Every Marvel Post-Credits Scene Ranked

The first Marvel post-credits scene is still the best because it sets up the entire premise of the MCU. Prior to the formation of Marvel Studios, Marvel movies were very much an everyone-for-themselves affair. Fans had just come to accept that Sony’s Spider-Man and Universal’s Hulk would never meet on screen like they do in the comics.

There was no reason to think Iron Man would be any different until Nick Fury showed up at the very end to hip Tony to the Avengers Initiative. With that short scene, Marvel fans finally had hope that the interconnected world of heroes they had loved for years might finally make its way to Hollywood.

While Marvel’s Iron Man post-credits scene introduced the idea that a bunch of Marvel heroes would eventually unite somewhere down the road, it wasn’t until The Avengers‘ mid-credit scene that fans knew where this whole thing was really leading. For the first time in cinema history, a series of movies would build towards a final epic confrontation with a villain of unspeakable power.

Infinity War‘s climax saw the bad guys win, and half of the universe, including several beloved Marvel superheroes, turn to dust. Fans knew that the remaining Avengers would need help—the same conclusion Nick Fury came to as he used his last moments on Earth to contact Captain Marvel.

The Captain’s involvement in Avengers: Endgame may have been a tad underwhelming in hindsight, but at that moment, all fans knew was that Nick Fury had called in the Calvary, and anyone Fury was tight with was bound to be a BAMF by association.

Spider-Man: Far From Home might be the weakest of Marvel’s live-action Spidey movies, but it’s worth watching for the post-credit scene. A stunned Spider-Man looks on as Mysterio announces to the world that he is really Peter Parker setting up the events that would lead to Spider-Man: No Way Home.

The Marvels may not have done well at the box office, but its post-credit scene is one for the ages. After an alternate universe Professor X was teased—and subsequently killed—in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, the X-Men have their proper introduction to the MCU when Monica Rambeau gets trapped in an alternate reality and comes face to face with Beast, played once again by the iconic Kelsey Grammer. While the Xavier tease was just that, a tease, the Beast cameo serves to hint at more X-Men content down the road.

The second Avengers post-credits scene might not be important as far as the story goes, but it does a great job of humanizing the quasi-gods that make up the Avengers team. Marvel’s big claim to fame over its competition has always been showing what its heroes are up to when they aren’t saving the world, something the Shawarma post-credits scene does brilliantly.

After a heartwrenching finale, the Guardians saga ended not on a sad note but one of hope. The old team may have disbanded, but from its ashes, Rocket has formed a new team because as long as there’s a Galaxy, it will always need Guardians.

If the Thanos reveal at the end of Avengers sets up Marvel Phases Two and Three, the Thor post-credit scene sets up Avengers. In one short clip, this scene sets up a villain nasty enough to require all the heroes to work together—Loki—as well as the MacGuffin that drives the big team-up movie courtesy of the Tesseract.

Only James Gunn can bring fans to tears by killing off a major character only to make them laugh minutes later when that same character is reincarnated as a sapling rocking out to The Jackson 5.

T’Challa appearing before the United Nations and offering to share Wakanda’s wealth and resources with the rest of the world is a great way of showing that there’s more to being a leader than cracking skulls. The scene was the ideal way to conclude T’Challa’s character arc which started in Captain America: Civil War.

Acting as the culmination of all of Lee’s cameos throughout the history of the MCU, this fun scene suggests that maybe all of Stan’s appearances were actually missions to gather intel for The Watchers—a group of cosmic beings charged with observing everything in the universe. Even omniscient aliens can use a good spy every now and then.

Marvel gave fans their first glimpse of the Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver in this brief—but effective post-credits scene. The superpowered siblings would go on to play a major role in the second Avengers movie, specifically Wanda, who would eventually become one of the most important characters in the MCU.

Not everyone is familiar with the slightly obscure Marvel character Howard the Duck, and most of those who do know him know him from his abysmal ’80s movie. In the comics, however, Howard the Duck is one of the funniest characters in Marvel history. James Gunn including him in a post-credit scene cements his love of esoteric comic book characters—a love he would put to even better use through his work at DC.

