Marvel Studios has spent years using post-credits scenes to tease what's coming next, but the Multiverse Saga has left behind an unusually large number of dangling threads.
They've promised new heroes, set up villains and storylines that seemed destined to become important parts of the MCU's grand plan. In reality, several have been quietly forgotten and may have no bearing on the remainder of this era of storytelling.
With Avengers: Doomsday and Avengers: Secret Wars now bringing the Multiverse Saga to a close, Marvel Studios has a limited window to pay off these lingering cliffhangers, or risk leaving them unresolved forever.
From the Council of Kangs and the Ten Rings to Doctor Strange, Blade, Star-Lord, and a link to the X-Men, these are the 10 post-credits scenes the next two Avengers movies need to address...
10. Doctor Strange Returns To The Dark Dimension
Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness ended with the former Sorcerer Supreme opening his third eye. The idea seemed to be that he'd head down a darker route, and in the sequel's stinger, Strange was confronted by Clea.
She claimed his actions had caused an Incursion and insisted he join her in the Dark Dimension. We're still not sure what this was setting up or what the scene means for Incursions in the MCU, but Doctor Strange 3 hasn't taken shape—despite rumours it was a priority for Marvel Studios—and it's down to Avengers: Doomsday to explain this.
The movie will need to make sense of a cliffhanger that, on the surface, should have major implications for the Multiverse Saga. With rumours swirling that Benedict Cumberbatch and Charlize Theron are among Doom's followers, it seems the Russo Brothers are going to make good on the stinger's promise.
9. Meet Starfox
Despite boasting an incredible cast, Eternals was neither a critical nor a commercial hit. There were clearly plans for a sequel, seeing as Eros (Harry Styles) and Pip the Troll (Patton Oswalt) showed up in the mid-credits scene.
Starfox offered to help Makkari, Druig, and Thena find their missing friends and the stage was set for the heroes to track down the Eternals and the Celestials who created them. It had all the makings of an epic sequel, which, sadly, won't happen.
That's even been confirmed by Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige, leaving us with a huge, unresolved cliffhanger. As a result, a supporting turn from any of this lot in Avengers: Doomsday—or Avengers: Secret Wars—feels like wishful thinking, sadly. Instead, they're in limbo.
8. Sharon Carter Breaks Bad
After lending Sam Wilson and Bucky Barnes a hand in Madripoor, Sharon Carter is pardoned for her actions in Captain America: Civil War and rejoins the CIA. However, it was then that The Falcon and The Winter Soldier confirmed that she's the criminal Power Broker.
Being in the CIA means she can sell government secrets, and this felt like a big deal...until it wasn't. Marvel Studios hasn't revisited the idea of Sharon being the Power Broker, missing a trick in everything from Captain America: Brave New World to Thunderbolts* and Black Panther: Wakanda Forever.
Sharon, who has already been squandered in the MCU, has completely fallen by the wayside. She's a great character on the page, but that hasn't translated to screen, much to the frustration of many fans. It's now hard to see how she could fit into either Avengers movie.
7. The Council Of Kangs
We could spend all day on this one. For starters, Marvel Studios had to fire its Kang actor when Jonathan Majors was found guilty of assaulting a woman he met while shooting Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania (there was a lot more to the story, but the actor was ultimately convicted).
Filmmaker Peyton Reed had been tasked with taking Scott Lang from being a palette cleanser to a superhero who set the stage for Avengers: The Kang Dynasty. The movie—shot largely on The Volume—wasn't good and largely wasted Kang the Conqueror.
With it clear that fans didn't like what they saw from this one, the studio started mulling over a pivot away from Kang. Majors' legal issues sealed the deal, meaning we'll likely never learn what the Council of Kangs had planned for the Multiverse beyond a throwaway line (if we're lucky) in Avengers: Doomsday. This also hurts Loki, which devoted two seasons to establishing how terrifying a threat Kang is.
6. Hercules Debuts
Thor: Love and Thunder was a disappointing Marvel Studios sequel, with filmmaker Taika Waititi arguably given too much freedom to run wild. The result was a silly, childish take on the God of Thunder that dropped the ball on more than one important storyline.
