Nobody stands up at the end of a Marvel movie. After nearly 40 films, moviegoers know by now that if they leave the theater they’re going to miss at least one more scene. Usually, there are two: a mid-credits scene after the fancy end-title cards and a final stinger after the names of countless VFX artists and a declaration that “No animals were harmed in the making of this film.” A post-credits scene is a sure thing. What type of post-credits scene it will be is not.

Excluding the Disney+ TV shows or specials, a few of which do feature post-credits scenes, there have been over 60 post-credits scenes as of The Fantastic Four: First Steps.

Sometimes, you’re glad you stuck around for all those credits to roll because the stinger introduces a major new character or element from the Marvel comics whom geeks have been eagerly waiting to see on the big screen. Sometimes, rather than teasing a future film, the post-credits scene ties up a loose end from the movie you just watched. Frequently, the post-credits scene is just a fun little joke. Other times, though, you watch an entire movie and all those credits only to go “Huh” or “That was it?” when the promised stinger is over. Ahead of First Steps, which kicks off the MCU’s Phase Six, we’re making a taxonomy of the franchise’s post-credits scenes; we’ve identified eight types and provided all the examples of each kind. There will, of course, be some overlap as a few of these scenes do multiple things, like tie up a loose end from the movie and make a silly joke. Those have been grouped in whichever category feels most accurate.

Examples: Nick Fury steps out of the shadows (Iron Man), Thor’s hammer (Iron Man 2), Loki controls Selvig’s mind (Thor), Thanos smiles (The Avengers), Sir and Volstagg visit the Collector (Thor: The Dark World), Quicksilver and Wanda Maximoff’s debut (Captain America: The Winter Solider), Hope sees the Wasp suit (Ant-Man), Bucky gets medical treatment in Wakanda and Peter sees the Stark-created Spider-Man symbol (Captain America: Civil War), Thanos’s ship appears (Thor: Ragnarok), Fury’s Captain Marvel beeper (Avengers: Infinity War), Scott gets trapped in the Quantum Realm (Ant-Man and the Wasp), Carol appears after the Snap (Captain Marvel), Valentina Allegra de Fontaine talks to Yelena (Black Widow), J. Jonah Jameson reveals Spider-Man’s identity (Spider-Man: Far From Home), Doctor Doom appears (The Fantastic Four: First Steps).

You may quibble with how directly the very first MCU post-credits sequence set up what was to come (the “Avengers Initiative” Nick Fury mentions doesn’t fully come together until four films later), but it set the tone for what comic-book fans — and, eventually, moviegoers in general — expected from their post-credits scenes. If the MCU’s biggest achievement was how it serialized moviegoing, these stingers are the equivalent of “Next Week On …” teasers. Whether giving audiences a first glimpse at an anticipated hero, like the reveal of Thor’s hammer in the New Mexico desert, or introducing the conflict of the next film, as when Thanos’s ship looms over Thor and the Asgard refugees’ ship, these post-credits scenes feel essential. They’re not bonus content at the end of the movie; they’re crucial building blocks in an ongoing narrative. This is maybe the best type of post-credits scene, the one that gets fans legitimately excited and eager to be back in the theater (or on Disney+ to watch Hawkeye, in Black Widow’s case) to see how it plays out.

Examples: Nick Fury gives Steve an assignment (Captain America: The First Avenger), Falcon tells Steve and a trapped Bucky he knows “a guy” (Ant-Man), Thor visits Doctor Strange (Doctor Strange), Loki at the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair (Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania), the new Avengers see the Fantastic Four’s ship (Thunderbolts*).

