The multiverse is a fairly new concept (and one we know frighteningly little about, according to a certain Sorcerer Supreme), but the Marvel Cinematic Universe‘s new favorite storytelling device has already made a huge splash in Phase Four, which is still only a year old.
WandaVision, Loki, Spider-Man: No Way Home, and now Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness all share a loose narrative throughline of sorts, and it’s going to become increasingly tricky for Kevin Feige and his team to make sense of it all the further we delve into the conceit.
Benedict Cumberbatch might be sick of discussing the after-effects of his botched No Way Home spell, but Feige has ridden to the rescue with a suitable in-canon excuse. Talking at the Multiverse of Madness premiere, the MCU’s head honcho certainly made it sound as though it was part of the plan all along.
“You know, there’s always a method to the madness even at the multiverse and to the fans who know that Loki and Sylvie did something at the end of that series that sort of allowed all of this to be possible. He Who Remains is gone and that allowed a spell to go wrong in Spider-Man: No Way Home, which leads to the entire multiverse going quite mad.”
There you have it, the season 1 finale of Loki is the first breadcrumb in a trail that leads us directly into Sam Raimi’s Doctor Strange sequel, helping to explain any narrative inconsistencies in No Way Home for good measure, all thanks to a big bad that doubles as a time traveling warlord.
