Spider-Man: No Way Home Just Confirmed The Villain Fans Have Been Expecting All Along
Spoilers ahead for "Spider-Man: No Way Home"
If "Spider-Man: No Way Home" has one thing in abundance, it's Spider-Men looking for a way home. If it has another thing in abundance, it's villains. From old-school players Green Goblin (Willem Dafoe), Doc Ock (Alfred Molina), and Sandman (Thomas Haden Church) to the Lizard (Rhys Ifans) and Electro (Jamie Foxx) of "The Amazing Spider-Man" era, the overwhelming majority of the high-profile supervillains who ever punched a spider in the pre-Tom Holland era get their moment in the limelight. In fact, the only reason the movie doesn't get a full Sinister Six together is that Eddie Brock (Tom Hardy) and his Venom symbiote end up in a bar far away from New York, and enjoy themselves far too much to make the trip.
As smoothly as the movie juggles all spider-things old and new, it still manages to do some heavy lifting to set up the future. The second post-credits scene of the film, in particular, is entirely devoted to Dr. Stephen Strange's (Benedict Cumberbatch) upcoming "Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness" — and, as it happens, it just revealed one particular villain that's been rumored to join the MCU for quite some time.
Shuma-Gorath is coming
Marvel's very own Lovecraftian abomination, Shuma-Gorath, has been the target of intense fan speculation for quite some time, due to the multiple appearances of a similar-looking tentacle monster in the Disney+ animated series "What If...?" Though the creature never fully reveals itself in the show, its general physical characteristics (that is, tons of tentacles) sure seem to fit, and "What If...?" makes it pretty clear that whatever said tentacles are attached to is immensely powerful.
Fans would probably have been perfectly fine if that semi-veiled nod was the last they'd heard of Shuma-Gorath in the MCU. However, the "Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness"-themed second "Spider-Man: No Way Home" stinger actually shows the eldrich entity in all of its CGI-created glory, loitering in the middle of what seems to be New York City, and chucking buses at people.
The post-credits scene does a whole lot of other "What If...?"-related teasing for "Multiverse of Madness," too, up to and including what seems to be an evil variant Doctor Strange who doesn't seem terribly unlike the Strange Supreme version the animated series prominently features. Fans will have to wait to see whether all these elements will actually feature in the final movie, but for what it's worth, Shuma-Gorath sure seems to be scheduled to make its live-action MCU debut very soon.