And if...? Season 3 continues the post-credits trend of Phase 5, as Marvel takes the best lesson from Avengers: Endgame

Warning: This article contains SPOILERS for What If...? season 3 finale

It looks like the tide may actually be turning in the MCU's post-credits scenes, after years of Marvel setting the expectation for a future tease in each project. It took until Avengers: Endgame to the end of the MCU's post-credits trend, as the Russos chose to leave Tony Stark's death to breathe a genius move. After 16 years, post-credits scenes are back to what they were always supposed to be: non-guaranteed bonuses.

Unfortunately, some of Phase 5's post-credits scenes still look like mistakes - Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumaniain particular - but Marvel's Phase 5 TV shows nicely bucked the trend by leaving out the post-credits scene almost entirely. In an area where future seasons are much less guaranteed (especially with the promise of a new approach to the small screen from Marvel), empty stingers would be more frustrating.

And if...? Season 3 didn't really need a post-credits scene

A Stinger would have destroyed the emotion at the end

In And if...? In the Season 3 finale, Captain Carter (Hayley Atwell) sacrifices herself to defeat the Watchers after they attack Uatu for his repeated interference with events in the timelines. Having ascended to a God-like form thanks to desperately taking the Watcher's Oath to challenge the murderous Watchers (led by Jason Isaacs' Eminence) along with fellow Guardians of the Multiverse Kahorri, Storm, and Byrdie, Carter kills himself to take down their assassin-like beings. .

After his death and the Guardians' victory - which is only possible thanks to the rift of Strange Supreme's soul living as an autonomous universe free from the Watchers' influence - Carter is given a final farewell. Asked by Storm if he believes there is more to life than even the Watchers can see, Uatu (Jeffrey Wright) says there are infinite possibilities. This seems to be the setup to bring Carter back, but happily, And if...? season 3 - which is the show's last - ignored the temptation to offer a stinger confirming that Carter ascended further and survived.

And if...? Made something cooler than a useless stinger

In place of a stinger that would have undermined Captain Carter's sacrifice - just as a forward-looking post-credits scene would have robbed the impact of Iron Man's death - And if...? instead, it took the opportunity to showcase some of its wildest multiverse variants, in what amounts to a montage narrated by Uatu. We've seen mash-ups of fan-favorite characters, including Deadpool, a Punisher/Ironheart variant, a Sorcerer Supreme version of Hulk's Maestro form, and, best of all, a Thanosverine.

Not only is the assembly an opportunity to show off some interesting conceptual designs without actually having to commit to them, but it also acts as an anticipation for the next Avengers: Secret Wars. If this film takes full advantage of the multiverse for one last hurray before the end of the saga, then characters like the ones we saw briefly here could return to the game. And if someone isn't already planning on doing some kind of Thanosverine cameo, I'll be very upset.

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