'Spider-Man: Far From Home': What Happened to Nick Fury in That Big Twist?

After the main credits roll on Spider-Man: Far From Home, there’s the obligatory post-credits scene that teases future stories set within this same cinematic universe, but what we see at the very end of Far From Home makes us rethink everything we think we know about Nick Fury — it also makes Captain Marvel even more important.

Is the one-eyed leader of S.H.I.E.L.D. really who he says he is?

Huge spoilers follow for Spider-Man: Far From Home.

Far From Home has Spider-Man team up with a new superhero called Mysterio after Nick Fury recruits Peter Parker to help fight elemental creatures, seemingly brought to this world from an alternate reality. Like many of us suspected, Mysterio is instead a villain using convincing illusion technology to dupe everyone. But this isn’t the only case of mistaken identity in Far From Home.

In the post-credits scene, Maria Hill and Nick Fury transform into their natural forms, revealing that Talos the Skrull and his wife had been impersonating Fury and Hill — and we have no idea for how long. They call Nick Fury on the phone. He’s enjoying some kind of tropical vacation before the camera zooms out to show that it was a VR illusion. He’s actually on some distant alien planet surrounded by Skrulls, who’ve successfully established a new society.

How long has Fury been there? When did Talos take his place on Earth?

Far From Home’s post-credits scene offers more questions than answers for even the most hardcore Marvel fans.

The last time we saw Talos was at the end of Captain Marvel. He was at the helm of Mar-Vell’s light-speed ship, and with Carol Danvers flying nearby, set off into the far reaches of space where the Skrulls might peacefully settle a planet far away from the Kree empire.

Nick Fury remained on Earth with Goose, the cat-looking Flerken who would eventually puke up the Tesseract. We don’t know what happened with Talos, the Skrulls, and Captain Marvel out in space, but she shows up on Earth only after Thanos wipes out half the universe. Certain clues might reveal what she was up to for all those years, which could then hint at when this body-swap happened.

Danvers probably spent a long time helping the Skrulls find a home, but also remember that she threatened Yon-Rogg and the Kree Empire during Captain Marvel. “I’m sending you with a message,” Carol said to him. “Tell the Supreme Intelligence that I’m coming to end it: the war, the lies, all of it.”

Step 1: Find the Skrulls a home. Step 2: Destroy the Supreme Intelligence and the Kree empire. Step 3: Police the universe?

“There are a lot of other planets in the universe,” Carol said when War Machine questioned her long absence from Earth. “And unfortunately, they didn’t have you guys.”

Between helping the Skrulls and fighting the Kree empire, Carol doesn’t make it back to Earth until Nick Fury calls her with the pager. We have no reason to believe otherwise.

Five years later during Endgame, Danvers meets with Black Widow, Nebula, Rocket, and War Machine. Carol says she’s “covering a lot of territory” that includes “thousands of planets” dealing with the aftermath of Thanos’ Decimation. After accomplishing her first two goals, she flies around the universe helping these planets avert their own disasters.

All of this means that Captain Marvel’s Skrull buddies also don’t make it back to Earth until at least after the prelude portion of Avengers: Endgame. For all we know, Talos was among the many people turned to dust during those five years. Skrulls can only copy the biology of a person they see, so it’s not like they could’ve snuck in during the Blip (a term established in Far From Home for the five-year period when half of all existence was erased).

If “the real” Nick Fury was dead during the Blip, then when did Talos take his place? If we had to guess, this happened after the main action in Avengers: Endgame wrapped but before Far From Home began. Fury probably assumed that he needed to gather intelligence about the other threats out there in the universe, but he also knew he couldn’t leave Earth’s defenses in disarray. Working together with Danvers and the Skrulls, he probably used light-speed travel to join them out in space.

That leaves a narrow window that could be measured in weeks or months during which Fury had Talos return to Earth so he could manage the planet’s defenses. Throughout Far From Home, Nick Fury acts what we might as well call goofy, and it being Talos all along explains why.

When will we learn the reasons behind Fury’s mission out in space? It’ll probably be a few years, but we reckon it’ll be worth the wait.

Spider-Man: Far From Home is now in theaters.