Avengers: Endgame - Post-Credits And Stan Lee Cameo EXPLAINED
Is it worth waiting around after the credits?
We're in the Endgame now. After eleven years and twenty-two films, the conclusion to the Marvel Cinematic Universe's first three phases has arrived. Needless to say, it packs quite the punch.
There are so many twists and turns and fan-pleasing moments packed into Endgame - more-so than your average Marvel film - and though it maintains several franchise traditions, it also divests from one in particular.
MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD...
To date, every single MCU film has had at least one post-credits sequence. The tradition in recent years was to have two, one inserted into the mid-credits, and then one after the full credits had closed.
Endgame, having already featured about a dozen endings and having also already teed up Phase 4, instead opted to feature none at all. To say that the credits didn't include any post-credits nods, however, would just be incorrect.
2. The Meaning Behind Endgame's Post-Credits 'Scene'
To date, every single MCU film has had at least one post-credits sequence. The tradition in recent years was to have two, one inserted into the mid-credits, and then one after the full credits had closed. Endgame, having already featured about a dozen endings and having already teed up Phase 4, instead opted to feature none at all.
To say that the credits didn't include any post-credits nods, however, would just be incorrect.
By the time the dust has literally settled, and the credits have finally wrapped, the screen stays black. Out of the silence sounds a familiar noise - a hammer forging hot iron. No doubt fans are already busy speculating as to what it could potentially bode for the films to come, with Mjolnir nowhere to be seen after Steve Rogers' final trip through the past, and even the prospect of there being an Iron Man legacy to continue after Tony Stark's passing, but the explanation for the noise is more thematic than constructive, at least in terms of seeding future Marvel movies.
It turns out that the sound of the hammer striking metal is actually lifted straight from 2008's Iron Man, where Stark is forging his first armour in a cave (with a box of scraps). It's nothing more, nothing less, but it does serve as a fantastic callback to the franchise's roots, and in reiterating that, with Stark's death, Iron Man's journey has finally come to a close.
No, it isn't quite the same as being given our first look at what's to come with Far From Home - and it certainly wasn't anything to do with The Eternals either, as was heavily rumoured - but it works fine enough. Endgame already had so much to wrap up, and pretty much gave audiences their first look at what Guardians 3 will look like with Thor now finally on the team. That, if anything, works just as well.