**Warning: minor spoilers ahead of post-credit scenes for recent Marvel films, including the latest “Thor” installment.**
In the early days of Marvel, as the movie studio was just getting started—hell, they weren’t even a studio then, characters and properties still owned by disparate parties like Paramount and Universal—revealing characters in the post-credits was a big thing. Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) showed up at the end of “Iron Man” one to talk about the Avengers initiative, and the trend continued for a few years (see below).
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But as Marvel likes to zig when people expect them to zag, they basically stopped it all in 2014, following “Captain America: The Winter Soldier.” They then took a five-year break from revealing any major characters at the end of movies and then slowly broke from that trend in 2019 in “Spider-Man: No Way Home.”
That said, it’s only been since 2021 and the tail end of phase four that Marvel has really been embracing this technique again, revealing some significant characters starting with “Eternals” (November 2021). We won’t spoil it too hard—though spoilers below—but now, aside from “Spider-Man: No Way Home” (which is Sony anyhow), Marvel Studios has revealed major credits in their post-credit scenes for three films in a row, “Eternals,” “Doctor Strange In The Multiverse of Madness” and now “Thor: Love And Thunder.” Is this a trend that’s here to stay? Should we expect the same in November’s upcoming “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever”? Here’s a quick deep dive into all the major characters revealed in Marvel Studios’ post-credit scenes.
“Iron Man” (2008)
The first and most famous of all the post-credit reveals, as mentioned, is at the end of Jon Favreau’s “Iron Man” debut. Sam Jackson turns up as Nick Fury for all of about 30 seconds in Tony Stark’s (Robert Downey Jr.) home, surprising the hero and trying to recruit him for something called the “Avengers initiative,” the very first teasing kernel in the MCU that was plant the flag for the Avengers movie and more crossovers to come.
“Avengers” (2012)
Despite being known for interconnectivity in post-credit sequences—Downey’s Tony Stark showing up at the end of the “Hulk” post-credits (a scene that’s no longer considered canon and was later retconned), a brand new character introduced at the end of a Marvel movie did not come until four years later. Thanos (Josh Brolin) shows up ever so briefly to chuckle at the Avenger’s “victory,” but alluding, with a faint smile, it being a minor drop in the bucket win compared to the things that would eventually come to earth. Amusingly, many fans had no clue who Thanos was or what the post-credit scene meant, and it spawned those annoying “what did the end of this movie mean” articles that are now abused for things people saw and understood with their own two eyes.
“Thor: The Dark World” (2013)
In the end, it’s a minor reveal, and Marvel hasn’t yet really done much with the character, but at the end of “Thor: The Dark World,” Marvel finally introduced Taneleer Tivan, a.k.a. The Collector (Benicio Del Toro). The brother of the Grandmaster (Jeff Goldblum) is first seen in “Thor: Ragnarok,” the characters have actually had no connectivity in the movies yet, seemingly both introduced in Thor movies out of just pure coincidence more than anything. The Collector has turned up in ‘Guardians’ movies and famously in ‘Infinity War’ as a hologram-like vision created by Thanos, but presumably, he’s out there somewhere, waiting to return when Marvel really needs him.
“Captain America: The Winter Soldier” (2014)
“Captain America: The Winter Soldier” arguably kicked off the trend of Marvel solo movies as a mini-Avengers team movie—Nick Fury, Falcon, Black Widow, and even Sharon Carter around to back up Cap. If that wasn’t enough, at the end of the movie, in the post-credits, the film teased things that Hydra were up to, aka essentially creating Wanda Maximoff (Elizabeth Olsen) and Pietro Maximoff (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) in experiments and teasing their next appearance in Ultron. Of course, “WandaVision” seemingly hinted at retconning their origins; while they were the “creation” of Hyrda experiments, perhaps they were mutants all along? We don’t know yet). Extra Credit: Marvel reportedly shot a VFX plate to introduce Captain Marvel at the end of “Avengers: Ultron” but ultimately scrapped that plan.
