The MCU’s Newest Post-Credits Crisis Was 15 Years In The Making

Warning! This post contains spoilers for The Marvels.

The MCU has a problem with its post-credit scenes that’s been building since the shared cinematic universe began 15 years ago. Since Nick Fury told Tony Stark about the Avengers Initiative at the end ofIron Man, audiences have grown accustomed to staying through the credits to see a tease for future films. The scenes often deliver an unexpected character reveal or plot twist that signals something to come. However, the credit scenes are also sometimes used as jokes, such as Captain America’s PSA cameo in Spider-Man: Homecoming.

However, in the latest phase of the MCU, the post-credit scenes have been used to introduce new characters who will most likely appear sometime in the future. Thor: Love and Thunder introduced audiences to Hercules, Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania teased the Council of Kangs, and Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness gave viewers an unexpected cameo from Charlize Theron’s Clea. While these cameos may be exciting, the box office for The Marvels proves this isn’t a sustainable situation moving forward.

The Marvels Had One Of The MCU’s Biggest Post-Credits Scenes Yet (But That Hasn’t Helped It)

While The Marvels remains a divisive film within the MCU fandom, it has an incredible post-credit scene. After trapping herself in an alternate reality at the end of The Marvels, Monica Rambeau wakes up in a hospital next to a variant of her mother. The hospital is an X-Men facility, with Kelsey Grammer’s Beast also treating her. While this isn’t the first time a member of the X-Men has appeared in an MCU film, this does open a door into the Fox universe, especially with Deadpool 3 on the horizon.

The hype over this post-credit scene hasn’t done anything to help the movie’s box office. The Marvels had the lowest opening weekend for any MCU film, grossing $47 million, and it had an abysmal second weekend with a 78% drop. The movies of the MCU are no longer guaranteed financial hits, and The Marvels is the peak of Marvel’s recent diminishing returns. Unfortunately, people no longer need to go to the theater to see these post-credit scenes, as MCU movies drop quickly on Disney+. People aren’t as eager to see how these films tie together, but Marvel should make it more obvious in their stories.

Why The MCU Needs To Stop Relying On Post-Credits Scenes To Tie Its Universe Together

One of the central issues of the MCU right now is that there is little cohesion between each project. All roads are supposedly leading to Kang, but it would be hard to tell by watching all the movies. Some of the post-credit scenes do show some connective tissue, but Marvel needs to place more of these elements in the main narrative.

There’s also the issue that post-credits scenes simply aren’t being revisited or paid off in a timely manner like they used to. Leaving these teases dangling makes them hard to get excited about, taking away some of their appeal. Using the post-credit scenes feels like a last-ditch effort to tie everything together, and the MCU needs to go back to making the overarching narrative more centralized in each film.

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