25/07/2023

Marvel Finally Gave Avengers: Endgame Its Post-Credits Scene 4 Years Late

While Endgame’s ending eschewed a post-credits scene to pay respect to Iron Man’s death, Phase 5 revealed what really happened after Thanos’ defeat.

Warning: This piece contains SPOILERS for Secret Invasion.

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Summary

Avengers EndgameThe lack of a post-credits scene was the right decision to pay respect to Tony Stark’s death and give the movie a breather.
But the events of secret invasion confirms what happened after the Battle of Earth, with Nick Fury collecting Avengers DNA for future use.
Including the reveal of the Avengers’ DNA in End of the game would have promised a bigger one secret invasion and helped structure the post-phase 4End of the game stories.

four years later Avengers Endgame brought down the curtain on the first MCU Saga and permanently removed Iron Man and Captain America, Marvel has given us the missing post-credits scene audiences never got to see. Due to the heartbreaking death of Robert Downey Jr’s Tony Stark and Cap’s decision to stay in the past with Peggy Carter, End of the game bucked the MCU post-credits trend by having no stinger aside from an audio callback to the creation of Iron Man in 2008. At the time, it was the right call to give the film’s explosive events room to breathe.

If Marvel had decided to label a sneak peek of what’s coming next, game over ending it would have compromised respectful portrayal of Tony Stark’s death. Even with other movies already confirmed, explicitly reminding the audience that the show must go on and that there is still money to be made would have read as deeply cynical. As a result, End of the game it’s a rarity in the modern age: an MCU movie without a post-credits scene. But now, the events in Marvel’s Phase 5 confirm what really happened in the immediate aftermath of the Battle of Earth, as the Avengers buried Iron Man and watched Captain America head towards his happy ending.

Related: All Of Marvel’s End Credits Scenes Explained

Secret Invasion’s Avengers DNA Twist Is Endgame’s Missing Credits Scene

The shocking facts of secret invasion The end of episode 5 flashback reveals what happened on the battlefield of the Battle of Earth after Thanos was defeated. Samuel L Jackson’s Nick Fury admitted that he sent a squad of Skrull spies after the aftermath to “harvest” the DNA left behind by the injured Avengers, collecting his blood on a mission that would later come back to bite Fury. Fury then somehow isolated the DNA, including Captain Marvel’s, creating an incredibly valuable new McGuffin for the MCU and potentially setting up the creation of a hugely powerful new MCU superhero. Marvel effectively revealed the post-credits scene he could have set up secret invasionFury’s twist 4 years ago.

Obviously, this scene was probably not planned at the time; is clearly a modification, but would have worked as End of the gameThe scene after the credits of Marvel Studios would have decided to release a preview of “what’s next”. It could also have avoided the problem of secret invasion feeling too small in scale and too disconnected from the mainline of the MCU, as well as hinting at the presence of the Skrull Avengers in a clever and organic way. Just imagine the Battle of Earth cleanup setup: someone invisible collecting blood from the battlefield, and then his hand/face turns green for the Skull setup. It would have been quite a teaser and Marvel has confirmed that one version of those events happened at that point in the timeline.

Why The Avengers DNA Reveal Should Have Been The Big Story Of Phase 4

Rhodey revealed as Skrull in Secret Invasion

In retrospect, Avengers Endgame would have promised a bigger one secret invasion that the MCU has finally delivered. Tying the Skrull reveal and Avengers DNA twist to an actual Avengers movie would have dealt with frustrations over secret invasion‘s execution – and the decision to do it on such a small scale – but it would have meant a completely different secret invasion and possibly a different Phase 4. Instead, Marvel decided to focus Phase 4 on a post-Infinity Saga hiatus point, exploring the fallout from The Blip, as well as introducing new unrelated heroes and opening the Multiverse Saga. Ironically, focusing those postsEnd of the game stories in a broader narrative point as secret invasion It would have helped them feel more structured without hurting any of the ideological elements of those movies.

With the world wounded and healing, secret invasion would have made sense as a means of further increasing dissent, while Fury’s betrayal of the Skrulls under his care would have been dropped in its actual context, rather than Phase 5 having to recede in the shadow of End of the game by force. all revealed by secret invasion feels that the program premiered at the wrong time, and the solution to bring it closer to Avengers Endgame it’s too good to ignore. That’s why the Avengers DNA twist looks so much like the lost post-credits scene: it’s almost an illusion…