“Spider-Man: Far From Home” (2019)
After ‘Winter Soldier,’ Marvel takes a long five-year break from introducing brand new characters in post-credit scenes. Sure, there are plenty of post-credits that tease up connectivity and crossover. Still, in terms of a brand-new actor appearing for the first time as a new character, that didn’t happen again until Marvel’s second Spider-Man movie with Sony. In the post-credits, infamous newspaperman J. Jonah Jameson is introduced to the MCU for the first time recast as an Alex Jones/Info Wars-style disinformation conspiracy theorist. Played by J.K. Simmons again, this recasting of the actor—he played the role in Sam Raimi’s originally-not-connected “Spider-Man” movies— was a sign of things to come and how Marvel would use the multiverse to bring back nostalgic actors and characters in “Spider-Man: No Way Home.”
“Eternals” (2021)
In director Chloé Zhao’s “Eternals,” the filmmaker used her post-credit scene to introduce three characters. The main one is Eros (played by Harry Styles), who is the brother of Thanos (how that ties into his death is unknown). Eros turns up at the end to help Thena, Druig, and Makkari find the rest of their Eternals friends who Arishem abducted. Along with him is Pip The Troll (Patton Oswalt, who actually already voiced M.O.D.O.K. on Hulu, but that’s not canon and already canceled). Pip is known for his association with Adam Warlock, who’s about to appear in “Guardians Of The Galaxy Volume 3,” so who knows, he could turn up again next summer.
Remember, there’s another post-credit in “Eternals.” In the final one, while he’s not seen, we do hear the disembodied voice of Blade (Mahershala Ali), talking to Kit Harrington’s Dane Whitman/Black Knight and teeing up the forthcoming “Blade” movie (likely coming fall 2023, though not officially dated yet).
“Doctor Strange In The Multiverse Of Madness” (2022)
“Doctor Strange In The Multiverse Of Madness” barely has a chance to end and settle before the post-credits tee up another film and another adventure. In this recent post-credits, Charlize Theron turns up as the spectacularly dressed Clea. One of Strange’s magical partners and lovers in the comics, in the post-credits, she turns up and tells the former sorcerer supreme that his universe-hopping adventures in the film have caused an “incursion” between universes— something they’ve been told could rip the fabric of the multiverse apart. She uses an energy blade to cut into the fabric of reality, exposing the Dark Dimension—first seen in the original “Doctor Strange”—and off they go, presumably setting up the events of ‘Doctor Strange 3’ or having an offscreen adventure that affects the next chapter of the magicians’ story.
*Spoilers Ahead,* please don’t read further if you haven’t seen “Thor: Love And Thunder.”
“Thor: Love And Thunder” (2022)
So, if you’ve seen Taika Waititi’s latest Thor adventure, ‘Love And Thunder,’ you know it includes Russell Crowe as the God Zeus. In the movie, Thor and his pals visit an Olympus-like place asking for help, pleading with Zeus because Gorr, The God Butcher (Christian Bale), could kill them all. Strangely enough, Zeus doesn’t want any part of it and would rather sit out of the fight, to which Thor responds in frustration and anger by killing him with his own lightning bolt. The post-credit reveals, however, that Zeus was injured but didn’t die. Instead, he complains about how humans don’t really care or worship Gods anymore. So, he sends his son Hercules, (revealed to be Brett Goldstein from “Ted Lasso”) to teach them all a lesson and ensure they quake on their knees and fear the gods once more. Where Hercules shows up next is unclear, as he is a member of The Avengers in the comics at one point. He could turn up in “Thor 5,” but that could be a ways off. More likely, Hercules could be set up as the villain of some other movie—or at least a first-half adversary before they fight someone else—before he eventually turns good, but at this point, it’s all speculation.
The bigger point is that cameos introducing brand new characters and their superstar casting seem to be back. We know “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” will already include Iron Heart (Dominique Thorne) and, potentially, Namor (Tenoch Huerta), so that already seems like more than enough Marvel characters, but you just never know. With Marvel seemingly reaching deep into their bench of supporting characters (see shows coming up for “Echo,” “Wonder Man,” “She-Hulk” — which may contain a Matt Murdock/Daredevil cameo — “Iron Heart” and “Agatha Harkness”), we could see this trend continue for the next few years, potentially.