The first teaser trailer for Spider-Man: No Way Home finally dropped, and it wasted no time breaking records. But, despite more than 300 million people viewing the teaser in its first twenty-four hours on the web, very few know exactly what to expect from Spidey’s third MCU outing.
The first look at No Way Home revealed that Peter Parker will seek out the help of Doctor Strange to try to make the world forget that he’s Spider-Man. But what fans didn’t expect is that the Sorcerer Supreme will be more than eager to help — so eager, in fact, that he’ll cast an imperfect spell that will supposedly crack open the multiverse.
The scene in which Strange casts the spell is made to make viewers think that Peter is the reason the spell doesn’t go as planned since he walked into the chamber after Doctor Strange has already begun. But what if it wasn’t Peter’s fault, and the spell wasn’t going to work as intended anyway?
What if, instead, this is the work of the God of Mischief?
DID LOKI CAUSE DOCTOR STRANGE’S MAGICAL MISHAP?
The series finale for Marvel Studios’ Loki closed with Sophia Di Martino’s Sylvie slaying Jonathan Majors’ He Who Remains — a variant of Kang the Conqueror and the only one maintaining the Sacred Timeline to keep it from branching off into other realities.
This had monumental effects, allowing the timeline to branch in every direction. It’s safe to say that the MCU will be forever changed because of this.
So how does that have an effect on Spider-Man: No Way Home? Well, the Loki series take place immediately after the events of Avengers: Endgame, according to the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s chronological watch order on Disney+.
No Way Home will have to happen after Loki, since it follows the sequel Spidey film Far From Home that didn’t take place until nine months after Endgame. So the events of Loki could absolutely have an effect on where the Spider-Man franchise is currently positioned.
If He Who Remains is no longer maintaining the Sacred Timeline, then time would obviously be working in a much different sense than it had up until now. And if the Mystic Arts rely on time to flow as it usually does in order to work as it should, then this change could have devastating implications for sorcerers all over the world — including the Sorcerer Supreme himself.
LOKI SPELLS TROUBLE FOR SPIDER-MAN
There is a chance that Doctor Strange already knows that the death of He Who Remains has had an effect on his use of magic. Maybe that’s why the inside of the Sanctum Sanctorum looked like a winter wonderland.
This would also explain why Wong so strongly advised Strange against casting such a powerful spell. If they have to relearn the Mystic Arts as they know it, then of course even the Sorcerer Supreme would be hindered by this as casting even a simple spell could mean trouble.
That would also explain why Wong had his bags packed and was seemingly headed to Kamar-Taj. After all, someone has to retrain the team if everything they know about the Mystic Arts has changed.
Since Loki’s release, this is supposedly the first time that the multiverse can thrive now that free will can exist within the MCU. If He Who Remains isn’t around to make sure everything within the timeline goes the way it should, then it only makes sense that madness would eventually ensue — a madness that will surely keep Doctor Strange’s hands full for his own sequel film, too.
