviously post-credit sequences
in films have been around for years from The
Muppet Movie to Ferris Bueller’s Day
Off. But ever since the original Iron
Man back in 2008, Marvel Studios has turned them into one of their trademarks.
And yet interestingly enough, based on my own experiences going to see MCU
films, people STILL leave the theater before the credits are over. And let me
be clear, this is still occurring even after 13 films into the franchise’s run.
I mean I understand if people have other commitments that they need to get to
but at this point people should know that it’s pretty much a requirement that
you stay till the end of the credits in a MCU film so that you see everything
that happens in it. Anyway, there have been 19 MCU post-credit scenes over the
span of 13 films and today I’m counting them down from the worst to the best.
Whether it’s a humorous little closing tag or a hint at what’s to come next in
a future film, MCU fans always look forward to these little nuggets of MCU
goodness.
19. THOR RETURNS TO EARTH (THOR:
THE DARK WORLD)
Kicking off this list is the post-credit scene for Thor: The Dark World, in which Thor
returns to Earth and reunites with his love, Jane Foster. After their reunion,
we cut to another part of London where we see that a frost monster (AKA the big
troll-like creature that Thor fought in the first Thor film) from Jotunheim is running amok at the abandoned factory
where Jane first came across the Aether. It got transported to Earth by
accident during the final battle between Thor and Malekith when the two
traveled through the various worlds of the Nine Realms. The main reason as to why
this scene takes the bottom spot on this list is quite simple; there’s not that
much to say about it really. It’s just Thor reuniting with Jane followed by a
brief scene of the frost monster running around London. Sure, the shot of the
monster jumping over a bunch of shipping containers while chasing after a flock
of birds certainly gets a few chuckles but overall it’s a weak way to end an
MCU film. In a way, I guess you can say that it fittingly connects with the
fact that Thor: The Dark World was a
rather uneventful entry in the MCU, especially when compared to films like Winter Soldier or Civil War. An interesting fact about this scene is that when it was
filmed, Natalie Portman was unavailable as she was busy working on another
film. So instead, the filmmakers had Chris Hemsworth’s wife Elsa Pataky step in
to play Jane in this brief scene. As Portman then went on to joke, this
explains why the kiss between the two “was so passionate”.
18. THE AVENGERS TEASE (CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE FIRST AVENGER)
There is no doubt that this post-credit scene from Captain America: The First Avenger was
quite a big deal when it first came out. After all, it gave us audiences our
first look at the epic superhero adventure that was to come the following May.
It opens with a scene that would later be shown in Avengers of Cap as he’s hammering away at a punching bag alone in a
small gym. After he knocks the bag off its tether (a moment that is even more
epic when it’s shown in the actual film as the result of it being intercut with
flashbacks of First Avenger), Nick
Fury enters the room, telling Cap that he’s here to give him a mission of the
‘saving the world’ variety. We then cut to a series of clips from The Avengers which is basically just a
rundown of all the major characters. Sure, there’s no major action sequences
that are shown off here (keep in mind that this was in the summer of 2011
before we even got a full trailer for the film) but it certainly must have
gotten audiences pumped in regards to what was coming. So why then is this near
the bottom of the list, you ask? Simple… because The Avengers has been out for almost five years now. We’ve all seen
it so now this post-credit scene is nothing more than just a simple teaser. I
mean I still have positive feelings about this scene, mainly from a nostalgic
perspective, but as much as I hate to say it, this is one instance of an MCU
post-credit scene that you can honestly skip at this point because you won’t
miss anything… and that’s because you’re literally going to see everything that
happens in it in the next film.
17. HOWARD THE DUCK (GUARDIANS OF
THE GALAXY)
Even after two years since Guardians of the Galaxy first
came out, sometimes I still marvel (pun not intended) at the fact that the
film got away with, let’s be honest, a completely superfluous post-credit
stinger featuring an unexpected cameo from a character who, believe it or not,
is from a Marvel comic. I’m of course referring to Howard the Duck, who appears
as part of the Collector’s archive on Knowhere. The stinger opens as the
Collector sits in his destroyed archive following the incident earlier in the
film in which his mistreated assistant Carina touches the Power Stone, which
causes an explosion that almost completely decimates the entire archive. As he
begins to have a drink, one of his specimens, a Soviet cosmonaut dog named
Cosmo (who’s a member of the Guardians in the comics) comes up to him and
starts to lick his face. As the Collector lets the dog do so, a voice is heard
asking the Collector why he’s letting the dog lick him like that. We then cut
to the infamous duck as he sits in his destroyed cage as he too has a drink. I
mean… yeah talk about one of the most random post-credit scenes of all-time and
not just in terms of the MCU. It’s so random that when I went to see it with
some of my friends on opening night, one of them audibly shouted ‘Oh my god!’
when Howard (voiced by, believe it or not, Seth Green) appeared on-screen.
