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Divisive ‘Hawkeye’ Post Credits Scene Explained

4 Minute Read
Dec 23 2021
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Fans have strong feelings about the Hawkeye post-credits scene. Is all the Twitter anger well-founded, or does the scene hold MCU clues?

After Hawkeye‘s explosive finale, every fan with a Twitter account got loud about their opinions. Some loved the ending to Marvel’s holiday romp– some not so much. But regardless of how you felt about it, there are some pretty great details you may have missed.

This article contains spoilers for Hawkeye season 1 and Spider-Man: No Way Home.

Courtesy of Marvel Studios

Marvel is really changing the pace for their post-credits scenes in phase 4. The Hawkeye scene was a full rendition of “Save the City” from the fictional Broadway show Rogers: The Musical.

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Sorry, There’s No Spider-Man Appearance in Hawkeye

Thanks to the final scene of No Way Home, many fans were convinced that Tom Holland’s web-slinger would appear in Hawkeye. After all, we saw him swinging right past the giant tree and ice-rink where the final Hawkeye fight took place.

But as you can clearly see, there was no Spider-Man in the Hawkeye post-credits scene. Peter Parker may have been watching the fight from the balcony of his new apartment, but there’s no Spidey to be seen in the actual show.

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Are people just mad about the lack of Spider-Man in this post-credits scene? Sure, some viewers feel like they were robbed. But many of the folks bemoaning this scene just aren’t that into musicals.

Details You Missed in Rogers: The Musical

Here’s the thing about “Save the City”– as a Broadway fan myself, the song isn’t really a bop. Sorry, I wanted to love it, but it’s pretty bland. But there are lots of interesting details in the song’s lyrics that pose some interesting questions about a post-blip MCU.

For one, who consulted on this project? There are several quotes from The Avengers that occurred after the area had already been evacuated. Cap’s famous “I can do this all day” could have leaked out into the popular culture of the MCU, sure.

But Tony’s shawarma line? No one who survived the attack on New York was around by the end of that battle. So how did the fictional songwriters of this musical know what happened? Did an actual Avenger retell that story at some point?

Another lyric stands out from the bunch as incredibly empathetic to an Avenger’s perspective:

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“If the city is trashed when you take your bow,
we’ll blame you then, but you’re good for now!”

Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman, the duo that wrote the song, talked to Entertainment Weekly about the lyrics.

“Definitely part of the discussion with Marvel was that the things that are quoted in the musical have to be things that people who actually live in the universe would know. So we figured Captain America has said ‘I could do this all day’ enough times that someone heard it, or maybe when they created this musical they interviewed people who were there. But then also putting Ant-Man in that scene show how, no matter what, entertainment versions of real-life stories will always get something a little wrong.” 

Courtesy of Marvel Studios

Broadway Superstars

The Hawkeye post-credits scene also allows for better showcasing of the star-studded cast of Rogers: The Musical. The faux production featured legends like Adam Pascal (Rent), Nico DeJesus (Newsies), Harris M. Turner (Frozen), and Katherine Roarty (Summer: The Donna Summer Musical).

Jordan Chin (In the Heights), Ehizoje Azeke (The Get Down), Ricardo A. Zayas (Hamilton), Gino Consculluela (West Side Story), Jason Macdonald (Aladdin), and Meghan Manning (The Merry Widow) are also beloved names in the Broadway scene. Meanwhile, Tom Feeney played Captain America.

Courtesy of Marvel Studios

You don’t have to love the Hawkeye post-credits scene, nor do you have to love musicals in general. Me personally? I know what I’d like to have seen…

‘Hawkeye’ season 1 is available for streaming now exclusively on Disney+!

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Author: Danni Danger
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