Fans of the Marvel Cinematic Universe are never satisfied with just a single movie. There has to also be a promise of more. And, more often than not, it’s a specific promise that will soon be fulfilled. That’s where the tag scenes come in. For instance, in the mid-credits scene of Captain America: The Winter Soldier, we meet Quicksilver and Wanda Maximoff, who would be formally introduced the next year in Avengers: Age of Ultron. After Iron Man 2 we see Mjölnir, teasing the forthcoming introduction of Thor. In the mid-credits scene of Spider-Man: Far from Home we see the hero’s true identity exposed to the world. That would, of course, be a major part of Spider-Man: No Way Home. Then there are the mid-credits or post-credits scenes that are just goofy, fun little tags, like the shawarma scene in The Avengers.
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But the following scenes? They’re promises that are still unfulfilled, and it doesn’t seem as though either 2026 MCU movie will be tying a bow on them. However, the tag scenes of Spider-Man: Homecoming (minus Vulture) and The Fantastic Four: First Steps will be, so perhaps this list will shrink in time. Note that we are also factoring in mid-credits scenes.
13) Karl Mordo Grabbing Up Power — Doctor Strange
Chiwetel Ejiofor is an amazing actor, and his Baron Karl Mordo was on an interesting villain path at the end of Doctor Strange. It’s always great when a person becomes a villain because they feel betrayed. We as the audience can understand that.
Then, six years after the first movie, we got an alternate reality version of Mordo. The tension between him and Strange was still there, but it still was not a continuation of Mordo extracting the magic from Jonathan Pangborn, the man who turned Strange onto Kamar-Taj to begin with. Then the tag scene of Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, which we’ll get to in a bit, didn’t do anything to make one believe the MCU would ever be returning to the first movie’s button. It’s a shame, because there’s a Doctor Strange movie to be made with Ejiofor as the main villain.
12) Reassembling the Ravagers — Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2
There are five credits scenes in Guardians of the Galaxy 2. Three of them are silly fun, one of them leads into Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, and one of them seemingly led into Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 but didn’t.
Specifically, the one where Sylvester Stallone’s Stakar Ogord brings together his old Ravager pals and floats the idea of them re-uniting the line-up as it was in the day of the dearly departed Yondu Udonta. We saw Stakar again in Vol. 3, but there was no sign of Aleta Ogord (Michelle Yeoh) or Charlie-27 (Ving Rhames).
11) Sharon Carter Contacts Madripoor — The Falcon and the Winter Soldier
There were two credits scenes throughout The Falcon and the Winter Soldier. One of them involved super soldier John Walker and the other involved Sharon Carter.
We saw Walker again in Thunderbolts* and will see him again in Avengers: Doomsday, but no word on when we’ll see Carter again. And there’s definitely more terrain to traverse with her, because the Disney+ series showed her to be less ethical than we thought. In fact, the very last we see of her shows her basically offering up U.S. state secrets to Madripoor on a platter. Yet, as of now, Emily VanCamp is not scheduled for any other MCU projects.
10) The Ten Rings Are a Beacon — Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings
Simu Liu has blown up since Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, but he hasn’t been in the MCU much since that 2021 movie. It’s just been two episodes of What If…? and three episodes of Marvel Zombies. That will finally change with Avengers: Doomsday, but we still need a sequel to his solo adventure, because that was one of the best parts of Phase Four.
It’s been five years, and there are two credits scenes in Legend of the Ten Rings that need to be continued. The first is Wong introducing Shang-Chi and Awkwafina’s Katy to Bruce Banner and Carol Danvers. They discuss how the rings are a beacon, but it isn’t explained what they’re sending a message to. That’s a thread that will be picked up in either Avengers: Doomsday, Avengers: Secret Wars, or most likely, a Shang-Chi sequel.
9) Xu Xialing Now Leads the Ten Rings — Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings
The other Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings tag scene has Shang-Chi’s sister, Xu Xialing, replacing their father, Xu Wenwu aka Mandarin, as the leader of the Ten Rings. Like Liu and Awkwafina, Meng’er Zhang was wonderful in her role, and it would be great to see her in the MCU once more.
Liu is scheduled to appear not only in Doomsday, but Secret Wars as well. Neither Zhang nor Awkwafina are, but one has to imagine that Shang-Chi will contact one or both of them at some point throughout the span of these two mega-movies. It’s not as if either one of them has walked away from the MCU in the five years between Legend of the Ten Rings and now, as Zhang was in a 2024 episode of What If…? and the perpetually busy Awkwafina was in three episodes of Marvel Zombies just last year.
8) Meeting Eros — Eternals
Like Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, Eternals is another 2021 MCU movie with multiple tag scenes that haven’t gone anywhere. The difference is that Shang-Chi was a success and Eternals was a failure, so there’s a good chance its two credits sequences never go anywhere.
The first of the two introduced the world to Thanos’ brother, Eros (Harry Styles). The audience isn’t clamoring to see the Eternals again, even with megastar Styles in a more prominent role. It seems as though this one was a direct lead-in to an Eternals 2 and, let’s face it, that’s not going to happen.