Obviously, the fact that it’s a pointless stinger puts it near the bottom of
this list but the randomness of it all at least gives it a one-up over the
previous two entries. Plus, even though it’s clearly not saying much, this is
easily Howard’s best film appearance following the infamous 1986 film
Howard the Duck produced by George Lucas. Going back to the Collector for a
moment…
16. THE COLLECTOR (THOR: THE DARK
WORLD)
Now I’ll admit that when I first saw this mid-credit
sequence from Thor: The Dark World, I
wasn’t too big on it. In fact, it made me quite hesitant about the
then-upcoming Guardians of the Galaxy
which, for the record, we hadn’t seen any real footage of yet at the time. The
scene consists of Lady Sif and Volstagg entering the Collector’s archive to
give him the Aether, as they note that it’d be unwise to have two Infinity
Stones in one place as they already have the Tesseract on Asgard. As they leave,
the Collector remarks to his assistant, Carina, “one down, five to go”. So
yeah, at first I wasn’t too big on this scene to the point where I started to
have some doubts over Guardians of the
Galaxy. The bright and colorful backgrounds of the Collector’s archive came
off as being rather tacky to the point where it did not gel well at all with
the more grounded color scheme and set design of the film prior. It’s easy to
see why director Alan Taylor wasn’t too keen on this scene, directed by Guardians director James Gunn, being
included in the film. But of course, since then Guardians has come out and proved to be another excellent
installment in the MCU. Thus, I have warmed up to this scene in recent years.
It’s still not one of my favorites by any means, namely due to the clashing of
different set designs, but I do appreciate it more as a fan of Guardians.
15. PETER PARKER RETURNS HOME (CAPTAIN
AMERICA: CIVIL WAR)
Civil War saw the
long-awaited debut of Spider-Man in the MCU and the Russo brothers gave us a
fun little closing tag to end the film on that was based around him. It opens
with Peter Parker as he returns home from the big airport battle in Germany.
Having sustained some minor injuries during the fight (i.e. a black eye), Aunt
May asks him who it was that hit him, to which Peter tells her that it was some
guy named Steve from Brooklyn (I’m sure you all know who that guy is). After
managing to shoo her away, Peter tests out some of the new equipment that Tony
Stark gave him, namely a beam of light that emits an image of his Spider-Man
mask on his bedroom ceiling. This is the ‘Spider Signal’, a piece of equipment
that Spidey frequently used in the comics. It is used primarily to intimidate
criminals, very similar in use to the Bat-Signal for Batman over in DC Comics.
Ultimately this scene is another example of how this new film iteration of
Spider-Man, played by Tom Holland, is very much staying true to the comics. I
mean, we saw that right out of the gate when Spidey first appeared in the
second trailer for Civil War as his
costume closely resembled his original costume from the comics right down to
the ‘shutter eyes’. And thanks to this scene, I think it’s safe to say that
we’re going to be seeing even more of ‘old-school Spider-Man’ in the upcoming Spider-Man: Homecoming.
