Post Credits Scenes Mean Nothing Anymore

Honestly, what is the last post credits scene that actually felt like it was sharing important information about future movies? When Iron Man did it, it involved Nick Fury paying Tony Stark a visit to lay the groundwork for the Avengers group to be put together. It was a huge moment to cap off an already great stand-alone story.

But now it feels like Marvel and even DC have just run out of things to say and are including scenes after the credits as some perfunctory gesture simply because fans expect it. It started getting bad quite a while ago honestly, probably as far back as 2014’s Guardians of the Galaxy. The big payoff for audiences sticking around to the end of the credits was just seeing Howard the Duck, who many people either don’t know or don’t care about.

It could be given a pass since Guardians of the Galaxy was so packed with jokes overall, so ending on a joke didn’t feel terribly out of place. But it was a far cry from the excitement of other MCU post credits scenes that would give glimpses of Thanos’ impending arrival. It is even worse because now many post credits scenes have promised things that are just never going to happen.

Like Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania showing more of Kang with the implication he will be returning in a more major way. But that is now pointless since the character has been scrapped in light of Jonathan Majors being fired. Or what about Justice League teasing Deathstroke for a future movie? Or Black Adam teasing the return of Henry Cavill as Superman?

It has been such a long time since any post credits scenes have amounted to anything meaningful that it honestly just feels like a tradition that needs to be put aside. With the DCEU being rebooted, James Gunn should immediately distinguish the new DC movies from the MCU by not including anything after the credits. There was already so much criticism of DC trying to imitate Marvel, so why continue to play into it?

And Marvel should start phasing the routine out as well. Post credits scenes are no longer a fun little surprise, but something everyone knows is going to appear. Honestly, maybe the last great one was in Avengers: Endgame simply because it had nothing after the credits.

It did not diminish the impact of what had happened in the movie by making a joke or redirecting fans to think about some other upcoming movie. The cut to black was a surprise in itself, but one that clearly communicated the end of a chapter. That really would have been a perfect stopping point for Marvel to end the tradition.