The multiverse has been the main focus of the MCU’s aptly named Multiverse Saga, which is made up of Phases 4, 5, and 6 of the MCU, running from WandaVision to Avengers: Secret Wars. While not all of the Saga’s projects have featured the multiverse, it has been the most common recurring theme, appearing in projects like Loki, Spider-Man: No Way Home, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, The Marvels, Deadpool & Wolverine, and more.
The Marvel multiverse has existed far longer than the MCU has, as it is comprised of every dimension, timeline, and parallel reality from throughout Marvel’s history, including Marvel Comics, Marvel movies not canon to the MCU, toys, and so much more. However, in bringing the Marvel multiverse to the MCU, the movies have attempted to explain how it works to general audiences throughout the different projects. So, here is everything we know about Marvel’s multiverse before Avengers: Doomsday.
The MCU’s multiverse is a lot, and much like our own universe, we may never know the full history and complexities of it. The franchise has introduced some explanations thus far, and here are all of the rules, concepts, and terms that we know about. However, all of these are theories put forward by Marvel characters who exist in the Multiverse. Thus, future projects could reveal that these theories are incorrect.
Introduced in Loki, The Time Variance Authority is an organization founded by He Who Remains, with it existing for the purpose of keeping evil variants of He Who Remains from appearing. Variants were originally defined as multiversal deviations of individuals who exist on the Sacred Timeline (more on that in a minute). So, when Loki took the Tesseract and escaped custody in 2012, he became a variant, as he didn’t live through the events of the Thor sequels and Avengers: Infinity War.
The TVA uses the Temporal Loom in order to turn the raw timeline into a maintained, ordered timeline, which under He Who Remains’ rule was named the Sacred Timeline. Specifically, the Sacred Timeline was a collection of realities that were actively allowed to flourish by the TVA (which had been infiltrated by He Who Remains). All realities that weren’t part of the Sacred Timeline were pruned, including variants, in an attempt to stop Kang-specific variants from popping up and challenging He Who Remains. However, when Loki and his own variant Sylvie discover the TVA’s true purpose, they kill He Who Remains – liberating the multiverse and ending the concept of the Sacred Timeline. At the end of Loki season 2, Loki reshapes the multiverse into a tree resembling Yggdrasil, an idea that will most likely be explored further in Avengers: Doomsday.
It’s worth noting that, since the Sacred Timeline is now gone, the term “variant” is more colloquial – refering to different versions of the same character across the multiverse.
According to Loki, Nexus Events are events that cause the creation of a new, branching timeline. Since the TVA was maintaining the Sacred Timeline in Loki season 1, all Nexus Events were branching off of it. An example of a Nexus Event would be Loki stealing the Tesseract in 2012, leading to the events of Loki – i.e. creating an entirely new timeline based on a key variant emerging.
On the contrary, What If…? introduced the concept of Absolute Points, which are events that must happen in a timeline, and if they don’t, the timeline becomes unstable and dies. The show offers Christine’s death in the storyline of a Doctor Strange variant “Strange Supreme” as an example of this – since she dies every time Strange attempts to prevent her death, until his universe collapses.
Check out the final scene of Strange Supreme learning this the hard way:
Absolute points are similar but distinct from Canon Events, which aren’t part of the MCU, but have been introduced in Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, which is part of Marvel’s multiverse. Canon Events are events that are required to happen in all timelines, and if they don’t, the timeline will collapse. An example of a Canon Event is a loved-one of a Spider-person dying, i.e. the deaths of Uncle Ben, Jefferson Davis, and Peter Parker to Peter Parker, Miles Morales, and Gwen Stacy, respectively.
Deadpool & Wolverine built on these previous projects by introducing Anchor Beings, which are described as beings so important to a particular timeline that, if they die, the timeline will slowly die with them. Wolverine in Earth-10005 is an example of an anchor being, as the TVA decides to prune the FOX X-Men universe after his death in Logan – only to be stopped by Deadpool and “The Worst Wolverine” variant.
Lastly, and most importantly to the upcoming Doomsday movie, are Incursions. As explained in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, Incursions are what happen when multiversal travel or meddling leads to the destruction of one or more universes. An example of this can be seen when a Doctor Strange variant uses dreamwalking to defeat Thanos, causing the destruction of his timeline. It is theorized that Incursions will play a major role in the story of Avengers: Doomsday – following the time-travel shenanigans and reversal of The Snap in Avengers: Endgame. The undoing of The Snap and potentially selfish actions of characters such as Steve Rogers, who almost-certainly created a destabilizing event when he went back in time and reunited with Peggy Carter in the past.