14. THANOS (THE AVENGERS)
The Avengers was
the first MCU film to have not one but two post-credit scenes, the first of
which being a mid-credit scene. And boy was this one a doozy as it introduced
us to the character who will no doubt be a major threat in Infinity War; Thanos. All throughout the film we’ve seen scenes set
in space in which Loki converses with a figure known as ‘The Other’. As this
mid-credit scene begins, ‘The Other’ meets with his master, a mysterious
purple-skinned figure, and warns him about the humans, who at first they
thought wouldn’t pose any threat but were proven wrong after the Avengers took
down their army of Chitauri. As ‘The Other’ remarks that ‘to challenge them is
to court death’, Thanos turns to the camera and smugly grins. Now sure, if
you’re not that big of a comic book reader, you probably had no idea who this
character was the first time around. But at this point, I think it’s safe to
say that most people know who it is now, especially now that he’s appeared in Guardians of the Galaxy and Age of Ultron. The thing is, though… in
those films he’s played by a different actor. In the first Avengers, Thanos was played by Damion Poitier and I’m guessing that
he was only brought in for that one scene. Ever since, Josh Brolin has been playing
the part and will do so again in Infinity
War. Now I’m not saying that they should pull a ‘Star Wars Special Edition’ by reshooting this scene with Brolin but
now that he’s in the role, it’s kind of weird going back to this scene nowadays
and seeing the pre-Guardians Thanos.
Hence why his next post-credit appearance takes the next spot…
13. THANOS DONS THE GAUNTLET (AVENGERS:
AGE OF ULTRON)
Age of Ultron notably
only had one post-credit scene whereas nowadays there are always two major
post-credit scenes in an MCU film. I wonder how many people stuck around till
the end of the credits only to find that there wasn’t anything there? Anyway,
it was only fitting that Thanos appears in the post-credit scene for the second
Avengers film and while he only
grinned to the camera in the first film, he does a little bit more in this film…
you know, more than he’s done while sitting on that throne that he sat in
during his scene in Guardians of the
Galaxy. Anyway, we open on a vault containing an Infinity Gauntlet. Thanos
dons it and remarks ‘Fine! I’ll do it myself!’ meaning that he’s ready to
finally start his quest to collect the Infinity Stones, which is a good idea
because he technically doesn’t have any at this point. The Tesseract’s on
Asgard, The Aether is with the Collector (presumably… Who knows after that archive
explosion?), the Power Stone is with the Nova Corps, and the Mind Stone is in
Vision’s forehead. Yes, he picked up an empty Infinity Gauntlet. On an
interesting note, we previously saw an Infinity Gauntlet during a brief shot of
Odin’s Treasure Room in the first Thor film.
It’s safe to say that this must be a different Gauntlet. Anyway, it’s unclear
when we’ll see Thanos next but this scene does set the stage for what will
surely be an epic battle in Infinity War.
And like I said before, the key reason as to why this scene gets ranked higher
than the Thanos scene from the first Avengers
film is the fact that now he’s played by Josh Brolin. Simply put, better
continuity.
12. TONY MEETS WITH GENERAL ROSS (THE
INCREDIBLE HULK)
Okay technically speaking this isn’t a ‘post-credit’ scene.
In fact, it happens BEFORE the credits even start. Still, I think it’s
necessary to include this one because boy was it a big deal when it first happened.
Tony Stark appearing outside of the Iron
Man films? Mind blown! Obviously nowadays this isn’t that big of a deal
given all the cameos and crossovers that have occurred since then but I think
that this one is still notable on its own merits. After the whole incident with
the Hulk in Harlem (I wonder how Luke Cage and co. responded to that one), we
see General Ross as he’s drinking his woes away in a bar. Then we cut to a
figure entering the bar; it’s Tony Stark. After bantering for a bit, Tony
mentions that a team is being put together. Again, obviously nowadays this
isn’t anything major given the countless other times that Tony and other
characters have cameoed in other MCU films. But in the context of mid-summer
2008, after Robert Downey Jr. and Marvel Studios made it big with the original Iron Man film just one month earlier,
this was big. And let’s be honest, part of me wonders if there were people out
there who didn’t see the post-credit scene from Iron Man beforehand. I’ll admit that I didn’t stick around till the
end when I saw Iron Man in theaters
so when I went to go see Incredible Hulk in
theaters, basically this was the first time that I learned about the plans for
an Avengers film. This scene was even
incorporated into one of Marvel Studios’ ‘One-Shot’ short films, The Consultant. So, to put it simply,
I’d say that this is still a very noteworthy entry in Marvel Studios’ line of
post-credit stingers.