Venom’s appearance at the end of No Way Home was bittersweet. On one hand, it would have been awesome to have him in the movie proper. On the other hand, the movie was already stuffed to the gills, and having this fun little after-credits scene at least acknowledges that the Venom films do take place in a Spider-Man universe—even if we don’t quite know which one yet.

It’s ironic that Marvel would put such an important post-credits scene at the end of such a self-contained, low-stakes film. Scott Lang gets trapped in the Quantum Realm as Hank, Hope, and Janet are snapped out of existence. Little did fans know at the time that this scene was actually setting up the solution to undoing the blip and resurrecting billions, if not trillions, of lives.

This scene revealing that Thanos is finally ready to take matters into his own hands would rank higher on this list if it weren’t for the fact that it’s kind of a repeat of the scene at the end of The Avengers.

This Marvel post-credits scene showing the future Black Knight discovering his signature Ebony Blade is technically Blade’s first appearance in the MCU…sort of. The scene features the voice of (eventual) Blade actor Mahershala Ali, which would be exciting except a) It’s just his voice and b) It’s in Eternals, one of the least popular Marvel movies.

This after-credits scene features Thor, Loki, and the rest of the Asgardians coming face to face with Thanos’s enormous black spacecraft and is a direct lead into Avengers: Infinity War. The scene was the perfect way for Marvel to tell the audience, “We hope you enjoyed this fun little romp because the next adventure is going to rip out your heart and stomp on it.”

This scene of Captain America bringing Bucky to Wakanda to hide out after the events of Civil War isn’t particularly eventful. What it does do, however, is offer fans their first peek at Wakanda on screen—a brief appetizer for what was to come in Black Panther.

This follow-up to the Infinity War post-credits scene with Nick Fury isn’t as meaningful as its predecessor. Captain Marvel shows up to answer Fury’s call and is introduced to the Avengers in the process. The scene exists to let the other heroes in on what we already know at that point: Fury sent a distress signal to the only person he considered powerful enough to help stop Thanos.

By the time Thor: Ragnarok rolled around, Marvel had become adept at offering two post-credit scenes per film: one funny and one serious. Raganrok’s humorous offering is a quick scene where Jeff Goldblum’s Grandmaster stands hopelessly outnumbered by the revolutionaries who have just fought to overthrow his regime. Rather than admit defeat, the Grandmaster suggests that everyone call it a draw. It’s a fun, if otherwise useless, scene at the end of an already hilarious movie, making it more or less disposable.

The scene at the end of The Incredible Hulk where Tony Stark shows up to let General Thunderbolt Ross know that he’s putting a team together is essentially just the same scene from the end of Iron Man. The scene’s only saving grace is that Robert Downey Jr. reprising his Iron Man role is technically the first crossover in the MCU.

This scene teasing Thor for the first time in the MCU would be way higher on the list if the same scene wasn’t also in Thor. Sadly, this wouldn’t be the last time Marvel would pass off a scene from another film as an exclusive post-credits teaser.

The scene at the end of the MCU’s first solo Spider-Man film might be the only Marvel post-credits scene to chastise the audience for waiting for a post-credit scene. It’s a completely useless throwaway scene, but the gag makes it worth watching.

What’s worse than an after-credits scene featuring a fan-favorite character at the end of a crappy movie? An after-credits scene featuring a crappy character at the end of a crappy movie. Eros, aka Starfox, might be Thanos’s brother, but he’s also a rather creepy character with a rather creepy powerset, and we’ll leave it at that.

It’s uncertain whether Thor will get another solo film after Love and Thunder bombed with critics and fans, but if there is a Thor 5, we know who the main antagonist will be. This scene finds an angry Zeus sending his demigod son Hercules out to kill Thor. The scene would play better if it didn’t come after such a lackluster movie. As it stands, it’s hard to build up any enthusiasm for Hercules after the last deity let us down so hard.

