The finale of Loki was absolutely insane. The season’s closing hour quite literally set up the overarching storyline for the next decade of the MCU—at the very least. All because Sylvie needed her revenge. Free will is also pretty important to these characters, and Sylvie fixed that problem as well.
Though, as beautiful as the blossoming multiverse was to watch, Sylvie’s choice really did a number on Loki. Not only emotionally, but also to everyone else they’ve known since this TVA business started.
Having been zapped back to the TVA, after a moment of devastating emotional contemplation, Loki bolted up to try and warn Mobius about what was happening. And while he found him, after ranting for a little, it became clear that something was very off.
This wasn’t the Mobius that Loki knew, and not only that, but it seemed like the TVA itself had drastically changed. Looking out the window, instead of the three faux Time Keepers, there was only one statue in their place: Kang the Conqueror.
What a spot to leave fans at. With no hope, and no idea where to begin looking for that hope—especially when it's tangled in the endless chaos that is the multiverse.
So what exactly could be going on with the TVA? And how will Marvel go about addressing it in their future projects? Well, let’s take a look.
DOCTOR STRANGE
With Loki now confirmed to appear in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse, there are so many questions that come up. The first and most pressing, is why would Loki end up in Doctor Strange’s story, and how would he be able to help the good doctor?
Of course, the why is likely directly related to the exploding multiverse. While Tom Hiddleston’s asgardian may in fact be joining the film, it’s not very probable that he will end up being a key supporting character in the same vein as Elizabeth Olsen’s Scarlet Witch. But with it being announced that he is set to show up, his role, no matter how small, will likely be an important one.
It's quite possible that in Doctor Strange's journey through all of everything, he will run into the TVA or at least a version of it. The effects of Sylvie’s actions on the TVA are obviously unknown, and it's not clear if the TVA that Loki arrived at was simply the one and only TVA changed because of the many timelines, or if that TVA is one of an infinite number of them.
It’s hard to imagine the TVA being a key element to Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. They are a pretty big deal, so if they are involved it's difficult to see them playing only a small role.
Rumor has it that Doctor Strange will be dealing with the multiversal threat that is Shuma-Gorath, so it's tough to see that storyline being juggled alongside that of the Sorcerer Supreme dealing with the TVA. But it’s almost a guarantee that Strange will become aware of their existence if his path is crossed with Tom Hiddleston’s Loki. In fact, this may be where Doctor Strange not only learns of the existence of the TVA but of that of the bigger threat: Kang the Conqueror.
Yet, one still has to wonder if the Loki showing up in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness is even the one viewers followed through Loki. The Loki that Strange sees may not even have been involved with the TVA at all. It’s always possible that Hiddleston’s appearance in the film is just the product of Doctor Strange running into a Variant of Loki during his travels, amounting to simply a small gag and nod to the show.
With how Loki ended though, and the announcement of Hiddleston’s involvement with Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness right after it ended, it's difficult to imagine his role being that of a simple gag or nod to fans of the show. I mean, Marvel introduced the next big bad in their third Disney+ show. They clearly aren’t afraid of trusting that fans are keeping up with different mediums.
LOKI SEASON 2
The show’s second season is likely to be out before Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania hits theaters, but there’s no chance of it arriving before Doctor Strange’s deep dive into the multiverse.
Of course, this is where the TVA dilemma is likely to be explored the most. With the chaos that was unleashed, it’s tough to even start guessing how things will play out. Will fans see the original Mobius again? Will Loki? Where did Ravonna go, and did she expect this multiverse madness anyway?
There are an endless amount of questions, with no solid place to start theorizing what may happen next. Needless to say though, it’s very likely that the original versions—or the one fans followed through the first season—of all the show’s characters will be seen at some point in the show's sophomore run.
With how everything works, those original versions of the characters haven’t ceased to exist. They are simply not where Loki went to. So, fans will probably witness Mobius and B-15 have to experience similar confusion to what Loki experienced, and will be dealing with it next time we see him.
As for Ravonna, this is probably where she ends up meeting Kang for real, and starts her story by his side. Now, whether it’s an offshoot of Kang, or the one that will threaten all existence the most, is unknown. But their love story from the comics is looking to be right around the corner.
But is she still involved with the TVA? Maybe she will be working alongside the Kang currently overseeing the one that our Loki is stuck in. Instead of being of a different sequence of events like the Mobius and B-15 viewers saw, she may end up being the very same we last saw betray Mobius.
Once one truly sides with Kang, their knowledge of traveling through the various timelines and multiverses is bound to increase. Ravonna wants a purpose, and that void is all but certainly set to be filled by Kang. But will the TVA share that space?
One potential avenue the show could go with in its second season involves a different approach to curating the timeline. The Time Keepers in the comics are real beings that exist, unlike what was seen in “The Nexus Event”. These Time Keepers were created as a correction to a mistake: The Time-Twisters.
THE TIME-TWISTERS
In the finale, Kang is referred to as He Who Remains. In the comics, that’s not a title that belongs to Kang. Instead, He Who Remains was the final director of the Time Variance Authority at the Citadel at the End of Time—a place that, in the comics, is the last reality of the Multiverse. This all sounds pretty familiar, right?
