If you haven’t seen Spider-Man: No Way Home then turn back now.
So after joining the MCU in a post-credits sequence, Venom has now left it in a mid-credits sequence. His very brief appearance in Spider-Man: No Way Home might have left symbiote fans wanting. Though we thought this might be the case, the mid-credits scene still has some massive implications for the MCU going forward. So let’s talk about what it all means.
What Happens in the No Way Home Mid-Credits Scene?
After beautifully illustrated credits set to the De La Soul classic “The Magic Number,” we get to the mid-credits scene. Tom Hardy’s Eddie Brock is still on his vacation. But now he’s in the MCU. Understandably, he’s got some questions. Luckily for him, a kindly—if bemused—bartender is there to answer them. Eddie is most confused by the existence of superheroes, who he calls “super people.” He recaps some of what he’s learned, describing Tony Stark as a man in a tin suit. He also mentions the “green guy,” who the bartender confirms is Hulk. We then hear Venom pipe up with “and you thought Lethal Protector was a shit name.” Eddie still believes that it is, and just as he’s coming to terms with his new home, he’s magicked away. Yep, Doctor Strange’s spell has worked and Eddie is gone. But a tiny glob of symbiote remains.
How Did the Symbiote Stay in the MCU?
Now isn’t this the biggest question? As Doctor Strange reveals, the botched spell brought everyone that knew Peter Parker was Spider-Man to the MCU. That’s how Eddie got here, as Venom was aware—probably via the symbiote hive mind—which meant Eddie knew too. But with Eddie magicked back to Sony’s San Francisco, how did that glob of symbiote stay? It’s especially confounding when we consider that the symbiote is the one who actually knows that Peter is also Spider-Man. The real answer is that Kevin Feige and co. probably really wanted the symbiote in the MCU, so now it is. Narratively, the answer could be that the symbiote was disconnected from its host so the spell might have missed it. Another option is that fate/Kang/Strange has a reason for the symbiote staying. Either way, now it’s in the MCU.
Now That the Symbiote is in the MCU, Who’s Going to Be Venom?
The obvious answer is Peter Parker. No Way Home leaves our hero in the place most Spider-Man stories start. So if he’s going to continue in the MCU, the idea of him connecting with the symbiote and gaining the Black Suit seems reasonable. With Peter out on his own, he could definitely get entangled with the symbiote. But seeing as there’s a current and very chaotic Eddie Brock over at Sony, it seems unlikely that Marvel would have him as a part of that story. And why do the Black Suit story without Eddie Brock and Venom? So that opens up another option who already has a connection to the symbiote: Flash Thompson. In the comics, the symbiote attaches to Flash and he becomes the militarized hero Agent Venom. With Tony Revolori already a fan fave, this seems like an easy route to go down.
But there’s a more broad answer here too. In the comics, Marvel has recently become a fan of “venomizing” heroes. Basically, attaching the symbiote to any of their recognizable heroes. It’s happened to pretty much every Marvel character in recent years. So that seems to be a likely option here. Now that the symbiote is in the MCU, we could see it attached to any number of superpowered folks, creating terrifying villains or anti-heroic figures. Basically, it’s going to cause a lot of trouble.
What Else Does the Symbiote Mean for the MCU?
Well, in the context of it being introduced the way it was as an escapee of Doctor Strange’s spell, there’s something else vital the symbiote could do. Strange’s spell erased everyone from the MCU of the knowledge that Peter was Spider-Man and apparently sent back all the people who knew it from other dimensions back to their own. But the symbiote stayed, and we know that the symbiote knew Peter Parker was Spider-Man thanks to the hive mind. So why wouldn’t the symbiote and whoever it attached to still know? Could this be the way that someone in the MCU still remembers Peter? Via the symbiote? We think it’s likely. Also, the other big impact for the wider MCU is the alien implications: with the symbiote on the MCU Earth, we could get other symbiotes and aliens headed to the MCU to find or battle the one left behind.
And all of that doesn’t even cover that wild Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness trailer that you get if you wait until the very end of the credits….
Featured Image: Marvel Studios
