The Marvels is now in theaters an that means more world-saving superhero fun from the Marvel Cinematic Universe. With Carol Danvers, Monica Rambeau and Kamala Khan teaming up, the audience is in for a wild and fun adventure, but you can read more about that in Bekah’s full review of the film.
Instead, we are here to talk about the mid-credits scene from the film. And yes, I do mean mid-credits as this film does not feature a true post-credits scene. So once you get past that initial mid-credits scene, it’s all over. That being said, this mid-credits scene is a huge one so let’s take a closer look.
The Marvels spoilers ahead!
Okay, if you’ve gotten this far, I can only assume you’ve already seen the movie or are at least willing to have it spoiled. Either way, here we go.
The end of the film sees Monica essentially sacrificing herself to close a rip in spacetime that has created a portal to another reality. Carol and Kamala don’t seem to be willing to give up on their friend so it seems evident before the film is over that we have not seen the last of Monica, which should be expected given that the current story being told is literally called The Multiverse Saga.
And we don’t have to wait long to see her again as the film’s mid-credits scene opens with Monica waking up on what looks like a hospital bed. She turns to see Maria Rambeau, her mother, watching over her. Stunned by the sight of her long-deceased mother, Monica struggles to string a sentence together for the now very confused Maria. She is especially taken aback when Monica refers to her as “mom.”
Their reunion is interrupted though when a large figure in a lab coat walks by. After a beat, this figure is revealed to be non other than Beast of the X-Men. And the best part? He is once again voiced by Kelsey Grammer.
So what does this mean exactly? Monica appears to have been sucked into the universe of those 20th Century Fox X-Men films, and specifically X-Men: Days of Future Past. In fact, this scene even includes small pieces of the score from X2: X-Men United and Days of Future Past, just to put the cherry on top.
So, it appears the MCU will utilize the already-established X-universe and even pull from the cast of those films, though I would assume this also mean they will be ignoring the seemingly alternate timeline films like X-Men: Apocalypse and X-Men: Dark Phoenix. I don’t think anyone will be too upset about that.
Beast explains to Monica his theory that she somehow crossed into another reality but refers to it as impossible. He later tells Maria that Charles wants an update, of course referring to Charles Xavier, and we even see the iconic X-door.
He does refer to Maria by a surprising name though: Binary.
We’ve already seen Maria pop up in an alternate reality in another film, taking the role of Captain Marvel in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. In this universe though, it appears she operates under the codename “Binary.” This is actually a recent addition to Marvel comics, as Binary made her first appearance in “Captain Marvel #34″ in December 2021. In the comics, Binary is a copy of Carol Danvers made entirely out of energy. She acts as her own hero but cannot speak, so clearly a different version of the character from the one we see in this film.
It’s unclear if the film’s version of Binary is a mutant, which would fit her in better with that universe. She does appear to be wearing the bangles, which are a big piece of the story of this film and which we learned are called Quantum Bands. Remember, Kamala is a mutant in our universe and the bangle she wears helped to unlock her mutant abilities. Perhaps it’s the same story for this universe’s Binary.
The scene comes to a close with Maria asking Monica what’s going on, to which she simply replies with a sigh.
This mid-credits scene opens up a whole lot of doors, including one very large metal one with a big X on it. Whether or not this will bring the old, familiar X-Men in to be the MCU’s versions of the characters remains to be seen. It still seems possible there are variants of these characters – perhaps played by much younger actors who might be willing to sign on for many more movies – existing on Earth-616 (or Earth-19999, sorry Iman). Either way, we are now one big step closer to the MCU’s long-awaited X-Men film.
The Marvels is in theaters now.