Who’s that guy at the end of ‘Amazing Spider-Man’?

K. Thor Jensen Contributing Writer, Entertainment

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Columbia Pictures

Spoilers ahead, folks. You’ve been warned. So did you see Amazing Spider-Man yet? It’s about as good as a fourth Spider-Man movie can be, and Andrew Garfield is a breakout star, no doubt. And, of course, you stayed after the credits, right? If you leave any superhero movie before the credits, you’re an idiot.

Here comes the spoiler: after Dr. Curt Connors is de-Lizarded and locked up, a shadowy man comes and visits him in the high-security mental hospital he’s imprisoned in. The man says “Hello, Doctor! Did you tell the boy? Did you tell the boy the truth about his father?” and when Connors says he didn’t, the mystery man replies “Well, that’s very good. So we’ll let him be for now.”

The first thought is, of course, that he’s Norman Osborn, the super-powerful industrialist behind Connors’s experiment. Michael Massee, the actor who plays the mystery man, looks somewhat similar to Willem Dafoe, who played the character in the previous movies. But that seems too easy. He also disappears in between flashes of lightning, which leads me to believe it might be someone else.

Rhys Evans denies that it’s Norman Osborn himself in this interview with Ain’t It Cool News, but does say that it is “someone we’re familiar with, who we don’t know is employed by Osborn.” This opens a lot of possible doors, including the out-there speculation that Richard Parker is alive. What do you think?