Why the Thunderbolts* Post Credits Scene May Be a Scene Lifted Straight From Avengers: Doomsday

The second post credits scene of Thunderbolts*, where the New Avengers detect an extradimensional ship carrying the Fantastic Four, is not just a stinger in my view. "I think this is an actual scene from Avengers Doomsday," and there is evidence for that, including the director confirming it was shot on the Doomsday set.

I think Marvel may have been pulling an old school trick it used with earlier post credits scenes, using this one as a cool little twist for Avengers: Doomsday. Before getting to that, here is how both scenes set things up.

The first Thunderbolts* post credits scene makes the New Avengers name official

The first post credits scene is the one I think most people got. The asterisk after the Thunderbolts name disappears, and we see the team's new name: the New Avengers. From there we cut to Red Guardian in a grocery store. Just as he wanted, he and his team are now on a Wheaties box, with their official title printed as the New Avengers. He is trying to get the woman next to him to notice that it is him on the box, the Red Guardian himself.

Obviously it is a gag, but the most important part of the scene is that the Thunderbolts really are branded as the New Avengers now. There is no more Thunderbolts team. Valentina Allegra de Fontaine called them the New Avengers, and that is now what they are.

Yelena's New Avengers are set against Sam Wilson and the public

The second post credits scene has two distinct parts. The first is that the New Avengers are coming into conflict not only with Sam Wilson and his supposed actual new Avengers team, but with the public as well. The Thunderbolts are a group of misfits, and with Captain America Sam Wilson putting together his own team, it would make sense for the public to side with Sam, even though Yelena explains that the government made her group the official Avengers.

On top of the government's backing, they have Valentina. The team has her wrapped around their fingers because of all the blackmail they could use against her; they could basically put her in jail for life. That combination gives them a really nice setup in the New Avengers Tower, loaded with tech. But I thought it might all get taken away, and the reason ties into Doomsday.

Sam Wilson still had not assembled his team 14 months later

Keep in mind that the scene is labelled 14 months later, and Yelena talks about what happens if Sam puts together a new Avengers team. That tells us Sam had not actually assembled one yet. That is very interesting, because Thunderbolts* takes place a few months after Captain America: Brave New World. So it had been about 17 months since Sam was supposed to assemble a new Avengers team, and he still had not. It took an actual New Avengers team being established without him to kick things into gear.

Meanwhile, John Walker says he has seen a lot of stuff online, and people already think Sam Wilson's team, whoever ends up on it, will be the real Avengers. Sam has even filed for the copyright on the name. That leaves two different Avengers teams: Captain America's Avengers and the New Avengers led by Yelena. I expect Sam's delay in assembling his own team to be one of the plot points in Avengers: Doomsday.

An extradimensional ship brings the Fantastic Four into the 616 universe

The second part of the scene is the arrival of the Fantastic Four. The Fantastic Four film is set in a different universe from our own. Our main sacred timeline is the 616 universe, while the Fantastic Four live in an alternate, retrofuturistic universe set in the Sixties, one that in some ways has more advanced tech than ours.

Yelena also mentions a space crisis, and at the time we did not know what that was. A lot of factors could tie into it. Many countries could be going into space and getting territorial over the space they occupy, while crafts from other planets could be entering our atmosphere, which could be a problem for Earth. We know SWORD has a base up in space, so perhaps they were running into problems. Perhaps this might also tie into The Marvels, whose ending and post credits scene took us into a different universe.

Whatever it is, it is all connected, because the team's system detects an extradimensional ship. That means the ship is entering our universe from a different one, and it is revealed to be the Fantastic Four. That would make some people question why Marvel would reveal that in a Thunderbolts* post credits scene.

Why I believe this is a real scene from Avengers: Doomsday

Here is the thing: I do not think this is just a post credits scene. "The second I saw this, I thought this was the case," and I saw a few other people mention it too, like Ryan Arey over at ScreenCrush. Marvel has done this before. The post credits scene for Ant-Man was actually a scene from Captain America: Civil War. I believe the same thing is going on here, with the second Thunderbolts* post credits scene being an actual scene from Avengers: Doomsday.