11. BABY GROOT DANCING (GUARDIANS
OF THE GALAXY)
What more can be said about this one? This one’s super
adorable and it quite frankly perfectly exemplifies the good feelings that one
gets while watching Guardians of the
Galaxy. During the climax of the film, the tree-like creature Groot
sacrifices himself to save his friends as the Dark Aster crashes down into the
city of Xandar. I dare you not to get teary-eyed when Groot comforts a
distressed Rocket and says “We are Groot!” But following the final battle with
Ronan, it’s revealed that Groot is still alive thanks to his regenerative
abilities and is currently in miniature form. And as soon as the credits start,
we get a hilariously charming scene of Groot dancing to the Jackson 5’s ‘I Want
You Back’ all while a completely unaware Drax is seated directly nearby
polishing his knife. At one point Drax turns around and Groot freezes in place
as if not to give anything away. Drax returns to polishing his knife and Groot
continues to dance. I mean, there’s not much else I can say about this one.
It’s just a super charming way to end the film and I do look forward to seeing
a ‘younger’ Groot in the upcoming sequel, Guardians
of the Galaxy Vol. 2. Fun fact; Groot’s smooth dance moves were provided
via mo-cap by none other than the director of Guardians of the Galaxy himself, James Gunn, who has stated that ‘I
Want You Back’ is his favorite song.
10. BUCKY VISITS THE MUSEUM (CAPTAIN
AMERICA: THE WINTER SOLDIER)
We got a great pair of post-credit scenes in Captain America: The Winter Soldier. The
second one is a simple scene but it’s also an effective way to showcase a
change in the character it focuses on. One of the major plot points of the film
revolves around its titular character, the Winter Soldier, who is revealed to
be Steve Rogers’ best friend Bucky Barnes, who is revealed to be alive after
his supposed death in First Avenger
but is now a brainwashed soldier of HYDRA. Now, Cap is forced to try and knock
some sense into his friend, which he does with one simple line. Said line is
one that Bucky said to him back in the 40’s; “I’m with you till the end of the
line.” That stops Bucky right in his tracks and effectively started his journey
to remember who he is. As the film’s second post-credit scene begins, we start
off in the Smithsonian Exhibit in Washington D.C. honoring Captain America,
which was complete with narration from Gary Sinise and was where Cap ‘stole’
his original World War II uniform to wear during the final battle with HYDRA.
We then see Bucky as he walks up to the one part of the exhibit that focuses on
him, “the only Howling Commando to give his life in service of his country”.
Like I said, the key to this scene is that it ends the film on a cliffhanger by
showing Bucky’s initial efforts to regain his memory following his fight with
Cap. Also, the pulsating music by Henry Jackman that increases in volume as the
camera pans over to Bucky is a nice touch. Speaking of good ol’ Bucky…
9. BUCKY GOES INTO CRYOSLEEP IN WAKANDA (CAPTAIN AMERICA: CIVIL WAR)
Captain America: Civil
War also had a nice pair of post-credit scenes, with the first, the
mid-credit scene, giving us a good tease of the world of Black Panther. All throughout the film, Black Panther AKA Prince T’Challa
of Wakanda had been hunting Bucky believing that he was the one who bombed the
UN conference in Vienna and killed his father, King T’Chaka. Thankfully, he
eventually realizes that Bucky was completely innocent and that Helmut Zemo was
the one who was responsible for the death of his father. After the big Cap-Iron
Man fight in Siberia, Cap and Bucky flee to Wakanda where Bucky voluntarily
decides to go back into cryo-sleep. As he sees it, he can’t trust his own mind
so it’s better for everybody if he goes under until they find a cure for his
brainwashing. And so, he goes back into cryo with his best friend Steve by his
side. Cap then goes to talk with T’Challa who tells him that he’s ready to help
Bucky find peace after he and his father both became victims of Zemo’s plot.
When Cap notes that those who are after Bucky will no doubt come for him in
time, T’Challa remarks “Let them try,” as the camera pans out to reveal the
jungles of Wakanda complete with a massive stone statue of a panther. In short,
Civil War was a great introduction to
the character of Black Panther, played phenomenally by Chadwick Boseman, and
the mid-credit scene gave us our first look at his home nation which will no
doubt take center stage for some epic superhero action in his upcoming solo
film which will be hitting theaters on February 16th, 2018.
