VisionQuest post-credit scene: does it tease Avengers: Doomsday?

The VisionQuest finale reportedly has a post-credit scene, but according to a trusted scooper it doesn't connect in any way to Avengers: Doomsday. I'm a little shocked that Marvel Studios would let a Vision series end a month or so before Doomsday, which is supposed to be the biggest movie the studio has ever released, without teasing it. I think the studio is getting this wrong.

VisionQuest, the Marvel series starring Paul Bettany, drew very early talk about a post-credit scene attached to its finale, which isn't normally the case for these shows. Alongside those rumors came updates that the scene would connect in some way to Avengers: Doomsday, and a later rumor from trusted sources said it would attach to Avengers: Secret Wars. The new report undercuts both.

The scooper says the VisionQuest post-credit scene skips Avengers: Doomsday

This update comes from a source who has been behind some major scoops over the last five or six years.

He says the VisionQuest finale does have a post-credit scene, but that it doesn't connect in any way with Avengers: Doomsday. He doesn't say anything about Avengers: Secret Wars. The next step is my own inference: a scene tied to events in Secret Wars would be setting up the fallout from Doomsday, so if the scene connected to one film, it would connect to the other. If the scooper is right that there's no Doomsday tie, it apparently doesn't connect to either.

Marvel's mandate to separate TV from the MCU movies

A mandate has been handed down for Marvel television. Brad Winderbaum has said it out loud, and so has Kevin Feige: they're trying to draw an indelible line between TV and the movies. They don't want you to have to do the homework of watching the entire MCU before you can immerse yourself in a TV show. Zodiac, the new series Marvel teased for the phase after Avengers: Secret Wars, follows that model: a launching off point you can follow season in, season out, with loose connections to the MCU but not a direct tie-in.

Marvel could be taking the same approach with VisionQuest, saying the show will stand on its own and that it won't risk connecting it to Doomsday in case it doesn't make sense. I think this is Marvel Studios getting it wrong. The direct tie-ins are the things we always wanted back when the Marvel TV rights were split up among ABC and Netflix.

Why I expected VisionQuest to tease Avengers: Doomsday

I thought for sure Marvel would tease Doomsday here, even with the divide between TV and the movies. That's despite knowing VisionQuest was made a while ago, that the plans at Marvel Studios changed substantially, and that Doomsday itself has reportedly changed as the script was rewritten. For a character as big as Vision, one undeniably tied to the Avengers, it felt like the studio would surely use this moment.

The Tommy angle also confuses me. A scene setting up Tommy and his super-speed powers for the Young Avengers or the Champions would count as a tie to Secret Wars, because we expect to see some of those newer heroes on a younger team in that film.

VisionQuest's post-credit scene feels like the Avengers: Endgame Encore scenes

The post-credit scenes Marvel put together for Avengers: Endgame Encore felt like an afterthought, and I stand by that. The final one, which extends the Peggy and Steve scene, may be the exception, since that footage may turn up in Avengers: Doomsday. The bunker scene with Mark Ruffalo, though, is him alone in front of a green screen. He's about to transform into the Hulk, but the transformation happens offscreen. We hear Doctor Doom's voice, but Doom stays offscreen too. All you get is the camera being knocked over, and you're left to assume that means he turned into the Hulk. If Marvel were going to do something big, it could have done it there, and it didn't.

VisionQuest feels like another of those moments where I want to say, "Marvel Studios, don't you get it?" With billions of dollars and decades invested in the Avengers franchise, maybe Marvel can do no wrong: whatever post-credit scenes it attaches to whatever projects, we're all going to see Doomsday, it'll make $2 billion, and we'll be hyped for Secret Wars.

But Vision gets his own TV show, it ends a month before Doomsday, and there's no tie-in at all.