‘Spider-Man: Homecoming’s Post-Credits Scenes Explained
The following post contains SPOILERS for Spider-Man: Homecoming. I mean, obviously, it’s about the stuff at the very end of the movie.
Okay so you have now seen Spider-Man: Homecoming. You have witnessed Peter Parker’s triumphant return to the Marvel Universe, and his return to being a teenager instead of a hunky, moody 30-year-old who is still inexplicably in high school. And you have seen the post-credits scenes. (Fun fact: Everyone at Marvel Studios calls them “tags.”) So what do they mean for the future of Spidey and the MCU?
There are two post-credits scenes at the end of Homecoming, a more than 50 percent reduction from the marathon credits in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2. They’re also fairly easy to understand by the standards of Marvel’s typical Easter egg-heavy teases. In the first, Michael Keaton’s Adrian Toomes is now in prison after his battle above New York City with Spider-Man. In jail, he bumps into one of his old criminal associates, Mac Gargan (Michael Mando), who says he’s heard rumors that Toomes knows Spider-Man’s secret identity. He does, but he lies and tells Gargan “If I knew who he was, he’d already be dead.” After that, he walks away.
Spider-Man nerds (and eagle-eyed viewers who spot the character’s scorpion neck tattoo) know that Mac Gargan eventually becomes the Spidey baddie the Scorpion. Although Scorpion is not an original member of the team, both he and Vulture have been part of the Sinister Six, the loose organization of villains who’ve plagued Spider-Man through the years (and who were at one point going to get their own movie spun off from the events of The Amazing Spider-Man 2). The scene seems to hint at the formation of the team in the future, particularly when Gargan alludes to his “friends on the outside” who would love to meet Spider-Man.
The second tag, which comes at the very end of the credits, doesn’t tease anything in the future, and instead pays off a running gag throughout the rest of the movie. Peter and Ned occasionally watch instructional videos featuring Captain America at Midtown High. At the very end of the film, Cap (Chris Evans) returns to deliver another one of these monologues, this time directly to the audience. He says:
Hi. I’m Captain America, here to talk to you about one of the most valuable traits a soldier or student can have: Patience. Sometimes patience is the key to victory. Sometimes it leads to very little. And it seems like it’s not worth it. And you wonder why you waited so long for something so disappointing. How many more of these?
The Captain America scene is also a reference to the similar moment at the end of Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, the John Hughes movie that inspired Homecoming’s suburban chase scene (and even appears onscreen on a television during that scene):
It’s all a big meta-joke on making people wait through the credits in the hopes of seeing Thanos or Howard the Duck, but it works really well thanks to Evans’ perfect delivery and timing. The pause he takes after “disappointing” is so great you really need to see it for yourself to fully appreciate it - and you should if you haven’t already by going to see Spider-Man: Homecoming in theaters this weekend.