Ranking The Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 Post-Credits Scenes

Massive spoilers ahead for Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2.Proceed with caution if you haven’t seen the movie yet.

After performing exceptionally well in the last week at the international box office, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 opened stateside this week and is powering forward, full steam ahead.The highly-anticipated follow up to 2014’s Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 2 is slated to wrap up the film’s opening week earning around $150 million at the box office — nearly 50% more than its predecessor.

With director/writer James Gunn back at the helm for his second movie for Marvel Studios, the movie expanded on Marvel’s tradition of having scenes displayed throughout the end credits sequence.While Gunn & Co. could have held steady at having two post-credits scenes — the Marvel Cinematic norm of late — they chose to go a vastly different route, offering five different post-credits scenes to moviegoers.

You heard that right.Not one or two, but five.With that many scenes, there should be a little something for everyone, right?Here, we compile all five post-credits scene and rank them from least to most favorite.

#5:Teenage Groot

As the third act of the original Guardians flick progressed, movie-goers witnessed a particularly tear-jerking moment when the sentient tree Groot ultimately sacrificed himself to save the other Guardians.  It wasn’t too long before a miniature Groot was seen growing in pot in a post-credits scene.

Flash forward to Vol. 2, a fair amount of marketing focused strictly on Baby Groot.  It was shown that he has now grown enough to leave the pot and walk under his own power.  Baby Groot stole nearly every scene he was in in Vol. 2 and remained in his toddler-influenced state throughout the entire duration of the movie.

That is, of course, until the post-credits rolled around and saw Peter Quill/Starlord approach an apparent teenaged Groot in his room about picking his belongings up.  In a hilarious exchange that every one of has been a part of, Groot offered several different heavily-sarcastic versions of his signature “I am Groot” line, all while keeping his gaze focused on a tablet he was playing a game on.

Although the tone perfectly portrayed a growing teenage Groot, it didn’t necessarily expand the future of the Marvel Cinematic Universe and for that, we ranked it in the bottom spot.

#4:Kraglin Shoots Drax

One of the biggest surprises of Vol. 2 was the character development we saw in Kraglin (Sean Gunn).  Originally starting out and stoking the fire to a Taserface-led mutiny to overthrow Yondu as the captain as this particular faction (we’ll get into that a little more next) of Ravgers, Kraglin eventually redeemed himself by helping Yondu, Rocket, and Baby Groot escape from the Ravagers prison.

After the untimely death of his former captain Yondu, Quill gave Kraglin a fin matching Yondu’s, a part that allowed him to control the Yaka Arrow.  Controlled by a whistle, Kraglin eventually got the Yaka Arrow to raise itself off the ground and round a corner on the spaceship.  Unfortunately for Drax, he was sitting right around the corner and got stabbed by the arrow.

With Kraglin one the Guardians’ ship at the conclusion of the movie, does this mean we’ll be seeing him officially join the team?  We’ll have to see if he makes an appearance in Avengers: Infinity War, otherwise our next best bet at seeing him is in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3.

#3:Stakar Gets The Band Back Together

In one of the more confusing post-credits to the casual movie-goer, the original Guardians of the Galaxy banded back together, led by none other than Stakar Ogord (Sylvester Stallone) himself.

We were first introduced to Stakar as he and Yondu got into a shouting match on Contraxia, a planet full of pleasure-seeking Ravagers.  Stakar revealed that Yondu had been trafficking children for Ego, thus getting him kicked out of the primary Ravagers group.

In the comics, the original Guardians of the Galaxy debuted in Marvel Super-Heroes #18 (1969) with that issue serving as the first appearance of Vance Astro, Martinex, Yondu, and Charlie-27.  Although the original group fought crime among the cosmos in the 31st century, it was clear with Yondu being introduced to the MCU in Guardians of the Galaxy, Marvel Studios would be retconning their origins a bit.

 Vol. 2 took the pleasure of introducing the majority of the original Guardians, including Martinex (Michael Rosenbaum), Charlie-27 (Ving Rhames), and Aleta Ogord (Michelle Yeoh).  In the post-credits scene, it also added Mainframe (Miley Cyrus) and Krugarr — the 31st century Sorcerer Supreme — to the mix.

While the characters involved are all relatively unknown to the majority of fans, the tone of the post credits scene made it seem like we aren’t done seeing the OG Guardians just quite yet.

#2:Stan Lee & The Watchers

Pop culture icon Stan Lee didn’t get just one cameo in Vol. 2, he was able to appear twice.  Ultimately confirming that Lee has been playing the same character in each of his cameos across the shared Marvel universe, both of Lee’s appearances saw him interact with a particular group of characters many die-hard comic fans will know — The Watchers.

Although The Watchers only received a few seconds of screen time, the confirmation of their existence alone opens up a whole lot of possibilities as the Marvel Cinematic Universe progresses into more cosmic-based properties.

One of the oldest species involved in Marvel comics lore, The Watchers have made it their sole purpose of watching and recording the events of the universe as they happened.  They even went the length to vow they don’t interfere in any of the acts they witness, simply watch.  The Watchers debuted in Fantastic Four #13 (1963) so it came as a surprised that not only did Marvel have the rights to the alien race (Fantastic Four movie rights belong to Fox), they put the group in the movie unannounced.

The Watchers — or more particularly Uatu, the Watcher assigned to watch over Earth — have been major players in many cosmic events.  Most recently, Uatu served a key role in the Original Sin comic event which saw The Avengers and Guardians team up in an attempt to solve Uatu’s murder.

#1:The Sovereign Create Adam Warlock

With Avengers: Infinity War upon us, comic fans across the world are begging for the Soul Gem-wielding Adam Warlock to make an appearance.  Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige has gone on record saying the character won’t be making an appearance as The Avengers and Guardians team up to take on Thanos in Infinity War.

However, we now have confirmation that the character will exist in the MCU at some point in the future.

In this post-credits scene, a defeated Ayesha (Elizabeth Debicki) unveils a redesigned cocoon — her people, The Sovereign, use cocoons both for regeneration and birthing/growing — that will allow her to create the ultimate weapon.

As viewers see the cocoon, Ayesha leans in and mentions that’ll she’ll call her new creation Adam.  Again, although this was another subtle reference that the casual movie-goer might not understand, this confirmation of Adam Warlock shows that Marvel is serious in expanding the cosmic side of the universe.

Although Adam Warlock has been a member of the Guardians of the Galaxy at various times, the character’s primary role comes as a member of the Infinity Watch.  In a past Infinity Gauntlet-world that saw Thanos destroy reality, the Infinity Gems are split up amongst the members of the Watch so that they’re never assembled with the Gauntlet again.

With Thanos getting his hands on the gauntlet and assuredly using it during the events of Infinity War, one would guess that it totally isn’t out of reason to see the Infinity Watch take shape in live action form as a part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.