Captain Marvel Post-Credits Scene Explained in Avengers: Endgame

Captain Marvel’s post-credits scene appeared to be a sequence from Avengers: Endgame but it was never realized in the ensemble film. This does not meet the bonus scene for Brie Larson’s film was not canon, it simply happened off-screen as a means to keep momentum in the three-hour run time of Endgame.

Spoilers for Avengers: Endgame follow. Major spoilers!

To start Avengers: Endgame, Tony Stark was lost in space after the battle with Thanos on Titan. He and Nebula appeared to be accepting their fate, floating aimlessly through space and embracing a certain death. However, Captain Marvel comes to their rescue, bringing them and the Benetar ship to Earth.

Prior to her rescuing Tony Stark, Captain Marvel’s post-credits scene took place on Earth, somewhere between this scene and the end of Avengers: Infinity War. Carol Danvers was out doing her super hero thing throughout the galaxy until Nick Fury’s pager called for her. This is where we have to fill in the blanks.

One can only assume that after Captain Marvel came to Earth and asked the Avengers, “Where’s Fury?” that she was brought up to speed on what just happened. After learning about Thanos snapping his fingers to erase half of the universe from existence, Carol was then sent on a mission to rescue Tony Stark and Nebula. As for why Thor or Rocket could not head off to space to rescue them is unknown but it’s presumably because they did not have a space ship.

“There’s a tag in Captain Marvel where it whip pans to me,” Captain Marvel actress Brie Larson explained to Jimmy Fallon. “It’s all the Avengers and it whip pans to me and I go, ‘Where’s Fury?’ I didn’t know that was a tag for Captain Marvel. I didn’t know what that was that we were shooting. There was also nobody else there. I was by myself on a green screen.”

As it turns out, Larson knew very little about Avengers: Endgame despite playing a part in it. “We filmed Endgame before Captain Marvel, we didn’t even have a script yet for Captain Marvel,” Larson said. “We figure it out.”

“I arrived and they gave me a piece of paper that had a full page of dialogue and action. All of it was redacted except for my one line. I even went to hair and make up and was like, ‘Who is here?’ They’re like, ‘We don’t know! We don’t know.’ I was like, ‘Really? They’re not allowed to tell me either?’ It wasn’t until I walked on set that I was like, ‘Oh, crap, I’m in a Marvel movie!”

Captain Marvel and Avengers: Endgame are now playing in theaters.