Some post-credits scenes are more than just teasers for the next movie; they are the next movie. Captain America, Ant-Man, Doctor Strange, and Thunderbolts* all used shortened edits of scenes from future movies as post-credits scenes. (Quantumania used a scene from a TV show, season two of Loki, but Ms. Marvel had a scene from The Marvels so it evens out.) These are among the most exciting post-credits scenes when audiences first see them because they’re pretty substantial. And they should be substantial since they’re chunks of actual movies with actual plots rather than bonuses. They’re not merely teases; they’re early previews of full scenes with load-bearing narrative importance. On a rewatch, though, they are a bit of a letdown because chances are viewers have now seen the full movie the post-credits scene is drawn from. But given that it’ll be a while before fans see Avengers: Doomsday, which Thunderbolts*’s post-credits scene is drawn from, it’s still plenty exciting. (It also helps that this specific post-credits scene hypes up Fantastic Four as well as Doomsday.)

Examples: Thanos says he’ll do it himself (Avengers: Age of Ultron), The Leader warns of “the others” (Captain America: Brave New World).

This is a niche category of post-credits scenes that could be folded into “Directly Set Up What’s Next” but both Age of Ultron and Brave New World don’t really add anything to the conversation. When Thanos appeared at the end of The Avengers, it was huge, and comics fans knew the long-term plan for the MCU would be an adaptation of the Infinity Saga. When he reappeared at the end of Age of Ultron, it was just a context-free reminder that, yep, that’s still the plan! Brave New World likewise ends with Samuel Stern, a.k.a. the Leader, warning Sam Wilson that there are “others” and he needs to be prepared to protect Earth from “other worlds.” It’s presented like new information, but anybody who is still invested in these movies at this point knows all about the multiverse. Though rare, this is perhaps the worst type of post-credits sequence: an obligatory waste of time.

Examples: Karl Mordo hunts down sorcerers (Doctor Strange), the original Guardians gather (Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2), Adrian Toomes gets threatened in prison (Spider-Man: Homecoming), the Ten Rings send a message and Xu takes Wenwu’s place (Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings), Harry Styles shows up and Blade stops Dane Whitman from picking up the sword (Eternals), Clea shows up (Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness), Zeus sends Hercules to kill Thor (Thor: Love and Thunder), The Council of Kangs (Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania), Monica Rambeau meets Beast (The Marvels).

For a long time, when an MCU movie’s post-credits scene teased something, it wrote a check the audience knew they could cash. That has become less true. Doctor Strange’s ending that teased Mordo hunting down other sorcerers hasn’t been revisited; even when Mordo reappeared in the sequel, it was a different version from some other universe. You can probably chalk up this seemingly abandoned plot thread to changing creative decisions, but Phase Four is full of post-credits scenes that feel like a floundering studio throwing spaghetti at the wall and seeing what sticks. Will we see what Xu is doing as leader of the Ten Rings in a future Shang-Chi movie or what Eros, the character played by Harry Styles, will do in Eternals 2? Given that it’s unclear if there will be sequels to Shang-Chi or Eternals, it feels kinda pointless. Rather than neatly setting up the future, these post-credits scenes come across as possible options the MCU could revisit, not an actual plan like the earlier stingers.

These post-credits teasers could move to the first category if the MCU ever actually revisits them. (Jonathan Majors’s fall from grace probably means we won’t be seeing the Council of Kangs again, though.) In all likelihood, The Marvels’s reveal that Monica is in another reality, where Kelsey Grammer’s Beast from the Fox X-Men movies lives, will pay off in Avengers: Doomsday since Grammer is listed in the cast for that upcoming film. Even so, it just speaks to the franchise’s fallow period that when Beast arrived onscreen, audiences’ response wasn’t excitement but exasperation at yet another thing they didn’t have faith would end up mattering.

Examples: Eddie and Venom drinking at a bar (Spider-Man: No Way Home).

Spider-Man: Homecoming’s inclusion in the previous category is retroactive since at first it seemed as if having Michael Keaton’s Vulture keep Peter Parker’s identity a secret in prison might have implications for the web-slinger down the line. Then Morbius’s post-credits scene, riffing on the events of Spider-Man: No Way Home, transported Vulture away from the MCU and into Sony’s Spider-Man Universe. It made no sense and sucked (Morbius’s post-credits scene is probably the ultimate “Nobody Has Any Faith Will Pay Off” stinger), but it also removed one of the best MCU villains from the franchise and closed the door on ever revisiting him. Anyway, the Spider-Man: No Way Home post-credits stinger is unique enough that it deserves its own category since it’s really just a continuation of Venom: Let There Be Carnage but also a joke in the sense that all Eddie did was get drunk at a bar, so there really wasn’t too much impact on either the MCU or the Venom movies. However … if the little bit of symbiote Venom leaves behind ends up playing a part in the MCU, consider this a proper setup.

