What Spider-Man: Far From Home means for Marvel's Phase 4
Spoiler alert: This movie about the friendly neighborhood web-slinger may be the start of something big.
Spider-Man: Far From Home is the start of something big.
Spider-Man: Far From Home isn't just another adventure featuring everyone's favorite web-slinger. It also marks the end of Phase 3 of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. As such, it plays a pivotal role in linking the past decade of films with what comes next.
Avengers: Endgame offered a fitting climax to 22 interconnected films that have been collectively referred to as the Infinity Saga, which itself comprised of three "phases." The 23rd film, Far From Home, sets the groundwork for an Earth that's endured five years with half the population dusted away in Thanos' infamous snap in Infinity War.
Spider-Man's new adventure is fairly self-contained despite some red herrings dropped early in the film, which is in theaters now. It's really the second postcredits scene that gives us a hint on where Phase Four may go.
Consider yourself warned for movie spoilers.
Phase 4 goes cosmic?
Despite Spider-Man's tease of a multiverse, no such thing exists. At least, not yet. Quentin Beck's Mysterio is playing a long con, and the alternate dimension scenario is the stuff of fiction.
But that's not to say there weren't any big twists. Far From Home's postcredit scene revealed that Shield Director Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) and Agent Maria Hill (Cobie Smulders) were not who they appear to be. Instead, the two were the shapeshifting Skrulls Talos (Ben Mendelsohn) and his wife Soren (Sharon Blynn), last seen in Captain Marvel.
As Talos offers his report of the adventure involving Spider-Man and Mysterio, we find out that Fury is on the other line enjoying a virtual vacation before stepping out onto the deck of a massive alien ship -- so really, really far from home.
What the heck does it mean? The scene hints at three storylines from the Marvel comics that could serve as a potential big arc for Phase 4.
Kree vs. Skrulls
While the MCU has featured the Kree before, Captain Marvel introduced the shape-shifting Skrulls and the idea that two alien races are pitted in a longtime conflict. In the comics, the Skrulls are just as bad, if not worse, than the Kree. But the film version subverts our expectations by turning them into the victims of Kree dominance.
In the comics, the Skrulls were the first to develop a Cosmic Cube, a powerful object that could bend reality to the holder's will. This item could play a part in Phase Four.
The Kree built the Supreme Intelligence, the artificial intelligence that rules them, specifically to create their own Cosmic Cube in the comics. As the AI exists in the MCU, this could mean that after suffering the loss in the Captain Marvel movie, a cube may already be in the works. If so, Earth's mightiest heroes and the Skrulls may have to join forces to stop the Kree.
Are the Skrulls really allies?
Secret Invasion
One major crossover event in the comics that fans have been wanting to see get the MCU treatment is Secret Invasion. The story involved the Skrulls kidnapping dozens of Earth's superheroes and impersonating them for an undetermined amount of time.
The trailers for Captain Marvel hinted it would follow the Secret Invasion storyline only to have the big twist with the Skrulls. Still, something could happen in the upcoming movies to turn the Skrulls from allies to enemies. Perhaps a rogue radical faction wants to settle a score with the Avengers. Even though Far From Home's twist of Fury being a Skrull was played for laughs, it was also a sign of how easy it was for a Skrull to take over someone's identity who has a vast amount of power at their disposal. For most of Captain Marvel, Talos disguised himself as '90s era Shield director R. Keller.
Let's remember, Shield was supposed to be the last line of defense against global threats -- up until the point when Captain America: Winter Soldier revealed that terrorist organization Hydra had taken over.
Nick Fury has a big secret.
Original Sin
This is a bit of a stretch, but Fury's casual nature in space could also serve as a reference to a Marvel comic's storyline showing his "real" job. Original Sin is a 2014 crossover event where Fury killed The Watcher -- a cosmic being whose race only observes and never interferes that made a brief appearance in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2
In the story, Fury reveals that he was recruited by Howard Stark to be the Man on the Wall -- a job where he defends the Earth from alien races using black ops-type tactics such as assassinations and torture.
Considering his run-in with the Skrulls back in the '90s during the events of Captain Marvel, Fury could have later been bumped up to the cosmic spy seen in Original Sin and has let Talos stand in for him whenever he had to go off the planet to take care of some business.
In the comics, he's more than willing to fight against Earth's heroes if they get in his way in saving the planet. This could also mean that the next time the Avengers assemble, they could go up against the man who brought them together in the first place.
This is, however, all speculation based on a post-credits scene that lasted for a few minutes. The MCU writers and producers made 21 movies based on stories from the comics, but Endgame was almost entirely original content made by the Russo Brothers. That could also be the case for most of Phase 4.