This quick Marvel post-credits scene consists of Ayesha, the gold woman from the beginning of the film, declaring that she has created a being capable of destroying the Guardians and that she plans on naming him Adam. Cool story bro. If the character of Adam Warlock were treated with even half the reverence he is in the comics, this scene would be a lot cooler. Knowing that James Gunn wasted the character in Guardians 3, it comes off as just meh.

Multiverse of Madness is a mixed bag as far as Marvel movies go, and Clea is a bit of a deep-cut character for anyone not well-versed in Marvel comics. As a result, this scene doesn’t have the impact Marvel was probably hoping it would—even with Charlize Theron in the Clea role.

If you watched this scene at the end of the second Guardians film and had no idea what was going on, don’t feel bad; you’re not alone. For some reason, James Gunn thought it would be a good idea to include the original Guardians of the Galaxy team from the comics in this sequel but as Ravagers. In addition to including this group of characters almost no one had ever heard of, he cast big-name actors to play them, further confusing everyone. Who were these cameos for?

This after-credits scene where Peter Parker discovers his new Spider-suit is full of all kinds of high-tech gadgets only serves to hammer home how certain aspects of the MCU Spider-Man resemble Iron Man 2.0 more than your friendly neighborhood wallcrawler.

This scene could have been poignant and potentially tear-jerking if Jane Foster had been an interesting character. Not only was the character boring in every movie she appeared in, but with Natalie Portman all but confirming that she only did one more Thor film for the paycheck alone, Foster’s death ultimately rang hollow for many fans.

Your enjoyment of this Marvel post-credit scene hinges on whether you find the ants in the movie cute or disgusting. Either way, it’s a short one-note gag where a giant ant plays the drums. Next.

Speaking of one-note gags, the Flerkens from the Captain Marvel movies are creatures that look like cats on the outside but are Lovecraftian horrors on the inside. That’s it. That’s the joke. The one named Goose swallowed the Tesseract and then regurgitated it. LOL…?

The brainwashed super-assassin Buckey Barnes visits the Smithsonian and checks out the Captain America exhibit. While there, he sees himself, and it causes him to remember something from his life before he was The Winter Soldier. Pretty standard, “character with amnesia has their memory jogged” stuff and nothing of particular note.

Peter Quill, having returned to Earth, is sitting at the kitchen table eating breakfast as his Grandfather reads a paper with a story about the mysterious disappearance of Kevin Bacon on the front page. A title card appears on the screen promising fans, “The Legendary Star-Lord Will Return.” With almost everyone involved with Guardians 3 making it clear that the movie would be their last in the MCU, we can only assume that this scene was included to let worried fans know that Chris Pratt was sticking around.

In a scene that exists solely to set up Ant-Man and the Wasp, Hope Van Dyne is given a high-tech Wasp Suit. It’s not good, it’s not bad, it’s just there.

When it was announced that Sam Raimi would be directing the Doctor Strange sequel, everyone assumed that Bruce Campbell would be appearing, and Raimi didn’t disappoint. While Campbell’s Pizza Poppa isn’t the most clever cameo, it was still nice of Sam to include an after-credits scene where the spell compelling Pizza Poppa to repeatedly punch himself in the face finally wears off.

Chadwick Boseman’s untimely passing made Black Panther 2 a hard watch. This post-credits scene, however, gave fans hope that T’Challa’s son—also named T’Challa—will carry on his legacy someday as the new Black Panther.

Marvel’s troubles with Kang actor Johnathon Majors made this post-credits scene a bit of an anti-climax. Who wants to get excited about a villain that might end up being replaced?

This scene suffers from the same problem as the first Quantumania scene but is only worse. At least the Council of Kangs featured interesting-looking Kang variants like Immortus and Rama-Tut. Victor Timely looks like a 19th-century nerd. The scene loses extra points for being a scene from an episode of Loki rather than something made specifically for the movie—a problem that plagues many of the movies in the last stretch of the list

This Marvel post-credits scene is yet another rehash of the Avengers Initiative scene from Iron Man, this time with Steve Rogers filling in for Tony Stark. It’s also another scene cribbed from a different movie, this time The Avengers.

