Avengers Endgame Encore's post-credit scenes explained ahead of Doomsday
Avengers Endgame is back in cinemas ahead of the release of Doomsday later this year, except this time Marvel have completely changed the ending to set up Robert Downey Jr’s return.
Doomsday looks set to be Marvel’s biggest film yet, with Robert Downey Jr returning for the first time since Iron Man died in Endgame in 2019.
Endgame Encore is being released with an additional three minutes of footage, featuring Tom Hiddlestone’s Loki, Mark Ruffalo’s Hulk, and even a brief glimpse of Downey Jr returning as Marvel’s next big bad in Doctor Doom.
Many fans expected small changes to Endgame which wouldn’t actually be too meaningful, but the scenes are surprisingly juicy and completely change the MCU in the lead-up to Doomsday.
One post-credits scene involving the Hulk answers a major question left unanswered by Spider-Man: Brand-New Day
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Of the three scenes added to the Avengers film in Endgame Encore, one takes place after the recently released Spider-Man: Brand New Day.
The scene involves the Hulk in containment after being carted away in Brand New Day following his fight with Peter Parker. Banner is revealed in the newly released Spider-Man film to have been living life without the Hulk due to a ‘dampener’, only for Jean Grey to break this and end up freeing the green monster.
He is shown talking to a camera discussing being held in containment in a military complex, only for Doctor Doom to arrive and seemingly kidnap the character.
Downey Jr’s voice is heard saying he is ‘here to collect’ him, with the camera cutting out and the Hulk’s roar being heard as a sigil is left behind on the ground, but no Hulk.
The reasoning for this is as of yet unclear, but some fans have speculated that Doctor Doom will be absorbing the powers of certain heroes to strengthen himself, and this is what happened to Hulk in the scene. This also appears to confirm the at least partial return of Mark Ruffalo in Doomsday or Secret Wars, having previously not been announced for the film.
Endgame Encore changes the ending of Endgame and proves that Loki is required viewing
Any Marvel fan worth their salt will remember the ending to Endgame which saw Peggy Carter and the former-Captain America Steve Rogers happily dancing after being reunited in the past.
Trailers for Doomsday have already shown that, despite the seemingly happy ending, Chris Evans is returning as Steve Rogers.
Doom monologues in the trailer about the ‘stolen lives’ they have lived, seemingly referring to Steve abusing the time travel to go back and live in the past with Peggy. Many fans have theorised that this now causing ‘incursions’ which are risking the end of the universe.
The Endgame Encore scene plays the same however, rather than the credits rolling, Loki shows up at Steve and Peggy’s door.
For fans who haven’t seen the TV show Loki (firstly, go and change that), many will not realise the pretty bonkers journey the Marvel villain-turned-anti-hero has been on.
Loki season two ends with the former god becoming the anchor for all of time after realising that the ever-expanding multiverse was going to be destroyed.
By showing up in Endgame Encore, however, Loki shows that he can still visit the world despite this fate by using Yggdrasil. If all of that isn’t making much sense to you it confirms one thing: for fans to best appreciate Doomsday, it’s clear that Loki is near required viewing.
Another two post-credit scenes set up Doom and the return of the Fox X-Men
The film now ends with a pretty ominous comparison, showing scenes of a mask being forged akin to RDJ in Iron Man. Instead of Tony Stark, however, it is revealed that this is Doom forging his own mask, drawing a direct link between RDJ’s two characters.
This is a pretty interesting scene for Marvel fans, but the true juiciest details come in easy-to-miss aspects of another post-credit scene.
The side characters of Loki who work at the Time Variance Authority (TVA), including Ke Huy Quan’s Ouroboros and Owen Wilson’s Mobius, are shown monitoring the multiverse when suddenly everything starts going wrong.
They are tracking two universes colliding, one of which (Earth 10005) is the Fox X-Men Universe from the 2000 films. Patrick Stewart and several of the original X-Men are confirmed to be returning, and the clip shows their Earth and another ‘firing missles’ at one another.
Avengers: Doomsday is partially based on the Time Runs Out comic storyline which features a similar storyline in which soon-to-collide universes begin trying to destroy the others to save themselves.
Things get even worse however when Ouroboros announces that 3,000 universes are colliding and the ‘multiverse is collapsing’. Early trailers for Doomsday show the X-Men, including Channing Tatum’s Gambit, fighting with the MCU’s Avengers, perhaps foreshadowing that they will be looking to destroy the MCU in order to save their own universe. Either way, the Endgame Encore additional scenes seem to open up just as many questions as they answer.
Avengers: Endgame Encore is available to watch in select cinemas now. Avengers: Doomsday releases 18 December.
Topics: Robert Downey Jr, X-Men, Film, Avengers: Endgame
Michael Slavin