Simpsons Parodies Avengers Post Credit Scenes

If there is one predictable element of the Marvel Cinematic Universe it is this: do not leave your seat when the credits start to roll. The movie may have ended, but thanks to multiple mid and post-credits scenes the story is far from over. Now, The Simpsons have done what The Simpsons do best — they’ve parodied those scenes.

On Sunday night’s episode of The Simpson, “3 Scenes Plus a Tag from a Marriage”, the animated series took a playful swipe at the MCU’s post-credits scenes and the MCU itself. In the episode, Homer, Marge, Bart, and Lisa finish watching a Marvel movie in the theater and Homer wants to leave. As Bart and Lisa know that there more scenes coming, they shout him down. Homer stays, and audiences are then treated to two of the most bonkers credit scenes one could imagine. In the first, two villains are shown chatting about the Avengers and their latest valiant triumph before one of them — the boss — uses laser eyes to vaporize the henchman. However, that boss turns out to be none other than Spider-Man’s Uncle Ben.

It’s a shocking turn that would be stunning to Marvel fans as the death of Spider-Man’s Uncle Ben is so significant to Peter Parker’s story, but the shocks don’t end there. Evil Uncle Ben then utters a twisted version of one of the most iconic lines in comic book history: “with great power comes NO responsibility!” and then laughs the maniacal laugh of a supervillain all while sitting atop a throne of skulls with a weird cat creature who has the head of Aunt May.

Evil Uncle Ben makes Thanos look tame.

But if that shocking scene is hard to take, the second one is absolutely hilarious. Clearly inspired by the first Iron Man movie, Nick Fury is visited by a mysterious man wearing two eye-patches who tells Nick he’s trying to assemble a team of the world’s greatest team assemblers. That’s right, someone’s recruiting Nick and, on cue, a logo for the fictional “Assemblers Assemble” movie is shown. And if that’s not hilarious enough, after the obvious “Avengers Assemble” shot, The Simpsons takes one more good-natured swipe at just how many Marvel movies come out in a year by announcing that “Assemblers Assemble” will be “coming in 10 minutes to a theater near you.”

The Evil Uncle Ben thing might be a little too weird, but we that “Assemblers Assemble” movie? We might be willing to get behind that, but the jabs at Marvel’s post-credits scenes hold a bit of truth. Marvel is a master of the mid and post-credit scenes, a convention that began with the film that kicked off the entire MCU, 2008’s Iron Man. That film not only introduced the world to Robert Downey, Jr.’s Tony Stark, but started the credits scenes tradition. In that movie, Samuel L. Jackson’s Nick Fury shows up welcoming Tony into the Avengers Initiative, signaling to fans that yes, the Avengers were coming to the big screen. Since then, every MCU film has had scenes after the main body of the film concludes creating narrative threads to the next installment.

Of course, The Simpsons parodying Marvel’s post-credits scenes works on another level as well. News broke late last year that Disney would be acquiring 20th Century Fox’s assets. With the MCU being part of Disney as well, the classic FOX animated series’ parodies weren’t just teasing Marvel, but their future owners as well.

The Simpsons airs Sunday nights at 8/7c on FOX. Fans of the MCU’s mid and post-credits scenes have Avengers: Infinity War to look forward to in theaters April 27th.