In what is possibly the laziest gag on this list, Iron Man 3 ends with the revelation that Tony has been telling the whole story to Bruce Banner, who, in turn, fell asleep due to boredom. All so that Banner can make an “I’m not even that kind of doctor,” joke.

This after-credit scene where two of Thor’s friends deliver a MacGuffin to Benicio Del Toro serves to introduce the Collector—a minor character from Guardians of the Galaxy and Infinity War that no one cares about. How fitting then that he should make his debut appearance in a movie nobody cares about.

Now we’re up to the fourth instance of the same scene. This time, Valentina Allegra de Fontaine approaches the new Black Widow, Yelena Belova, with a proposition meant to set up next year’s Thunderbolts.

The first of Doctor Strange‘s two lackluster post-credits scenes features Strange ally-turned-enemy Karl Mordo stealing Jonathon Pangborn’s magic while saying there are “too many sorcerers” out and about. This plot point is completely ignored in the sequel, making this scene useless.

This Marvel post-credits scene mirrors a similar scene at the end of the first Guardians. That movie showed us adorable baby Groot grooving to some tunes, but this one shows a surly, mouthy teenage Groot playing video games and talking back to Starlord. We’re sorry, but we don’t like seeing disobedient kids in real life. What made Marvel think we’d want to see it in a fantasy/sci-fi movie?

This second Black Panther after-credits scene features Shuri telling a groggy Bucky fresh from cryostasis that he has a lot to learn. That’s honestly it. Once again, it’s not necessarily a bad scene, as it is unnecessary.

This “shocking” after-credits scene reveals that Nick Fury and Maria Hill, whom Peter had been interacting with throughout the movie, were really Skrulls in disguise. This revelation would have been far more meaningful if the Skrulls in the MCU hadn’t been introduced as allies rather than villains. As it is, all the scene tells us is that Nick Fury is busy doing other stuff, so Spider-Man meets with a Fury-sanctioned double. Ok, and?

This Shang-Chi scene begins with Wong, Bruce Banner, and Captain Marvel meeting with Shang-Chi and Katy to discuss the origin of the Ten Rings and the message the rings seem to be broadcasting. After Captain Marvel and Banner leave, the other three spend the night singing karaoke. It would be a better bit if the movie hadn’t already done a similar karaoke scene earlier.

This Marvel post-credits scene sees Jane Foster entertaining guests in London when she spots a familiar-looking portal opening on her balcony. Surprise! It’s Thor. The love birds embrace in what would be a sweet scene if a) the couple had any real chemistry and b) Jane Foster didn’t mysteriously disappear from the MCU for the next nine years following the hug. Besides, it’s not even Natalie Portman, but instead Chris HEmsworth’s real-life wife, Fast and Furious star Elsa Pataky.

Thor travels to Earth to ask a wizard he’s never met where his dad is. If that forced interaction between two Marvel characters isn’t bad enough, the scene was taken from Thor: Ragnarok. The scene doesn’t work any better there, but at least then, you have the rest of Ragnarok distract you from its awfulness.

The other post-credits scene Marvel attached to the first MCU Spider-Man outing isn’t nearly as fun as the one with Captain America. On the contrary, the scene teases Mac Gargan, AKA the Scorpion, and then proceeds to do nothing with the tease over the course of two sequels. This is yet another example of Marvel introducing something in a post-credits scene to introduce it.

In a scene taken from Civil War, The Falcon tells Captain America he knows someone who could help them deal with their Winter Soldier problem. The scene is fine in the movie from which it’s taken, but it’s pretty pointless here.

The second after-credits scene from Shang-Chi shows the titular hero’s sister taking their late father’s spot as the leader of the Ten Rings crime organization. Since no one at Marvel has so much as whispered Shang Chi’s name in public since this film came out, we’re willing to bet this will end up being another after-credits scene that goes nowhere.