NONE OF THE MID- AND POST-CREDITS ‘GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY, VOL. 2′ SCENES WILL TIE DIRECTLY TO ‘AVENGERS: INFINITY WAR’

WARNING: this article contains mild spoilers from ‘Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 2.’ If you don’t wish to learn these things now, then it’s probably a good idea to stop reading at this point!

A fast tradition that was established in the Marvel Cinematic Universe is that of the post-credits scene.  Starting at the beginning with ‘Iron Man’ and ‘The Incredible Hulk,’ the MCU has been giving fans a major reason to stay in their seats after the movie “officially” ends – doing a bit of “superhero cross-pollinating,” as Robert Downey Jr. once said in an interview.

Initially, the post-credits scenes were used as a way to subtly set up the structure or plot points of upcoming films, but after a while, many of the scenes turned into simple good old-fashioned silliness, a way to have some extra fun with the audience (recall, if you will, the case of The Avengers eating shawarma together,  for no other real reason that because they could).  With Marvel’s latest offering, the crowd-pleasing ‘Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 2,’ viewers are treated to a whopping five mid- and post-credits scenes.  While they are all pretty cool, thanks to the love for the franchise from geek-cred director James Gunn, one, in particular, is snagging the attention of future-facing fans: the scene with Soverign leader Ayesha and her creation of a new super-soldier pod, with her intent to name the first creation from it “Adam.”

This seems to point fairly directly to an Adam Warlock reference – an incredibly powerful character from the cosmic side of Marvel Comics, who has been hanging around with the Guardians on the comic-book pages for years.  He’s an integral part of the written version of the “Infinity War” storyline that will soon be coming to the silver screen in the new ‘Avengers’ movies… so is this a set-up for a bigger MCU connection?

Heck no, says Marvel Studios bigwig Kevin Feige!  Even though it seems to make sense, in a recent interview with /Film, Feige shot this theory down cold, in no uncertain terms:

Adam is not in Infinity War. That is not a tag for Infinity War. But [the credits connection] varies. It varies. In that case in particular, James has ideas. And had played with incarnations of Adam Warlock in earlier drafts of other Guardians films. So he’s always been top of mind for the Guardians franchise. And if he appears anywhere in the future, it’ll be with Guardians.

Comic fans know that Gunn has lots of love for Adam Warlock, as he included the character’s original means of “birth,” a giant cocoon, in The Collector’s, uh, collection, during the first ‘Guardians’ film.  Where the character goes from here, though, seems to be in Gunn’s hands and not directly tied to the larger MCU.