8. HOPE IS GIVEN THE WASP SUIT (ANT-MAN)
While Hope van Dyne didn’t get much to do action-wise in Ant-Man, she was still a valuable member
of the team and Evangeline Lilly certainly did a great job in the role. One of
the best aspects about her role in the film was that there was a legit reason
as to why her father, Hank Pym, didn’t just let her put on the Ant-Man suit as
part of their plan to steal the Yellowjacket technology developed by his former
protégé, Darren Cross. In an emotional flashback scene, he reveals that during
a mission to disable a Soviet missile, her mother Janet AKA ‘The Wasp’
sacrificed herself by shrinking down to the sub-atomic level and was never seen
again. However, after Scott Lang manages to return from this ‘quantum realm’
during the final battle with Yellowjacket, Hank begins to wonder if Janet is
still alive. And as the mid-credit scene begins, it’s clear that he’s finally
warmed up to the idea of letting Hope utilize his shrinking technology as he
shows her a new Wasp prototype suit, basically confirming that she will be
taking on her mother’s mantle in future MCU films. She didn’t appear in the
next immediate MCU film, Civil War,
unlike Ant-Man, because writers Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely noted
that it would basically be nothing more than just a quick cameo. Sure, it’s a
bit disappointing that she wasn’t brought back immediately after that big
mid-credit scene but at the same time it’s understandable considering how
packed Civil War was already in terms
of characters. Thankfully she will be back to officially take on the mantle of
‘The Wasp’ in 2018’s Ant-Man and the Wasp.
To quote her line in this scene, “It’s about damn time…”
7. CAPTAIN AMERICA: CIVIL WAR
TEASE (ANT-MAN)
This is another one of those MCU stingers that directly
teases the studio’s next film. In this case, Ant-Man’s post-credit scene was directly helmed by the Russo
brothers and features a setting straight from Civil War. It’s the scene where Cap and Falcon have found Bucky and
are restraining him following the incident at the Berlin facility where Bucky
was being held captive but was let out by Zemo, who reinitiated his HYDRA
brainwashing with those infamous trigger words (“Longing, Rusted, Seventeen,
Daybreak, Furnace, Nine, Benign, Homecoming, One, Freight car”). Falcon remarks
that “this would’ve been a lot easier a week ago”. They both realize that
they’re unable to contact Tony Stark because of ‘the Accords’ and Cap remarks
that this basically means that they’re on their own. To which Falcon responds
‘not quite’ and that ‘he knows a guy’. This scene accomplishes two things.
First off, obviously, is the fact that it sets up Civil War. It introduces the Sokovia Accords, without ever going
into detail over them, as well as continuing from Winter Soldier, which ended with Cap and Falcon planning to go
after Bucky. The other great thing about this scene is that it also serves as a
nice bit of closure for Ant-Man. Of
course, Falcon made a highly memorable cameo in the film during a scene in
which Ant-Man had to infiltrate the Avengers’ facility in New York to acquire a
specific piece of equipment for the film’s big heist. It just goes to show that
the MCU truly is a connected universe.
6. LOKI IS ALIVE (THOR)
The climax of the first Thor
ended with the implication that Thor’s treacherous brother Loki fell into
the abyss following the destruction of the Bifrost bridge. However, as this
post-credit scene reveals, Loki isn’t quite dead yet. Like pretty much all the
Phase 1 post-credit scenes (save for The
Incredible Hulk and Iron Man 2,
the latter of which he instead had a more substantial role in), it features
Samuel L. Jackson returning once again as Nick Fury. In this instance, he
converses with Thor’s friend Dr. Erik Selvig by bringing him to a secret SHIELD
facility and showing him a mysterious glowing blue cube. We then see Loki
reflected in a nearby mirror as it’s revealed that he’s somehow in control of Selvig,
coercing him into saying to Fury that “it’s worth a look”. Like the Ant-Man post-credit scene, there are two
things to take from this. First, it introduces the object known as the Tesseract,
which served as the McGuffin of both Captain
America: The First Avenger and The
Avengers and would later be revealed to be an Infinity Stone. Secondly, as
noted earlier, it establishes that Loki did survive that big fall and that he
will be the primary villain of the first Avengers
film. In fact, this scene was directed by Joss Whedon, who would do the
same thing again for another ‘Avengers build-up’
post-credit scene that will be coming up in a little bit. It’s also interesting
to note how Selvig is apparently under Loki’s control at this point as this is
before he was officially made into one of his henchmen in The Avengers. Ultimately, though, this is another classic
post-credit stinger that ends on a major cliffhanger. On that note…
5. THOR’S HAMMER (IRON MAN 2)
To me this was an excellent set-up for what was to be the
next MCU film at the time, Thor. At
one point in Iron Man 2, Tony briefly
found himself in a state of ‘house arrest’ being watched closely by Agent Phil
Coulson, who warned him that ‘he will taze him and watch Supernanny while he drooled on the carpet’ if he tried to escape.