Examples: Tony’s therapy session with Bruce (Iron Man 3), Thor returns to Jane (Thor: The Dark World), Bucky visits the Smithsonian (Captain America: The Winter Soldier), Baby Groot dances (Guardians of the Galaxy), Kraglin tests out the arrow and Teen Groot (Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2), the Grandmaster calls the revolution a draw (Thor: Ragnarok), T’Challa speaks at the U.N. and Bucky’s new arm (Black Panther), Goose vomits the Tesseract (Captain Marvel), “Nick Fury” and “Maria Hill” reveal they’re Skrulls (Spider-Man: Far From Home), Peter’s erased from Midtown News (Spider-Man: No Way Home), Jane enters Valhalla (Thor: Love and Thunder), Nakia reveals T’Challa’s infant son (Black Panther: Wakanda Forever), the new Guardians of the Galaxy have a mission and Peter has breakfast with his grandpa (Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3)

Marvel post-credits scenes don’t only look toward the future. It’s almost as common for movies to use at least one of their stingers to close the loop on a plot development from the film’s main run time. These are pretty important, and in many cases the movie would feel unfinished without these cinematic postscripts. The reveal that Nick Fury is really Ben Mendelsohn’s shape-shifting alien, Talos, at the end of Far From Home recontextualizes every scene involving Peter and the S.H.I.E.L.D. head honcho. GotG’s “I Want You Back” stinger comforts the audience with the knowledge that Groot is growing up (even if the original Groot is dead). The most important and effective emotional beat of Wakanda Forever — the reveal of Nakia and T’Challa’s son — explains Nakia’s absence and carries on T’Challa’s legacy while serving as a tribute to the late Chadwick Boseman. Sure, some of these stingers are less essential than others, but they feel like key parts of the movie you just watched, rather than an advertisement for the next one.

Examples: Eating shawarma (The Avengers), Howard the Duck (Guardians of the Galaxy), Stan Lee meets the Watchers (Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2), Captain America’s PSA (Spider-Man: Homecoming), the giant ant plays drums (Ant-Man and the Wasp), Pizza Poppa says “It’s over!” (Doctor Strange: In the Multiverse of Madness), Deadpool checks TVA security footage (Deadpool), Red Guardian’s Wheaties (Thunderbolts*), the Fantastic Four cartoon (The Fantastic Four: First Steps)

MCU fans are so conditioned to wait in their seats for post-credits scenes in hopes that they’ll reveal key information or introduce a new character that it’s kind of a troll to have a stinger that’s just a goof with no larger meaning. Captain America’s fourth-wall-breaking PSA at the end of Far From Home is probably the most explicit version of this, though it’s kind of nice, especially after a big blockbuster, to just have a li’l laugh rather than a post-credits scene that could be considered homework. Even the jokey post-credits scenes tend to have some significance (like the payoff of Red Guardian finally getting to be on a Wheaties box in Thunderbolts*), and many of the other sorts of post-credits scenes contain jokes. Sometimes, though, post-credits scenes are less about serialization and more about the “comic” aspect of “comic book” storytelling.

Examples: The sound of Tony banging a hammer (Avengers: Endgame)

Finally, there’s Avengers: Endgame, the only movie in the entire franchise that doesn’t have a post-credits scene. If you sat through all those credits, the only Easter egg was the sound of Tony Stark hammering from Iron Man, the movie that started all this. Perhaps that’s because Endgame felt like a finale rather than something that needed to set up future installments or tie off loose ends. Should it have been a finale? Well …