MCU's Phase 4 Explained

The Disney+ series “Loki” had its first season come to a close, and with the second season expected to film next year, many fans are excited. For a bit of a refresher, Sylvie (a female Loki variant) killed Kang and opened up the multiverse. But what exactly is the multiverse?

In Doctor Strange, The Ancient One described our universe as “one of an infinite number”. This referred to the collection of alternate dimensions created under one huge universe. In Spider-Man: Far From Home, Mysterio refers to “this world” as “Earth 616”. In the comics, this was the primary universe where most events in Marvel took place. This could also mean that Earth 616 was the Sacred Timeline, which is basically the main and “only” flow of time. In Loki, the Sacred Timeline was explained and was a major plot point. When someone does something that is different from what the timeline intends them to, they cause branches in the timeline to form. If left unchecked, these can open up an infinite number of realities, causing everything to go haywire. The following quote from Michael Waldron, Loki’s head writer will hopefully explain it better, “Okay, The best I can explain it is basically that time is always happening. So there are infinite instances of time always occurring at once.”

In Endgame, every Marvel movie connects to the main plot they are driving, which is about Thanos gathering the infinity stones and wiping out half the universe and the same goes for their series on Disney+. You need to watch Loki and WandaVision to catch up with the things happening in Phase 4. However, it isn’t necessary to watch them both in order to understand Spider-Man: No Way Home. The three of them are directly connected and set up the second Doctor Strange movie. In No Way Home’s trailer, Peter was responsible for messing up Strange’s spell and causing chaos in the timeline. In Loki, Sylvie opened up the multiverse by killing its watcher. And Wanda is confirmed to appear in Doctor Strange 2 after she became the Scarlet Witch.

In conclusion, every dimension and reality in any possible combination exists under one huge universe, and that is called the multiverse. So in another reality, you could be ten centimeters taller, you could also have long wavy glittery hair and since there are infinite possibilities, there would be a universe out there where you could be a walking and talking banana! While there is a rough idea of the multiverse, what will happen in the long term run of the 4th and 5th phase of the MCU is mostly unknown.