How many times is Marvel going to tease us with [REDACTED]?

[This story contains big, massive, obvious spoilers for The Marvels. You’ve been warned!]

Nia DaCosta’s The Marvels opens in theaters this weekend, bringing together Brie Larson, Teyonah Parris, and Iman Vellani as its titular unofficial superhero team, bouncing across the more cosmic portions of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Running on a $220-plus million budget (plus marketing), and facing what’s being predicted as a pretty lousy $60 million domestic opening, the movie is raising at least a few questions about the ongoing viability of the MCU in its current incarnation. But right now, it’s really raising just one question for us—and here’s where you should absolutely, definitely bail if you don’t want to be spoiled on this movie.

No, seriously. We’re going to put a picture of Carol Danvers’ cat Goose here, just to demarcate it.

So, here goes: How many goddamn times is Marvel going to tease us with the X-Men, huh?

This question prompted by The Marvels’ mid-credits scene, which sees Parris’ character Monica Rambeau get blasted through one of those Big CGI Space Holes that MCU superheroes always find themselves inevitably drawn to. In the aftermath, she wakes up in a hospital bed in an alternate universe, reunited with (a version of) her long-dead mom, Maria. And who’s her doctor? Well, it’s a big blue cat man by the name of Dr. Hank McCoy, because 2023 is apparently the year where Kelsey Grammer gets to reprise all his most famous roles! (Down Periscope revival when?)

Which would all be very exciting, except that this is, by our count, the fourth time Marvel has played the “You know we own the X-Men now, right?” card to build up buzz for its latest project, and the whole thing’s getting a little old. The first was, admittedly, pretty funny, when WandaVision brought Evan Peters on to play a fake version of Quicksilver, as a reference to his role in the X-Men movies. Then Doctor Strange In The Multiverse Of Madness went hard, bringing in Patrick Stewart himself to reprise his role as Professor X. (Alongside Lynch, playing a version of Maria who became Captain Marvel.) Finally, Vellani’s Ms. Marvel show ended by talking about unexpected mutations. And at each step, we all went, “Whoo, the X-Men! They’re coming!”

But at this point, how much “Whoo!” do we have left? Although Kevin Feige has stated it’s on its way, Marvel still refuses to put an X-Men movie on the schedule. (Possibly because, once the arrival of canonical mutants in the MCU is actually confirmed, what will they start putting in mid-credits teasers?) Critics have hit The Marvels hard for burying its three engaging leads beneath a lot of general MCU business, and that credits scene doesn’t soften those accusations. How much can you tease something, and for how long, before it stops being a fun way to build anticipation and excitement, and just becomes, well… a tease?