But Coulson ends up leaving eventually to head on down to New Mexico for a
different assignment. As the post-credit scene, directed by Thor director Kenneth Branagh, begins,
we open on the New Mexico desert. A lone vehicle begins driving through it and
stops in front of a small cliff. As Agent Coulson gets out, we cut to a reveal
of what he’s looking at; a massive crater surrounded by a bunch of truckers.
Coulson gets on the phone, presumably with Fury, and tells him “Sir. We found
it,” before we cut to a shot of the mysterious object located right in the middle
of the hole; Thor’s hammer, Mjolnir. And as the screen goes to black, we hear a
bolt of lightning, perfectly matching Thor’s title as the ‘God of Thunder’. Without
ever showing Chris Hemsworth as Thor, this scene perfectly builds up the
character’s then-upcoming solo film while also confirming that Clark Gregg
would be returning as everyone’s favorite SHIELD agent as well. And keep in
mind that this was back when many people were unsure about a Thor film so there was a lot of pressure
to get this right. Thankfully, the film did turn out good and continued Marvel
Studios’ winning streak that is still going strong today.
4. TONY MEETS WITH BRUCE (IRON
MAN 3)
I’ll admit that this one is rather polarizing, just like the
film that it came from, but I personally love this one. The film opens with
narration from Tony as he begins to go over the events of Iron Man 3, beginning with the incident with Aldrich Killian in
Bern, Switzerland in 1999 that effectively led to his conflict with Killian’s
organization AIM years later. This goes all the way to the end of the film as
the post-credit scene reveals that he’s been telling the story to someone this
whole time. That someone is Bruce Banner but when we first see him, he’s asleep
in his chair and admits to Tony that he fell asleep after the ‘Switzerland’
part. After he tells Tony that ‘he’s not that kind of doctor’, Tony then begins
to go into a different story about this old wound from 1983 and questions the
fact that he still had a nanny back then at the age of 14 (“that was weird…”).
Even though this is basically just a funny little anecdote instead of having
some form of set-up for a future MCU film, I love this scene… for various
reasons. The first is that, being the first ‘post-Avengers’ MCU post-credit scene, it’s a nice touch to have Tony in
a scene with Bruce following the friendship that formed between them in the
last film (Science Bros FTW!). Second, it certainly feels like a scene that
director Shane Black would put in his films and it does match up with a lot of
the humor in Iron Man 3. In fact, he
and Robert Downey Jr. did this exact same kind of thing in their 2005 film Kiss Kiss Bang Bang. Really, the only
odd thing about this is that, apparently between Avengers films, Bruce got a haircut and grew a beard.
3. THE TWINS (CAPTAIN AMERICA:
THE WINTER SOLDIER)
This is arguably the biggest MCU post-credit scene in terms
of what it introduces for future films. Fittingly enough, it was directed by
Joss Whedon to help set up Avengers: Age
of Ultron. It opens in a HYDRA facility as a man named Dr. List meets with
HYDRA leader Baron Wolfgang von Strucker (Thomas Kretschmann). He tells
Strucker that Nick Fury has released the secrets of HYDRA’s takeover of SHIELD
to the public but Strucker responds by saying that he only leaked “everything he
knows about” as we see two secret projects that HYDRA is currently working on.
