The Loki premier threw a lot of information at us. The God of Mischief’s unplanned trip to Time Variance Authority (TVA) HQ, though, came bundled with one key sequence that could, according to some Marvel fans, unlock a crossover event that makes Avengers: Endgame look like child’s play by comparison.
Spoilers for the Loki premiere follow!
Early on in the Loki premiere, the TVA’s mascot Miss Minutes appears – with a serious exposition drop.
"Long ago, there was a vast multiversal war," Miss Minutes begins, hinting that several versions of the same universes fought in an epic conflict. "Countless unique timelines battled each other for supremacy."
Thankfully, the Time Keepers, mysterious entities that control the flow of time, helped save the day by taking every strand of the multiverse and weaving it into one cohesive whole: the Sacred Timeline.
That was then, this is now. The TVA is concerned with a pesky "Variant" (someone who veers off their set timeline) who is hunting down its Minutemen and causing all sorts of temporal mischief across various centuries.
The risk soon becomes apparent. These Variants, when left unchecked, could cause "Nexus events" that would branch off from the Sacred Timeline and could lead to another multiversal war.
Inevitably, that’s got some fans – especially those steeped in comic lore – thinking. A "multiversal war" sounds eerily similar to two of Marvel’s epic comic crossovers, both called Secret Wars.
In the first, a being known as the Beyonder brought all of Marvel’s heroes and villains together for an all-out war on Battleworld. The second, from 2015, sees several multiverse locations and characters all bleed into one tapestry put together by Doctor Doom and the Infinity Gauntlet after the universe is destroyed.
Different aspects of the multiverse lived and died in the fight for supremacy: The world of Spider-Man 2099 would co-exist in the same space as Deadpool, Marvel Zombies with a legion of Thors, and so on.
That latter event could be set up right here in Loki, especially if the TVA fails and the multiverse soon spirals out of control into different flavors of the same character. Think of the different Lokis doing battle and various Spideys swinging around in the same space – something that’s been rumored for Spider-Man 3 – and you’re on the right track.
"Secret Wars is definitely being set up towards the end of this saga," says one fan on Twitter. While another on Reddit suggests "Secret Wars immediately popped into my head, glad I’m not the only one!"
Echoing the buzz on social media, one Twitter user said what we’re all thinking and hoping for: "It may not be today, it may not be tomorrow, but Secret Wars is coming."
And, to think, this all started because Loki waltzed off with the Tesseract in 2012. He really is a mischievous scamp.
Need to catch up on all things MCU? Here's our guide to Marvel Phase 4 and how to watch the Marvel movies in order. Plus, take a deep dive into comics lore with our cheat sheet to the TVA.
