There are two scenes to savour once the movie finishes, with both implying that there’s a lot more to look forward to in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
Here, we recap what happens in the mid-credit and post-credit scenes after Spider-Man: No Way Home, and what they mean for the future of the MCU.
WARNING: Major Spider-Man: No Way Home spoilers ahead
Spider-Man: No Way Home mid-credits scene
The first scene shown part-way through the credits brings in Spider-Man’s comic book foe Venom, played by Tom Hardy. The scene ties directly into the post-credits scene from Venom: Let There Be Carnage, in which Eddie Brock was somehow transported to a tropical hotel where he saw Peter Parker’s image on television.
At the start of the this mid-credit scene, we pick up with Eddie who appears to be at the bar of the same hotel he was transported to. It’s assumed he was brought to this world as part of Doctor Strange’s multiversal spell.
He’s speaking to the bartender played by Ted Lasso’s Cristo Fernandez, who is informing him that this world is filled with heroes, and a purple alien who loves stones (Thanos) removed everyone for five years. Eddie struggles to get his head around this truth while drinking plenty of alcohol.
When it comes time to settle up his bar tab, Eddie is then transported again, presumably back to his world.
While the bartender is lamenting the fact that no one is around to pay the bill, the camera zooms in on the bar surface, where a small amount of black symbiote, the substance which created Venom, has been left behind.
This is the first introduction of the alien race symbiote into the Marvel Cinematic Universe. It opens the door for not just Venom, but other characters created by the symbiote too like Carnage, Knull, Anti-Venom and Toxin to join the MCU.
Spider-Man: No Way Home post-credit scene
Once all of the credits have rolled, we get our first look at an upcoming Marvel movie, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. Rather than showcasing a scene, Marvel have instead attached a full trailer to the end of Spider-Man: No Way Home. The preview footage reveals plot details and characters who’ll be returning for Benedict Cumberbatch’s Marvel movie.
The trailer begins in the Sanctum Sanctorum where Doctor Strange is being told he meddled with reality too much with his actions in Spider-Man: No Way Home, and that he has altered the multiverse almost irreversibly.
He is once again joined by Wong (Benedict Wong) but we also see him going to visit Wanda Maximoff (Elizabeth Olsen). She apologizes for what she did at Westview, the events that happened in Wandavision, but Strange simply tells her he needs her help.
From there we see plenty of flashes of action and magic. Mordo (Chiwetel Ejiofor) returns to the fold and appears to continue his path as an adversary to Doctor Strange. Mordo informs him that his true foe is himself, at which point we see an evil version of Doctor Strange emerge. From the comic book origins, we can assume that this is the villain Necromancer, a version of which we also say in the Disney+ series What If…
Spider-Man: No Way Home is in cinemas now. Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness is slated to be released in theaters on May 6, 2022.