The movies of the Marvel Cinematic Universe are well-known for their post-credits stinger scenes, often teasing future movies and ties to the greater web of movies.
It’s been a pretty meaningful part of Marvel’s attempts at building out its shared movie universe — all the seemingly unrelated events taking place in the various subfranchises are incessantly being tied together with these small bits and pieces that Marvel without fail includes after the credits run at the end of its movies.
“Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2,” to no one’s surprise, is not an exception to the MCU rule of post-credits clues and teases — in fact, it probably sets a record for post-credits scenes.
“Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2” packs not one or two, but five coda scenes once the movie has officially ended. Most of them are just additional jokes, but a few tease the state of the greater Marvel universe, and one is an Easter egg that all but confirms a fun fan theory about Stan Lee‘s cameos in the MCU films.
The post-credits scene that’s probably most important to the continued story of the Guardians is the one that features the gold-skinned Sovereign. Burned by the Guardians during the movie, the Sovereign high priestess vows revenge against the team for the insult. She mentions her weapon for striking back: someone she calls “Adam.”
Another probably relevant scene for future Guardians entries into the MCU features the Ravager characters that show up for Yondu’s funeral at the end of the movie. Led by Stark Ogord (Sylvester Stallone), these characters are actually the original Guardians of the Galaxy from the Marvel Comics in the 1970s. The rest of the team includes Aleta (Michelle Yeoh), Charlie-27 (Ving Rhames), Martinex (Michael Rosenbaum), Mainframe (voiced by Miley Cyrus), and the computer-generated character Krugarr. The last person they hang out with? Yondu (Michael Rooker).
“Guardians” director James Gunn has said he hopes the newly reassembled Ravagers might head off to get into their own adventures.
As for the Stan Lee scene, it finds him hanging out with The Watchers, a group of all-seeing cosmic beings who observe intelligent life in the universe. Fans have speculated the secret behind Lee’s cameos in every MCU movie is that he’s a Watcher as well. “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2” doesn’t quite confirm that theory, but it comes close.
The other scenes extend a couple of jokes from the movie. One featured a growing Groot, now beyond the baby stage to become a tree teenager. The other found Kraglin (Sean Gunn) practicing with Yondu’s control fin and dart — ultimately accidentally stabbing Drax (Dave Bautista) with it.
The movie also made another sly reference to other MCU films, tossing in Jeff Goldblum as The Grandmaster from the upcoming “Thor: Ragnarok.”
With all the post-credits goodness when “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2” ends, it’s best not to leave your seat until every name at the end of the MCU’s latest has rolled.