Spider-Man: Far From Home's Post-Credits Scenes Explained
Spider-Man: Far from Home has finally arrived, and it's a lot to take in. Every Marvel Cinematic Universe film has always been a multi-purpose endeavor, telling a self-contained story while also connecting to a wider world, but even among all the previous films, the latest adventure for Peter Parker (Tom Holland) and his friends has a lot riding on it. It's a film that's not just a follow-up to Spider-Man: Homecoming, or even just a follow-up to Avengers: Endgame. It's a film that has to serve as the gateway to the next phase of the MCU, at a time when we still don't know exactly what the new post-Infinity Saga era is going to look like. There are a lot of moments that plant seeds, and we have yet to see what they'll grow into.
This is particularly true of the film's credits sequences, which pave the way for new directions in which both Peter Parker and the MCU can grow. If you've seen Spider-Man: Far from Home and you're looking to unpack what happened after the credits rolled, you're in the right place. SPOILERS AHEAD!
Mysterio's dangerous accomplices
Spider-Man: Far from Home's great twist isn't just that Mysterio is a villain looking to steal the glory left behind by Tony Stark for Peter Parker, but that Mysterio is part of a team of people who are looking for revenge after years working at Stark Industries. He's the director and figurehead of a rather large production, and while he ends up dead, not all of his collaborators do. We even get to see key members of the team fleeing their backstage positions as they realize their plan's been foiled, and that pays off in a big way in the post-credits sequence.
Mysterio wasn't around to do it, but his team exacted revenge on Spider-Man by releasing the video he planned as his desperate plea to blame the destruction in London on Peter, complete with a doctored portion that makes it sound like Peter is actually killing people rather than shutting down drones when he says "execute them all."
That means members of the Mysterio gang are still out there, still operating in some capacity, and still out to get Spider-Man. We don't know how much we'll see of them in future films at this point, if at all, but the mid-credits sequence makes it quite clear that this isn't over.
The Daily Bugle returns
Bad luck is a hallmark of Spider-Man stories. Peter Parker can work hard and care about people and try to go as much as he wants, but one way or another the world will be there to throw him a curveball. This is particularly true in Spider-Man: Far from Home, a film in which literally all he wants to do is have a nice vacation and spend some time with a girl he likes, but then Nick Fury and Mysterio and a whole world-threatening mess gets in the way.
Then, because Peter Parker cannot have nice things, the bad luck follows him home and into the mid-credits scene, when his date with MJ is interrupted by a new bulletin that introduces none other than J. Jonah Jameson (J.K. Simmons, reprising his fan-favorite role from the Sam Raimi trilogy) to the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Jameson has the video Mysterio doctored to make it look like Spider-Man was behind the London attack, and he has no qualms about showing it. He also has no qualms about letting the world know that Spider-Man is Peter Parker, outing the teenager to the world.
Now, in addition to whatever supervillain he battles next, Peter Parker will have Jonah staring him down, trying to ruin his day and his life at every turn, and that adds a whole new level of conflict for future films.
Spider-Man: Threat or Menace?
The introduction of J. Jonah Jameson and the Daily Bugle into Peter Parker's New York city, and the introduction of the Bugle as an outlet specifically geared toward exposing Spider-Man for who he is from the start, is a bold move forward for this little corner of the MCU. In many past Spider-Man stories, including the Raimi films, Peter at least had the benefit of being Spider-Man anonymously, while also managing to work for the Bugle as a photographer, but that doesn't seem to be something that would fly here unless he's really good with a fake ID.
What this does suggest is that we are about to be catapulted directly into an era during which all of New York City, perhaps all of America and even beyond, is automatically suspicious of Spider-Man, a world in which Peter will have to lay low and do any superheroics he actually plans to keep up in the shadows. It calls into question every aspect of his life, from his membership in the Avengers (if such a team even really exists at this point) to his remaining years in high school to his future. He's going to have to find a way around this, and perhaps more than any other teaser in the film's credits, this condition carries the most weight moving forward.
Collateral damage
When Spider-Man: Far from Home ends, Peter Parker is on top of the world. He's back home safe in New York City, he's earned the respect of Nick Fury, New Yorkers seem to enjoy having him around, and of course, he's finally gotten the girl. Then Jameson's video pops up, and it all falls apart. We as an audience know that the video was very obviously doctored, but virtually no one else in Spider-Man's world at the moment has that knowledge, even those closest to him.
What will Aunt May think when she sees reports that her beloved nephew is a power-hungry menace? What will Ned Leeds think? What will MJ think?
Chances are they'll lean toward Peter's side of the story. They have no reason not to believe him on a surface level, but they also all live with the knowledge that at some point in the past Peter felt the need to keep the secret of his superheroics from them. He only told MJ outright, and that was under extreme duress. The other two found out accidentally. Even if they believe Peter, can they completely believe him?
