'Captain Marvel' Post-Credits Scenes Has an 'Avengers: Endgame' Connection

Captain Marvel has the exact number of post-credits scenes that you probably think it does, which is to say that it follows the same format as Ant-Man and the Wasp, the only other MCU film to also be released after Avengers: Infinity War and before Avengers: Endgame.

In more straightforward terms, after the curtain closes on Captain Marvel, one credit sequence ties directly into Endgame, and another at the very end offers a fun little joke — just like how Scott Lang got trapped in the Quantum Realm and then we saw a giant ant jamming out on Scott’s drum set.

Huge spoilers follow for Captain Marvel and even Avengers: Endgame.

Captain Marvel has a stylized outro credits sequence like most Marvel Studios films do these days, but before the traditional credits begin, we get a “mid-credits” scene.

The scene opens on Steve Rogers (still with his beard!) and Natasha Romanoff in the same lounge room in the Avengers facility where they watch footage of Scott Lang in the Avengers: Endgame trailer. They’re looking at some kind of global map that’s actively tallying the number of dead people around the world. They appear defeated and overwhelmed.

Jim Rhodes, aka War Machine, walks into the room to let them know that some sort of device stopped working. They all go across the hall, and we see Nick Fury’s pager from the Infinity War post-credits scene. (During Captain Marvel, Danvers modifies a normal two-way pager with Kree technology so Fury can contact her even if she’s “a few galaxies away,” but only for “emergencies.”) Clearly, after Fury got dusted, someone found the pager and got it to the remaining Avengers.

The pager’s stopped working, and despite some protests from Rhodes as Bruce Banner walks in, Cap says they should reboot it to send out the signal again. They know Fury activated it for a reason, and Steve trusts Fury enough to know this is the right move.

But before they can do anything, Captain Marvel appears (which probably explains why the pager turned off). She’s standing right behind the Avengers, and without taking a beat, she demands to know: “Where’s Fury?”

It’s a bit of a shock, to say the least.

This particular scene definitely shakes up those theories about how and when Captain Marvel appears in Avengers: Endgame, especially about whether or not she’ll be digitally removed from a few shots that have appeared in previous trailers.

The Captain Marvel mid-credits scene is essentially a direct sequel to the Infinity War post-credits scene — but it’s probably also a scene lifted directly from Endgame.

Similar to how the Ant-Man post-credits scene previewed a scene that was repurposed within Captain America: Civil War, Endgame will probably feature this same scene again very early in the movie. In fact, it has to be earlier than anything else in Endgame precisely because Rogers still has his Infinity War beard.

It’s clear this scene shows the exact moment when Captain Marvel shows up in the present day, which feels really necessary to show within Endgame. Everybody previously speculated that Danvers might be edited out of a nighttime shot from the Endgame Super Bowl TV spot (featured above), and this seems more and more plausible.

So what about the Captain Marvel post-credits scene?

The post-credits scene at the very end of Captain Marvel plays off like a big, somewhat gross joke, but it’s also a really important event in the history of the MCU, clarifying a slight plothole.

Goose the cat — who we learn is actually a Flerken with transdimensional tentacles inside its gaping mouth — hops up on top of Nick Fury’s desk at S.H.I.E.L.D. headquarters and begins gagging. You know, like cats often do.

Is it a hairball? Did he have a bad snack? What upset his belly? Poor little guy!

Towards the end of Captain Marvel, Goose swallowed the Tesseract (yes, the blue cube that houses the Space Stone) for easy transport while aboard a Kree vessel orbiting Earth. Danvers told Nick Fury to bring the Cosmic Cube back to Earth for safekeeping while she flies off in search of a new home for the Skrull refugees.

Essentially, Captain Marvel and this post-credits scene together explain what happened to the Tesseract after the events of Captain America: The First Avenger, specifically how S.H.I.E.L.D. came to possess it leading up to The Avengers.

We all know that, eventually, it was the second Infinity Stone that Thanos claimed at the start of Infinity War, and he went on to eliminate half the organic life in the universe using it.

Now it’s up to the surviving Avengers in Endgame, including Carol Danvers, to figure out a way to undo all of that.

Captain Marvel is now in theaters. Avengers: Endgame will be released in theaters April 26, 2019.