Ever since the news broke that Spider-Man would be featuring in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, it seems that the whole world and his mother have been giving their two cents on how and when Peter Parker should appear. Well I thought I would have a go, with an idea that I've been dreaming of for years now but thanks to Kevin Feige and his team, just got a little closer to being reality.
Spider-Man should appear in the after credits stinger for Avengers: Age of Ultron. The hype for Spider-Man joining the likes of Cap, Thor and Iron Man is about as high as it's ever going to get right now. The news became ridiculously mainstream and the internet was buzzing to the point where, if I was Marvel, I would be trying to capitalise on it as soon as I could. I have no doubt that there is already an after credit stinger prepped for Age of Ultron (hopefully involving Hank Pym and some as yet unrevealed connection to Ultron) but there is no reason why, like with Captain America: The Winter Soldier, there can't be two post-credits scenes.
As for the scene itself, who remembers the post-credits stinger for Iron Man 2? That's right, it involved Agent Coulson visiting Thor's hammer in the crater in New Mexico. More importantly, it was an actual scene from 2011's Thor movie. Wouldn't it be great to have a similar situation in Age of Ultron, where the post-credits stinger is an actual scene from Captain America: Civil War. The scene itself would be an EXACT recreation of this scene, from Amazing Spider-Man #537 written by J. Michael Straczynski and art from Ron Garney.
This remains one of my favourite Cap and Spidey scenes (I generally love how Straczynski writes Peter Parker) and I think would make for a great after credit scene. Just imagine, the picture fades in. Dusk over New York city. A broad pan of the rooftops gradually zooms onto one rooftop in particular. We see Chris Evans' Captain America standing on the edge, looking out over the city. The camera starts at his back where he's wearing the shield then pans around to his side. That's when Spider-Man swings in (the audience goes crazy) to perch on the edge of the rooftop right next to Cap and the dialogue (EXACTLY as above) begins.
Now I know that the general audience will probably be confused as heck as to what these two characters are talking about, but hopefully it will be enough for them just to see Spider-Man. Besides, I know a lot of people who didn't have a clue who Thanos was until THAT scene forced them to go find out. Seeing that iconic conversation show up word for word on the silver screen will be all about the fan service. Isn't that the whole reason that Mr Feige went and worked out the deal in the first place? Fan service? I read something recently that said some thing along the lines of "Marvel didn't need Spider-Man, but they wanted him" and I tend to agree. The MCU movies will make billions of dollars without the wall-crawler but these guys behind the scenes thought "wouldn't it be cool if we did had him...".
I'm sure there are plenty of you out there who'll say "how can they put a scene from Civil War when that movie that hasn't even started shooting yet you dumb idiot?!", and you're probably right. In fact, it's unlikely that Spider-Man will play a big enough role in Civil War for that scene to even show up at all. But this has been one of my favourite comic book moments for a while and hey, a guy can dream.