It's here that he created beings known as the Time-Twisters. Their purpose was to teach the next universe, which came after the invisible end to whichever one they were visiting so that the future could be improved. Of course, that all ends up going awry as the Time-Twisters end up just wrecking the past, and characters such as Thor and Jane Foster have to find He Who Remains in the future to convince them that creating the Time-Twisters in the first place is a bad idea.
That situation with The One Who Remains was combined with that of Immortus’ storyline in the comics, and the product of that merging was the Kang that viewers were introduced to. So there’s a similarity to the proceedings that opens the door to all of those elements being adapted in some way.
Now, since the Time Keepers themselves were never real in the MCU, it’s likely Marvel won’t directly adapt the Time-Twisters either. Though, the idea behind their existence could easily make the cut.
Without He Who Remains, AKA Kang, that Loki introduced to viewers, TVA is almost certainly going to be not only functioning differently but also having an entirely new agenda. What if, this time around, the TVA is taking knowledge from the future back to the past—instead of pruning the various timelines? Much like that of the Time-Twisters from the comics.
This way, instead of simply letting only one timeline exist, the organization is basically working to engineer a superior timeline. This would be different from what played out in the show, as the Kang in charge of the TVA that viewers followed had more of a hands-off approach. Yes, branch timelines were pruned, but they never actively went in to make adjustments or improve upon the worlds within.
Of course, there’s always the possibility that the TVA will be straight-up evil this time around. They were warned that if he were to die, then one of his far worse Variants would take his place. That could easily have happened, and what was once a morally gray and questionable organization, would become a lot more cut and dry evil.
ANT-MAN
When it comes to the MCU, the Quantum Realm is irreversibly attached to the understanding of time travel and how it works in this universe. With Avengers: Endgame, and everything that went down in it, there’s no getting away from that fact. This explains why Kang the Conqueror was first announced to be showing up in Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, a franchise that is all about the Quantum Realm.
This film could provide the biggest connection to the TVA yet, at least outside the Loki show itself. It all comes down to one very important observation from Ant-Man and the Wasp that has been discussed for years: the hidden city.
In Ant-Man and the Wasp, fans spotted a curious thing: what seemed to be a small bubble, containing what looked to be a city. What would a city be doing hiding away in the Quantum Realm?
There were plenty of theories out there, with some pinning the introduction of the Fantastic Four to the hidden city. But, as all questions about time travel tend to do, the answer is likely to lead to one person: Kang. It’s certainly not a coincidence that the big villain was announced shortly after Avengers: Endgame, and for a film that will take another deep dive into exploring the Quantum Realm—a place tangled in time itself.
When it comes to Kang and cities, there’s a specific one that comes to mind: Chronopolis, a fictional city that Kang created and ruled over at various points in the comics. Now, there is a chance that if it is in fact Chronopolis, it could be its own thing. Something that will serve as a separate plot point from things occurring in Loki, having no relation other than Kang himself.
But what if that same city, whether it be named Chronopolis or not, is in fact the TVA’s base of operations? Fans have seen that majestic shot of the huge city that the TVA encompasses. There’s an awful lot more to see than just the office spaces that Loki showed us.
The show explained that time doesn’t work the same for people at the TVA. However, it never concretely specifies if the entire place is outside of time itself. But simply saying that time doesn’t work the same implies that there is some concept of time at play.
This places the Quantum Realm as the ideal location to house the TVA. As Scott Lang notes when describing the concept to Steve Rogers and Natasha Romanoff, "time works differently in the Quantum Realm." The TVA probably has the means to control/understand the chaotic nature of the Quantum Realm, which makes it a perfect place of operation to be tampering with time itself.
But as Scott said, there’s still some concept of time—which, if the TVA is in fact in that city hidden in the Quantum Realm, then they would still be affected by the insanity that Sylvie unleashed in some way. Thus explaining why Loki’s arrival to an entirely different TVA, and timeline in general, still makes sense.
With all of this timeline, multiverse chaos, it’s important that Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania take the time to further explain the Quantum Realm and how it works, particularly in relation to all of this new information fans are receiving.
Like, fans are told that time works differently, and while that would usually suggest that there’s still some variation of time, could the Quantum Realm be outside time itself? It’s all so confusing and convoluted, but they’re complicated topics that are always fun to theorize and discuss. Hopefully, Marvel can find a way to cleanly explain it all to their audiences.
WHAT’S NEXT?
Of course, after Ant-Man and the Wasp: Qunatumania, there’s no real way to give any good educated guesses at what could happen. At the very least, fans can likely expect Kang’s storyline to continue past that one movie. After all, Kang is very much an Avengers-level threat, if not greater.
Something that they show made clear incredibly well, with the sense of dread that Loki’s Kang gave off. Clearly, his Variants seem like a whole new breed of danger if he needed to monitor and control the very timeline itself to keep them all at bay.”
But when it comes to the TVA, what’s their future? It’s safe to say that their existence will likely become more widely known, such as when Doctor Strange more than likely learns about them. They’ll also clearly play a big role in Loki’s second season. Though, if all of this speculation has reached any conclusions, it’s that the TVA won’t be the same next time it shows up in the MCU.
