Warning: Contains spoilers for ‘Captain Marvel’
For MCU aficionados, Captain Marvel isn’t only an intriguing origin story to look forward to, but also a gateway to a few more clues ahead of the highly anticipated Avengers: Endgame, the ultimate culmination of a decade long saga.
As Thanos decimated half of the universe’s lives, our surviving heroes are pondering over ways to reverse the catastrophe and bring the world back to its normalcy. However, their quest is aided by the newest entrant into MCU’s superhero gallery Captain Marvel.
The photon-blasting intergalactic crusader is introduced as a Kree, a race of “noble warrior heroes” who have been waging a war against the supposedly terrorist, shape-shifting group of extra-terrestrial creatures called Skrull.
But Carol Danvers – her original identity – is not only thrust at the deep end of this conflict, but also unravels certain secrets that had been kept clandestine ever since she was recruited by the Kree. However, some interesting turn of events pull the lid off some untold stories and Danvers finally ends the warfare almost single-handedly.
So having given the jist of the plot, let’s get down to the brasstrack: the mid-credit scene which has been bandied about with time on social media for a few days now.
Nick Fury, before he perished, sent a distress signal to Captain Marvel through a dated pager at the end of Infinity War. In the present day, the pager is in the custody of the surviving Avengers at the Avengers mansion. However, a few seconds into the scene, and it stops flickering.
The scene then cuts to a still-bearded Captain America and Black Widow pensively gazing at a holographic image that extrapolates the exact count of people who vanished in the aftermath of “The Decimation” that was the snap. Rhody then shows up from behind and proclaims “So that thing just stopped doing whatever the hell it was doing.”
As Black Widow then stresses on the fact that it is essential to figure out “who’s at the other end of the signal” and turns to leave, Captain Marvel, who sneakily awaits behind them, confronts her and inquisitively asks: “Where’s Fury?”
Despite running for less than a minute, this mid-credit scene does drop quiet a few clues about Endgame.
Firstly, it means Captain Marvel will already be with the Avengers at the start of the movie and won’t just show up heroically in the middle of a confrontation nor bump into them at a point. She’s not going to have a dramatic Thor-like entry either. She’s already in the Avengers mansion and our heroes are going to brief her about all the events of Infinity War and the havoc wreaked in the universe. That means her integration with her counterparts would be quick.
Also, this might be one the foremost scenes of Endgame – particularly appearing inside the first five to ten minutes of the film, if not the outright opening sequence. For it’s only plausible to expect Marvel to probe into certain mysteries viz what is Thanos doing there in the paddy fields? Which planet is he on? Is that the earth? How do our heroes go back to their mansion from Wakanda? et al.
And don’t forget, Cap is still sporting his badass beard here, so that further accentuates the theory.
Secondly, the mid-credit scene all but squished another theory that Captain Marvel would come to Tony Stark and Nebula’s rescue, who’ve although left Titan but stranded in a spaceship in the outer space and oxygen fast running out. Of course, she can just whizz through the galaxy by the drop of a hat and locate them, but the Superbowl trailer which showed our heroes staring at what’s likely a landing vehicle, is that of Stark and Nebula, who find their way back to earth.
As for the end-credit scene where Goose the Flerken barfs up the Tesseract on Fury’s desk, it only serves to deepen the serpentine history of the stone in the MCU. We first saw it in 2011’s Captain America: The First Avenger where the Red Skull had it in his possession, then it went to Loki in Avengers, he then pillaged it at the end of Thor: Ragnarok, before Thanos finally confiscated it in Infinity War.
So now the question arises: how does it end up in Loki’s possession from here? Heck, how did the stone even end up in this movie from Red Skull?! But contrastingly, this may not necessarily be the same Space Stone that Thanos used in the snap. This might just be another piece of the artifact, possibly?
The scene opens with the camera panned at Fury’s empty desk for a good four to five seconds before Goose pops up from under the table. Maybe this is to inadvertently tell us that he has been indeed dusted here and it is set in the present day. So if that is the case, then Avengers will use the Tesseract to travel through various dimensions.
But again, this is only a speculation and it is still unclear at which point exactly is the scene set in.
Nevertheless, the mid-credit scene has set up Avengers: Endgame already and now we can eagerly look forward to the second official trailer that’s likely to drop before the end of this month.
Ah, the jitters…. can’t wait!
Based on Marvel Comics, Captain Marvel is now running in theatres while Avengers: Endgame releases on 27 April 2019.