7) Dane Whitman Gets the Ebony Blade — Eternals
The scene we just talked about was a lead-in to an Eternals 2, but the film’s other post-credits scene was a lead-in to Blade. And, as we now know (and long suspected) Blade is almost certainly dead in the water.
However, there’s a chance Mahershala Ali’s Daywalker will be introduced in an ensemble Midnight Sons movie. Furthermore, rumors suggest Dane Whitman (Kit Harington) aka Black Knight will be joining him in the formation of that team. We’ll just have to see if there’s more forward momentum on Midnight Sons than there was on Blade.
6) Wong Frees Emil Blonsky — She-Hulk: Attorney at Law
The ninth episode of She-Hulk: Attorney at Law‘s tag scene has Wong walk through a portal into Emil Blonsky’s jail cell and free him, inviting him to Kamar-Taj. And, frankly, it’s fine if that’s the last we see of Blonsky…we’ve gotten his full arc from The Incredible Hulk to She-Hulk.
If there is a She-Hulk tag scene we want to see continued, it’s Wong and Madisynn King watching This Is Us. More Madisynn, please, because Patty Guggenheim is a national treasure.
5) Clea & the Third Eye — Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness
As mentioned in the Mordo entry, a third Doctor Strange is on the way. However, it’s in early development and won’t come our way until after Avengers: Secret Wars.
So, it definitely seems as though we’ll learn how Strange operates with a third eye (which he gets before the credits roll) and how he’ll interact with Clea in the Dark Dimension. After all, Clea is played by Charlize Theron, and there’s no way Marvel signs her on and then doesn’t go about putting her in anything more than a tag scene. Let’s just hope we also get more of Bruce Campbell’s Pizza Poppa, too. Who’s to say he didn’t find his way to the Dark Dimension after Clea and Strange walked through the portal?
4) Meet Hercules — Thor: Love and Thunder
Thor: Love and Thunder has two tag scenes. One of them is a lovely bit of closure for Jane Foster. She gets to Valhalla and is greeted by Heimdall.
Then there’s the other one, which introduces Ted Lasso‘s Brett Goldstein as Hercules. Goldstein is moving up in the acting world, and he certainly looks the part, but Thor: Love and Thunder was not well-received. It was a tonal mess, with serious thematic elements surrounded by scenes that were far too comedic. And one of the more criticized comedic elements was the goofball version of Zeus played by Russell Crowe. It’s likely that a fifth Thor film will want to distance itself from that goofiness. Then there’s the fact that there might not be a fifth Thor at all, as his dynamic with Love, his adoptive daughter, will clearly be a part of Avengers: Doomsday.
3) All the Kangs — Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania
At this point, Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania is just the MCU’s ugly duckling. It sticks out like a sore thumb now that the trajectory of the whole universe has been considerably altered.
We won’t be seeing Jonathan Majors’ Kang the Conqueror again; that’s beyond a shadow of a doubt. Instead, we’re getting Robert Downey Jr.’s Doctor Doom. Majors is a very talented actor, but it’s likely that Doom will be an upgrade over Kang. While Kang was great in his single scene of Loki Season 1, he wasn’t nearly as intimidating in Quantumania as the movie seemed to think he was. At least we haven’t seen the last of Ant-Man, though, because Paul Rudd is slated to appear in Doomsday (we have, however, almost certainly seen the last of Evangeline Lilly’s Hope Van Dyne).
2) Monica Rambeau Meets “Her Mom” — The Marvels
There are several credits sequences that directly foreshadow an aspect of Avengers: Doomsday. The tag scene of Deadpool & Wolverine explains Gambit’s inclusion, Captain America: Brave New World‘s has Samuel Sterns warn of an upcoming war, and the button of Thunderbolts* showed the Fantastic Four arriving on Earth-616.
So too does The Marvels‘. After Monica Rambeau sacrifices herself to close the rupture between realities she wakes up in a hospital bed. Sitting by her is her mother, Maria. At least, that’s how Monica sees her, but Maria doesn’t recognize her because she’s from a different reality. And, in that different reality she’s Binary, a friend of the X-Men. Now, neither Teyonah Parris (Monica) nor Lashana Lynch (Maria) are scheduled for Doomsday, but Kelsey Grammer (whose Beast makes his first appearance here) is. If Beast is in Doomsday, it would be very odd not to pick up this particular thread there. In other words, this one might be continued before the end of the year.
1) Parker Robbins, the Sorcerer — Ironheart
In the finale of Ironheart, “The Past Is the Past,” we learn that Parker Robbins (Anthony Ramos) made a deal with Mephisto (Sacha Baron Cohen) for power, respect, and money. Mephisto’s way of giving him this is a hood that is warping Robbins’ body and mind, and in his fight with Riri Williams (Dominique Thorne) he loses that hood. In the mid-credits scene, Robbins approaches Riri’s friend, Zelma, who practices magic, and asks for her help.
Considering Ironheart is labeled a miniseries and Thorne is only rumored for Avengers: Secret Wars, so it’s not clear when Marvel intends to continue Riri’s story, much less Robbins’. It almost certainly won’t be in Secret Wars, which will have bigger fish to fry.
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