After Thor clashed with Russell Crowe's camp Zeus, the post-credits scene set the stage for the villain's son, Hercules, to make the Avenger pay for his actions. Brett Goldstein was cast as the character, though the Ted Lasso star has yet to show what he's capable of in the role.
Unless Thor 5 becomes a reality, it's difficult to say what the future looks like for Hercules, a character with heaps of potential on screen. The Russos are taking Thor seriously in Avengers: Doomsday, and while we'd love to see them make room for this clash, there are likely bigger priorities.
5. The Legendary Star-Lord Will Return
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 was a fitting end to filmmaker James Gunn's trilogy, which saw several characters ride off into the sunset. It appeared that Star-Lord might be among them after the hero returned to Earth and reunited with his grandfather.
However, a post-credits scene promised fans that, despite Peter Quill currently chilling at home, "The Legendary Star-Lord Will Return." Three years later and, uh, he still hasn't returned.
Chris Pratt still hasn't been officially added to the Avengers: Doomsday cast, and Marvel Studios has yet to announce The Legendary Star-Lord movie or TV show we all expected would follow Vol. 3. Leaked concept art pointed to a possible role in Avengers: Secret Wars, but the Russos have claimed that what we saw in that leak wasn't representative of their plans.
4. Monica Rambeau Meets Beast
The Marvels remains the MCU's biggest box office flop, and while the Captain Marvel sequel had serious issues, we can't deny that it had one of the most exciting post-credits scenes ever attached to a superhero movie.
Monica Rambeau wakes up in a parallel reality and comes face-to-face with Kelsey Grammer's comic-accurate Beast. The X-Man is joined by her mother, Maria, who is revealed to be the mutant superhero known as Binary. What a cliffhanger.
We'd expected this scene to be a huge part of Avengers: Doomsday, but there's been nothing to suggest that will be the case. Captain Marvel, Ms. Marvel, Monica Rambeau, and Maria Rambeau have not been confirmed to appear in the movie. While it's possible they're being saved as a surprise, that suggests this stinger isn't as important as we anticipated.
3. Blade Meets Black Knight
Horrified that the woman he loves, Sersi, was taken from Earth by the Celestial Arishem, Eternals' Dane Whitman seeks out the Ebony Blade. Before he can lift it, a voice off-screen asks if he's ready for the responsibility that comes with it.
We'd later learn that the voice belonged to Mahershala Ali's Blade. Since then, the Blade movie has failed to become a reality, and Mahershala Ali has now confirmed that he's walked away from the role after several years of failed starts. In at least one iteration of the Daywalker's solo outing, it seems the idea was for Blade to team up with the Black Knight.
Marvel Studios has wasted Kit Harington, and we fear this cliffhanger will forever remain unresolved as we head into the next Saga. There were rumblings about Blade showing up in Avengers: Secret Wars, but Ali's comments seemingly disprove that.
2. The Secret Of The Ten Rings
Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings ended with a mid-credits scene featuring the title character and Katy meeting with Wong, Captain Marvel, and Bruce Banner. They're there to figure out what the deal is with the beacon embedded in the hero's Ten Rings.
We have good reason to believe that this was tied to Kang; the villain and his Variants looked set to be revealed as the creators of the Ten Rings, Kamala Khan's bangles, and more, but that idea died when Avengers: The Kang Dynasty did.
Fortunately, a future movie can instead link them to Fin Fang Foom's homeworld, Kakaranthara (which is what we'd hoped for in the first place). For now, though, this idea looks to have been shelved, as filmmaker Destin Daniel Cretton is busy with Naturo and potentially Spider-Man 5.
1. The Leader's Warning
In easily one of the MCU's worst post-credits scenes, Captain America: Brave New World's effort saw Sam Wilson visit The Leader in prison and receive perhaps the vaguest warning ever. He tells Captain America that "it's coming" because he's "seen it in the probabilities."
Samuel Sterns warns Cap that he'll have to protect Earth from other worlds, suggesting he's somehow figured out that Incursions are imminent. How or why he'd know about the Multiverse or what will happen when parallel realities collide is never explained, and probably never will be. This scene only exists to tease an Avengers movie that, at the time, Marvel Studios still hadn't figured out.
Captain America: Brave New World dropped the ball on The Leader in a big way, but anyone expecting his warning to factor into the next Avengers movies will surely be disappointed. If he does return, then here's hoping it's with a new look.