While The Avengers: End Game wrapped up the major storylines that have been told through Marvel Studios various films over the last ten years, Spider-Man: Far From Home serves as a bit of a thematic epilogue. In it, we see Peter Parker, aka Spider-Man, dealing with the death of his friend and mentor Tony Stark, aka Iron Man and struggling to redefine himself under the weight of Tony’s expectations for him and his own desires to lead a normal teenager’s life, while also dealing with the legacy left by Tony Stark in the form of former employees who feel wronged by the billionaire superhero.
So it only makes sense that once these two things are settled in the main part of the film, the two scenes that appear in Far From Home‘s end credits actually point the way forward for both Peter Parker and for the Marvel Cinematic Universe itself.
Mid-Credits Scene
As Far From Home ends, Peter Parker (Tom Holland) has defeated the evil machinations of Quentin Beck, aka Mysterio. He has also started dating his crush MJ, and since she knows about his double life as a web-slinging superhero, he doesn’t have to lie to her when he needs to head off to stop some bad guys. But Spider-Man has always been a bit of a hard luck hero, and so his happiness is destined to be short lived.
Even though Beck dies at his own hand while attempting to make the public think that his alter ego Mysterio was heroically saving London from an attack by a supernatural Elemental, he still had one last trick up his sleeve to play against Spider-Man. In a video compiled and released to an online news outlet posthumously by one of his henchmen, Beck frames Spider-Man for the attack but he goes on to out Spider-Man’s secret identity of Peter Parker! The name of the online outlet is TheDailyBugle.com and its publisher is of course, J. Jonah Jameson, a character not seen in the Spider-Man film series since Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man 3 back in 2007. In the midst of the report on the video they received from Mysterio, Jameson himself appears on camera to declare Spider-Man a “menace.” And even though this current iteration of Spider-Man exists in a separate continuity from the Raimi trilogy, the filmmakers have brought back the great J. K. Simmons to play the role again. (Although this time without some of the prosthetic makeup and hair that he wore for the Raimi films.)
This scene basically resets Spidey’s status to the classic place where the superhero is seen by the public as a divisive figure – Some see him as a hero, others as a public menace. The added twist here is that previously when the character was in this state, his civilian identity wasn’t also outed. (That happened separately, when Peter revealed himself to the world in the comics version of the Civil War storyline. It took a magic amnesia spell from Dr. Strange to erase everyone’s memory of that.) It certainly sets the character off in a direction that hasn’t been explored since the Raimi films and it will be interesting to see how much story time will elapse between the end of Far From Home and the inevitable next film.
Now you may be wondering why doesn’t someone like Nick Fury just come forward to clear Peter’s name? Well, while the movie doesn’t specifically say so, it does appear as if Fury and Maria Hill are working for a reconstituted, non-HYDRA infiltrated SHIELD. So it might be that Fury just can’t reveal their existence, even if it means that he can’t prove Peter’s innocence. Besides, as we will see, Fury has a few other things demanding his attention.
End Credits Scene
Where the mid-credits scene pushes Spider-Man off into a new direction for his next film, it appears as if the end credits scene suggests what direction the Marvel Cinematic Universe may be heading in the long term as the Phase Four films begin rolling out next year.
The scene opens with Nick Fury and Maria Hill in a car, when they suddenly morph and reveal themselves to be Skrulls, the shapechanging aliens from Captain Marvel! In particular, the one impersonating Fury is Talos, the lead Skrull from Captain Marvel as played by Ben Mendolsohn.
Now, immediately, if you are a Marvel Comics fan, you brain probably leaps to the Secret Invasion event series from 2008. In that story, it is revealed that many of the heroes of the Marvel Universe were replaced by Skrulls over the span of several years as part of a long-term prelude to a more overt invasion.
But the possibility that Talos has replaced Nick Fury against the spymaster’s will is quickly dispelled when he picks up the phone and gives Fury a facetime call to fill him in on the events of the movie. The scene cuts to a shot behind Fury, laying in a recliner with a tropical looking drink on a table next to him, staring off into a sunset on the beach. But as Fury sets down his cell phone and stands up, it is revealed that the relaxing view is just a hologram, and he is actually in a spaceship with a number of Skrulls around him. “Everyone back to work!” he shouts. And then the screen goes black.
So where is this spaceship exactly and what is Fury doing on it? It certainly doesn’t look like the hidden orbital lab that Mar-Vell had in Captain Marvel. Most likely though, it will not be too far from Earth, as I don’t think Fury would want to lead his homeworld unattended by him for too long, even with Talos standing in for him.
Earlier in Far From Home, there’s an earlier scene in the film between Fury and Hill, where Fury, or more accurately Talos-as-Fury mentions a “Kree sleeper cell.” The Kree are the alien race that the Skrulls have been at war with and who have been seen in Guardians Of The Galaxy, Captain Marvel and the Agents Of SHIELD TV series. In the comics, the Kree-Skrull War has been raging for centuries and has had numerous impacts on Earth history.
Could we be seeing the start of the escalation of the Kree-Skrull War in the Marvel Cinematic Universe? Possibly. The main Kree-Skrull War storyline was played out in The Avengers comics, but the Fantastic Four have also had numerous encounters with both races. Marvel Studios has just gained control of the Fantastic Four characters due to Disney’s recent acquisition of rights holder Twentieth Century Fox. Having the Kree-Skrull War become a plotline over the next several years’ worth of films might allow them to bring the FF into the MCU without having to tell their origin story with their classic villain Dr. Doom being a part of it.
Don’t expect any clarification to what we see in this scene anytime soon. If I had to hazard a guess, I would say that given the appearance of Captain Marvel‘s Talos, the inevitable Captain Marvel 2 is where we will most likely see a direct follow up to what Nick Fury is doing hanging out with these Skrulls. Although Marvel Studios has not yet announced their upcoming Phase Four slate – though we make some educated guesses as to what to expect in Phase Four here – it is looking very much like Black Widow and The Eternals will be the two films that the studio will be releasing next year. Even if Captain Marvel 2 is the next film after these two, and I don’t think it will be, the earliest we can expect it would be the next date that they have staked on out on the release calendar – February 12, 2021.
Undoubtedly, though, all will be revealed in good time.