The return of the Skrulls
The mid-credits scene gives us a big tease about the future of Spider-Man, but the post-credits scene in Spider-Man: Far from Home adds a potentially even bigger hint about the future of the MCU. As Fury and Hill drive away from their London operation, Hill's face changes to reveal that she is, in fact, the Skrull known as Soren. Fury doesn't look shocked at all, and then we see why: He shifts his face too, and reveals that he's the Skrull known as Talos, the leader of the surviving Skrull refugees in Captain Marvel, who went off in search of a new home at the end of that film.
So now we know that Skrulls are back on Earth more than 20 years after the events of Captain Marvel, and they're here in a capacity that allows them to impersonate some of the most important people in the world. The scene sheds very little light on why exactly they're here, only that they've agreed to impersonate Hill and Fury as they conduct some kind of "mission," but if Talos and Soren are around, then the rest of the Skrulls can't be all that far behind, and it's possible that some of them are already living as humans on Earth in a less-than-helpful capacity.
And the return of the Kree
At one point earlier in Spider-Man: Far from Home, in what seems to be a throwaway moment, Fury mentions something about Kree sleepers to Hill. He says it as the camera is catching up with them in the middle of a conversation, and that conversation is then interrupted by the action of the film, so we never actually get to hear more about it. Then, when it's revealed that Fury is actually Talos, that seemingly throwaway line is revealed to have deeper meaning.
We have no idea just yet exactly what the Skrulls are doing back on Earth, but if Fury's reference to the Kree is correct, their old enemies are also hanging around our neck of the cosmic woods. Captain Marvel established an age-old conflict between these two alien empires, which the Kree won, and made the Skrulls into refugees looking for a homeworld. Now, a quarter century later, both civilizations are on different footing that we're not fully aware of yet, but Talos' mention of that — while in disguise as Fury — suggests that they could still be enemies. That adds an important context to this reveal, one that future films will no doubt build on.
Nick Fury's absence
When Talos calls Fury from Earth to tell him about everything that happened with Spider-Man and Mysterio, he reports that he and Soren gave Peter the glasses like they were asked, and then things started to get out of hand. So, as far as we know, Fury and Hill have been absent for the duration of the film, and Talos and Soren were the ones who were taken in by Mysterio's schemes. When Talos calls Fury, he says "Hope your mission is going well," implying that Fury left for a distinct purpose and not entirely because he wanted some kind of space vacation.
So... how long has Fury been gone? We can safely assume that was him at Tony Stark's funeral at the end of Endgame, because it doesn't seem like he'd duck out on that, and there wasn't much time for him to embark on a mission in between the Blip and that funeral. That said, Peter Parker has gone through an entire school year since then, so perhaps Fury's been absent for at least several months even before the events of Spider-Man: Far from Home.
Far from Home, far from other heroes
Spider-Man: Far from Home's post-credits scene specifically addresses what happened to Fury, and confirms for us that Talos impersonated him on Earth while he lived with the rest of the Skrulls on a spaceship for at least the duration of the film, if not for months longer. What the scene doesn't establish is what happened to Maria Hill. Given her tendency to always exist in cooperation with Fury, we can hazard a guess that she's somewhere on the same ship, helping with whatever mission Fury's working on, but the film doesn't confirm that for us. Given that this is the MCU, we can't necessarily assume the two are still joined at the hip. Perhaps she's taking her own time off somewhere else. Whatever the case, her exclusion is noteworthy.
What's also noteworthy is the film's repeated insistence that The Avengers just... don't seem to be a thing right now. This is reinforced in the post-credits scene, in which Talos tells Fury that people kept asking him where the Avengers were and he didn't know what to say. Obviously the roster would have changed significantly in the wake of Endgame, but numerous heroes stayed on Earth at the end of that film. You'd think that at the very least Sam Wilson would have put a group together as the new Captain America. So... where are the Avengers?
Back to work
After it's revealed that the real Nick Fury is, in fact, taking a break on a simulated beach in the middle of a massive Skrull spaceship, one of the first things he says is "back to work," shouting to no one in particular as Skrulls mill about the ship. The scene ends rather abruptly, so we're given no clues as to where Fury is, why, or what could have pulled him away from Earth for so long that he required a Skrull impersonator. So... what is his mission? What are he and the Skrulls working on?
It's possible that Fury is on some kind of Earth-related business and simply called in a favor to Talos to get some cosmic resources. It's also possible that he was asked by Captain Marvel to aid in a Skrull endeavor, tough that seems less likely given that Talos is on Earth. We simply don't know enough to make a detailed guess, and we also don't know which upcoming MCU films (most of which are still being kept secret) will shed light on this new adventure. What we do know, though, is that we shouldn't expect to say goodbye to Nick Fury anytime soon.