To top it all off, the director of Thunderbolts* confirmed in a Q&A that they shot this on the set of Avengers: Doomsday. I know Marvel said Doomsday had only just started filming, but clearly that was a little bit of a misdirect. And why was it shot on the Doomsday set and not the Thunderbolts* set? Probably because it is an actual scene from Doomsday.

It also lines up with a leak from Alex Perez, who said that in Avengers: Doomsday it is going to be kind of awkward when Sam's Avengers team runs into Bucky's Avengers team. In the post credits scene, Bucky even says he met with Sam and it went poorly. So Alex said this would happen in Doomsday, and this scene appears to show it is about to happen.

How I expected the Doomsday opening to play out

Here is how I thought it would go down. First, I think Sam has his team in place. They may not have been revealed as the official Avengers yet, but he has everything he needs. There was a deleted scene from Captain America: Brave New World that showed Stark Industries, so I would not be surprised if Sam's team had Stark Industries backing. That would give them a lot of technology, which means they would probably also detect this extradimensional ship entering the atmosphere and their universe.

On Yelena's space problem, although we did not know for sure and there were a few options, I think the one that would make the most sense is that incursions, or an incursion with our universe specifically, are causing problems in space. Again, I think that could link to the ending and post credits scene of The Marvels, since we know the original X-Men are eventually arriving in our universe. So I saw this as the point in Doomsday where everything starts to get serious and everybody has to come together to figure out what is happening, not only with the 616 universe but the multiverse as a whole.

My guess for the structure was an opening that introduces Doctor Doom, maybe with a little of his backstory or something he is doing right now, before checking in on characters on Earth or elsewhere in our universe: what Thor is up to, what Captain Marvel is up to, maybe some of the Guardians of the Galaxy. Then it comes back to both new Avengers teams. I think both detect the ship carrying the Fantastic Four, and both will be there to greet them when they hit the ground.

I also thought this could bring in Nick Fury. The ending of Secret Invasion left him in space, and if he is still there he would probably detect the ship too. Hopefully that would kick in his old school self, not the one we saw in Secret Invasion but the one we are used to from the Avengers films, and send him to Earth to see what is happening. He might also be able to explain the so called space problem. Marvel Studios had confirmed the Fantastic Four show up in Doomsday, so I believe we will see this scene again there.

The Leader's warning and the multiverse threat that unites both teams

Ultimately, I expected probably a little bickering and arguing, maybe even a skirmish, but the universal and multiversal threat would take priority and push the two teams to join and become one Avengers team. When Sam's team sees the Fantastic Four arriving from another universe, it should also make him remember what the Leader said in the Brave New World post credits scene: they are coming from other worlds, and do you think you can defend your world from others?

So Sam might automatically think the Fantastic Four are hostile. But they will be able to explain what happened to them and why they came to this universe, and even if it takes a little while, the teams should realise the Fantastic Four are not their enemies. In fact, they will need the Fantastic Four and their multiverse travel technology to figure out what is happening. Reed has clearly figured out multiverse travel, which means he might know about incursions too, but the real information is going to come from Doctor Strange and Clea, since Strange knows the most about incursions after Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness.

Avengers: Doomsday was shaping up as a huge gathering

It is not just the two new Avengers teams coming together. Kevin Feige confirmed that the Thunderbolts, the Avengers, the original X-Men and the Wakandans come together to fight Doom. Beyond those teams, I expected people like Doctor Strange, Clea and Wong, plus cameos from actors and characters we have never seen in the MCU before.

"Avengers Doomsday really is going to be a huge movie," and this post credits scene gave us a sneak peek at what to expect.

Do you think the Thunderbolts* post credits scene really was a scene lifted from Avengers: Doomsday, or just a stinger shot on its set?