What Loki's Ending Could Mean For The Future Of The MCU
Loki has been one of the shining lights of the Marvel Cinematic Universe TV shows. It is a well-crafted story that centers around what happens to Loki immediately after the events of Endgame in which Loki had stolen the Tesseract again during the Avengers time heist and used it to escape instead of being arrested like he had been at the end of the first Avengers movie, causing him to be picked up and arrested by the TVA.
During the course of the Loki TV show, we see that Loki is not the only person to have strayed from his chosen course of events and pose a threat to the Sacred Timeline, which is what the main MCU continuity is called according to the TVA. Anytime someone strays from their pre-determined path, this causes a potential branch to split off from the main timeline, and that person becomes what is known as a variant. This means they are a variation of that character that has had something different happen to them in their life that sets them apart from the main continuity version of themselves.
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In Loki, the TVA is tasked with keeping these branches from happening and as such need to hunt down any variants they are alerted to and stop them by essentially disintegrating them. Or so it would seem. The first few times, we see this happen, but it is later revealed that the variants are not actually disintegrated. Rather, they are transported to another dimension of sorts.
The main story of Loki revolves around the TVA hunting a particularly dangerous variant that has been killing squads of TVA agents that had been sent after them. And, of course, this had to be a variant of Loki. And who better to help them hunt a Loki than Loki himself? This is pretty much how the first few episodes play out. That is, until Loki meets his variant Sylvie and learns of her plan to bring down the TVA after this we see Loki and Sylvie start to work together toward this end, eventually realizing that the TVA is having their strings pulled by some unseen force whom they set out to stop.
Eventually, after some timeline-hopping shenanigans, Sylvie and Loki both end up disintegrated and in the other universe that is populated by other variants (and a whole load of Easter eggs if you keep your eyes open during those scenes). Loki and Sylvie work out that whoever is pulling the strings is just beyond this world they are trapped in and come up with a plan to get them there.
Once they arrive beyond the world with the stranded variants, they eventually meet the man behind it all. And it is revealed that this is none other than Kang The Conqueror. However, this is not the Kang we expect, as he is keeping control of the timelines rather the supervillain he is in the comics. But the story he tells of alternate timelines suggests he is not the only Kang, and that some of those Kangs are every bit as evil as his comic counterpart. In the end, Kang tells Sylvie and Loki they can either kill him and allow the timelines to branch off with every variant that is created, or they could take his place. Sylvie opts to kill him and shatter the timeline, leading to an ending where we see a statue of Kang right in TVA headquarters.
So what will this mean for the MCU going forward? Well, firstly, this event helps sew the seeds for the upcoming movies that will deal with the multiverse, as this show has brought the idea of the multiverse and timeline branches to the forefront. Yes, the Ancient One talks about it in Endgame, but Loki really drives home the point. And in doing so, this sets the scene for the themes of both Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness and Spider-Man: No Way Home. These movies could send up a whole host of possibilities in future movies and TV shows within the MCU that deal with the multiverse things like an Into the Spider-Verse movie or maybe a glimpse at the Marvel universe of 2099. All of it is very exciting. Personally, I hope we get to see something like the 1602 universe, where the whole Marvel universe takes place in the year 1602.
Now, further to this and more importantly (to me, anyway), the ending of Loki setting up Kang as a villain means this could be the perfect introduction for the Fantastic Four, as Kang is in fact one of their most famous rogues. So who better to call upon to fix the mess Kang will undoubtedly make than Mr. Fantastic, The Invisible Girl, The Thing, and The Human Torch?
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Source(s): Screen Rant