The MCU’s newest hero is about to debut in Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings. This weekend marks the release of Simu Liu’s introductory outing as the eponymous martial arts master, the good-guy son of supervillain The Mandarin (Tony Leung Chiu-wai). Right now, we don’t know when we’ll be seeing Liu again in the franchise after this production, but Marvel president Kevin Feige has assured us that he’s definitely not going anywhere.
And we’ll get a big indication of what’s next for the character in Shang-Chi‘s post-credits scene. Feige spoke with ComicBook and, unusually for the spoiler-phobic producer, teased a little about what we can expect from the film’s final sequence, even going so far as to compare it to the iconic tag at the end of 2008’s Iron Man.
“Well, we don’t want to spoil anything,” Feige began. “But, I think the end of this film gives a pretty clear direction on, at least, how vital and how important and how directly Shang-Chi is stepping into this world. We are reminded of Nick Fury in the tag of Iron Man 1, telling Tony Stark, ‘You’re part of a bigger universe, you just don’t know it yet.’ And without giving away, a very similar thing happens to Shang at the end of this movie.”
As Feige reminds us, Iron Man concluded with Samuel L. Jackson’s S.H.I.E.L.D. director telling Tony Stark about the Avengers Initiative. Maybe we can infer, then, that Shang-Chi‘s post-credits sequence will feature a mirror of this moment, with someone recruiting Liu’s hero into a different team. Could we get, say, Randall Park’s Jimmy Woo asking Shang-Chi to join the Agents of Atlas? A project based around Marvel’s all-Asian superhero line-up has been rumored in the past.
While Shang-Chi and Eternals seemed much more standalone than the likes of Spider-Man: No Way Home and Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness at first glance, more recent evidence has indicated they’ll be just as integral to the overarching narrative of the MCU as those two movies. Eternals‘ final trailer revealed connections to Avengers: Endgame, while Feige is now hinting that Shang-Chi could pave the way for a brand-new team-up to come.
Catch Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings in theaters from September 3rd. It’s expected to hit Disney Plus 45 days after its cinematic debut.
