Marvel’s next multiverse experiment just landed in theaters and, naturally, fans are wondering if they should stay in their seats once the credits roll. The superhero movie studio has a trusted track record when it comes to setting up future installments with that end-of-film real estate and it sounds like they’re continuing the tradition for Ant-Man & The Wasp: Quantumania, giving audiences not one but two post-movie scenes that tease big plans for the MCU.
Spoilers Below
To understand both the mid-credits and end-credits clips, you’ll need a bit of backstory on what happens in Quantumania. After being trapped in the quantum realm and battling the multiverse-manipulating Kang the Conqueror (Jonathan Majors), Scott Lang (Paul Rudd), Hope Pym (Evangeline Lilly), Cassie Lang (Kathryn Newton), Hank Pym (Michael Douglas), and Janet Van Dyne (Michelle Pfeiffer) reunite and escape back to their timeline. All seems to be well with the group believing they’ve managed to defeat Kang but, as comic book fans know, there’s more than one version of this villain our heroes need to worry about.
Marvel seems intent on expanding the idea of the multiverse — i.e. multiple timelines where various versions of the Avengers exist parallel to each other. To that end, Quantumania’s mid-credits scene introduces audiences to the different variants of Kang including Immortus, Rama-Tut, Baby Kang, and the Council of Kangs, who were responsible for exiling the Conqueror to the quantum realm and who now view the Avengers as a threat to their grand plans of controlling the multiverse. This tease not only confirms that we’ll be seeing a lot more of Jonathan Majors in the MCU, but it also sets up future Endgame-esque Avengers team-ups.
The movie’s end-credits scene, though brief, is even more interesting, especially for fans of the Disney+ series Loki. The show’s second season is due to arrive this summer and we haven’t had much to go on in terms of the plot until now. Once Quauntumania and its mid-credits scene wrap, another Kang variant pops up on the screen. Known here as Victory Timely, this version of Kang seems to be giving some kind of presentation on-stage to a crowd of onlookers who look to be dressed in 1920s-era clothing — so we’re likely going back in time when the show returns. Loki (Tom Hiddleston) and Mobius (Owen Wilson) look on from the crowd with Loki telling his friend that the man, Timely, is the most dangerous man he’s ever come across.
Fans will remember that the show’s first season ended with Loki meeting a Kang variant known as He Who Remains — a clever trickster in charge of keeping the timelines separate and the multiverse in order. He was the one who created the Time Variance Authority (TVA), the timekeeping police force Mobius worked for. The season ended with Loki returning to the TVA distraught that his friend couldn’t remember who he was. Either this scene is evidence Mobius will get his memories back at some point or it’s Loki’s attempt at giving the man a crash course on which bad guys they’re fighting in season two.
(Via Vox)