During her grand entrance, Miss Minutes dropped a huge bombshell on the MCU as we know it — the Multiverse.
Theories about the Multiverse have been swirling for years. It was featured in Sony’s Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse and was hinted at in Marvel’s Doctor Strange, but theories surrounding its impending arrival were heavily featured earlier this year during WandaVision. Now, Loki has finally gone and made it a reality in the MCU … multiple realities actually.
The Multiverse, simply put, is alternate realities existing on the same timeline, the Sacred Timeline (read that like Miss Minutes says it). The MCU exists upon the reality Earth-199999, while the Marvel comics main continuity is on Earth-616, and the X-Men films on Earth-TRN414, for example. Our heroes will exist in other forms across the Multiverse’s realities as well.
The Time Variance Authority, or the TVA, are the protectors of the Sacred Timeline of Multiverse, which means they actually exist outside of the Multiverse. So when Mobius says, “Time works differently here at the TVA,” it’s because they’re an entirely separate entity from reality and time itself. Their “agents” and other “employees” are created, rather than born, and some will never see life outside of the TVA (hence why Casey was asking what a fish was).
We’ll have to wait to see how the Time-Keepers come into play here in the MCU, as already their story is different than that of the comics. Interestingly enough, the remotes used to control the TVA’s prisoners remotes are referred to as Time-Twisters, which is the name of the Time-Keepers adversaries in the comics.
The number of realities in Marvel is infinite, so opening up this door in the MCU is quite literally one of the largest things they’ve done to date. This opens the door for the films to explore new versions of old characters (no, it doesn’t mean Steve Rogers or Tony Stark are just going to pop back in to say hi, though) just as they have in the comics. New storylines, new arcs, new traits, it’s all possible within alternate realities.
There are a few individuals we know now in the MCU, or we know are coming, that can access other realities in the Multiverse, most notably Doctor Strange and Wanda Maximoff, but also a third hero coming into play very soon — the Young Avenger America Chavez, who will make her grand debut in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness.
Also, expect to see a larger explanation of the Multiverse and what it is later this year in Eternals, the Celestials are main players in the Multiverse’s creation, as well as more in next spring’s Doctor Strange sequel.
