Way back in 2008, a promise was made to fans in the form of the MCU’s first post-credits scene: “Stick around after the movie even if you have to pee and we’ll tell you a secret.” Usually, this meant a sneak peek at whatever project the still-blossoming studio hoped to get funded next. Sometimes you’d get to see a hammer. It was a hell of a time to be alive.
Then, as Marvel Studios began to spread like cinematic kudzu, returns started to diminish. Sure, most of the time, folks who girded their bladders through a never-ending crawl of visual effects artists would still get an ad for what was to come. But in a few ever more regular instances, they’d get empty narrative calories – broken promises of stories that would never be told.
They weren’t always a huge deal, but sometimes, like in Ant-Man and the Wasp, they made us think that we’d get to see drum-playing ants – drum-playing ants that would never show up again. That sort of thing hurts. Here are the worst offenders.
Thor: Love and Thunder
Never say never. It could still happen. Thor: Love and Thunder only hit theaters in 2022. Maybe it’ll live up to the story it teased in its post-credits scene. Or maybe “Russell Crowe’s befuddlingly nonspecific accent orders Roy Kent to kill Thor” was as poorly thought out and tonally bonkers as the rest of that movie, and some pitches are better left in Kevin Feige’s “potential episode of What If…?” pile.
Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness
Another relatively recent addition to the MCU, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness tied a bow on its story with varying levels of confusion. Using the stamp tool in Photoshop to stick an eyeball on Benedict Cumberbatch’s head and introducing a long-overdue Charlize Theron to the Marvel stable of SAG eligibility via the character Clea, it warned viewers that an incursion was coming. So far, everyone’s been too busy worrying about Kang the Conqueror to check back on that.
Eternals
“Yes,” Eternals’ post-credits scene seemed to say. “We’ve heard your pleas and received your letters. We know how badly you all want to see Black Knight in the MCU,” and before anyone in the audience could say “That’s not what we want, please just make an X-Men movie,” it was too late. The movie was over.
Spider-Man: Far from Home
At the end of Spider-Man’s second solo MCU outing, audiences were shocked to learn that both Nick Fury and Maria Hill were actually Skrull operatives, flying below the radar as if part of some sort of secret invasion. It’s sad that we never got a follow up, right guys? Right, guys? (Full disclosure: I’m hoping that Marvel will make Secret Invasion go away if we all pretend that we didn’t see it. Sort of reverse T-Rex rules from Jurassic Park. Just go with it.)
Spider-Man: Homecoming
By golly, you were probably pretty excited to see where that whole “let’s get a team together and beat up Spider-Man dressed as different animals” setup was going, what with Mac Gargan and Adrian Toomes developing, if not a friendship, a really organic back-and-forth in prison. Instead, you got a scene in Morbius that forced you to keep watching Morbius for a few more minutes. If that wasn’t worth a five-year wait, nothing is.
Doctor Strange
Arguably the worst offender, and the example with the best excuse for never finding its follow through. In the closing moments of Doctor Strange, we see Chiwetel Ejiofor’s Mordo pull a Sinestro-in-Green-Lantern, turning evil after being a pretty cool dude throughout the rest of the movie without a ton of explanation as to why. “Too many sorcerers,” he says, draining the magic out of Benjamin Bratt and putting his finger on the real issue with the world. Well, one of the real issues.
As we’d later find out in Secret Invasion, beloved character actor Christopher McDonald is a talk show personality in this universe, implying that there’s no such thing as Happy Gilmore. Maybe if you want to improve a world without Happy Gilmore, start by making Happy Gilmore and then work your way up to killing wizards as needed. Mordo, sadly, does neither.
His holy quest to make the world a little less magical hasn’t been explored in the seven years since Doctor Strange hit theaters. It’s not the worst thing – Marvel had pretty much burned through its allotment of unmemorable second solo movie installments by Phase 3. Even still, it’d be nice to see what Mordo’s assault on Kamar Taj would look like before the MCU implodes.