The first is revealed to be the mind-controlling scepter that Loki used in the
first Avengers film. As we would
later learn in Age of Ultron, this
scepter contains the Mind Stone, which is eventually used to bring Vision to
life. But then, as Strucker tells List that it’s “not a world of spies and
heroes anymore” but instead “the age of miracles”, we see two of the
organization’s human test subjects; a man who is a speedster and a woman who
possesses telekinetic powers. They are ‘the Twins’, Quicksilver and Scarlet
Witch, and the rather sinister feel of this whole scene, right down to the
latter abruptly smashing the two cubes that she’s manipulating together to
close out the scene, foreshadows the fact that the two start out as ‘enemies’
of the Avengers in Age of Ultron before
they join forces at the end. In conclusion, if it wasn’t for these next two
classic scenes, this might have been my favorite MCU post-credit scene to date.
But on that note…
2. THE ‘AVENGER INITIATIVE’ (IRON
MAN)
Even after nearly a whole decade since the release of the
original Iron Man, there’s no denying
that the original MCU post-credit scene is still one of the franchise’s best.
However, as I alluded to earlier in this list, part of me wonders how many
people did stick around through the credits to watch this scene in theaters.
Because keep in mind, this was the first MCU film ever made so this was before
any of us knew that we had to do this on a regular basis. So, in that sense,
it’d be totally understandable if some people weren’t aware of this scene the
first time they saw the film. As I also noted before, I was one of those people
to the point where it wasn’t until The
Incredible Hulk that I’d realized that they were preparing for an Avengers film. But at the end of the
day, this is still one of the most iconic moments in the entire MCU. It opens
as Tony Stark returns home after revealing to the world that he is Iron Man. As
he enters the darkened house, he notices a figure out on his balcony. This man
then proceeds to tell him the following; “"I am Iron Man". You think
you're the only superhero in the world? Mr. Stark, you've become part of a
bigger universe. You just don't know it yet.” As the man steps into the light,
we see that it’s Samuel L. Jackson as the head of S.H.I.E.L.D, Nick Fury, who
states that “I’m here to talk to you about the Avenger Initiative’. And just like
that, a Cinematic Universe was born. Seriously, I’d argue that this was the
moment that officially kicked off the franchise. The first Iron Man was a pretty self-contained superhero story but in this
moment, that all changed. Just imagine for a second how big this was when it
first happened; a time before any of us thought that a Marvel Cinematic
Universe could happen or that it was even possible. And we all know how that
turned out…
1. SHAWARMA (THE AVENGERS)
So, what can possibly top the iconic moment where Nick Fury
came to Tony Stark to talk about the Avenger Initiative, some of you might ask?
Well, taking the top spot on this list is a post-credit stinger that doesn’t
set up anything but is instead just a humorous ending tag. It’s the post-credit
scene from The Avengers which
consists solely of the titular group having lunch at a shawarma restaurant,
during which they don’t say a single word. They just eat their lunch and, let’s
be honest, after the long day that they just had, can you blame them? This
scene is so simplistic that it’s brilliant. In fact, this scene was shot just
shortly before the film was released in theaters. Yeah, when the film had its
world premiere on April 11th, 2012, originally it only had the
Thanos mid-credit scene attached to it. But just one day later, Joss Whedon
filmed a second post-credit scene to tie into a seemingly random line from the
film. This scene also reflected a real-life incident that occurred during
production of his show Angel in which
he and stars Amy Acker and Alexis Denisof went to go get drinks after filming a
major scene but then ended up just sitting around quietly because they were
exhausted after the shoot. Anyway, going back to The Avengers, after Tony Stark crashes back down on Earth after
sending the missile into space to destroy the Chitauri, he asks this to the
team, “Ever tried shawarma? There’s a shawarma joint about two blocks from
here. I don’t know what it is, but I want to try it,” And you want to know one
of the telltale signs of this being shot long after filming was done? During
this entire scene, Cap is covering his face while he’s eating and this is hide
the fact that Chris Evans had recently grown a beard. Regardless, this scene
speaks for itself and even though it’s basically pointless compared to some of
the other MCU post-credit scenes, it’s just awesome. Hence why it’s my favorite
MCU post-credit scene to date.
And that’s the end of
my rankings of all 19 MCU post-credit scenes that have been released up to this
point. Thanks for following along and be sure to sound off in the comments
below in regards your personal favorite MCU post-credit scenes.
…
“You’re still here?
It’s over. Go home… What are you expecting, Sam Jackson show up with an
eyepatch and a saucy little leather number? Go, go… Chicka-chickahhhh…”
(P.S. Yes I know that
quote was from a non-MCU film.)
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