Multiverse Circusfest

Welcome everyone. As you well know, the 2nd arc of the MCU focuses on the concept of the Multiverse. It’s only been alluded to or mentioned in the MCU a handful of times so far- literally. If you count Loki, Spiderman NWH, Multiverse of Madness, Quantumania, and What If , that’s five properties which reference the Multiverse. How many fingers and a thumb are there on one hand? Five. A handful. My wife Maria and I have discussed about how even the writers at Marvel Studios haven’t an inkling of what they’re doing so, of course, I was left to figure things out and logically ponder and come to a settlement of how the Multiverse “circusfest” works.

First off, I came to the conclusion that timelines, realities, and dimensions are all distinct. Timelines exist within realities which are synonymous with universes. Reality=universe. Alternate reality=alternate universe. We ourselves live in our own reality/universe. There is no reason to confusingly think that a timeline means a different universe. That same ONE reality simply branches off in different directions from its main course. Events in time happen differently within a given branch. The Sacred Timeline which the MCU takes place in is known as Universe 616. The Avengers are from Earth-616. Now for those uber-Marvelites that say “but the universe in the comics is Earth-616”, well, yes you are correct. The term first appeared in Captain Britain comics who is well known for his multiversal adventures: Earth-616 was designated as the mainstream comics universe. Earth 199999 aka the MCU reality was first designated in the Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe Vol.5 (2008) after Iron Man was released in May of that year. No one from 616 save a few (Doctor Strange, Gwenpool, and Loki) are aware of its existence and its respective designation. Many characters in 616 are aware that is the numbered reality they live in but few to none are aware that the MCU universe is known as 199999. To the audiences that watch the MCU, those that pay attention to the number of alternate realities, and the three characters that I mentioned before, they know it as 199999. Since the MCU is meant to be its own unique Marvel universe that adapts elements from the comics, it makes sense as to why Christine Palmer designated it Earth-616 ergo the prime Earth in the film universe vs the prime Earth in the comics. They are two distinct main universes in their respective mediums.

When the Avengers travel back in time they are still within the Sacred Timeline. Picture the Sacred Timeline as a tree, rooted on 616 soil and growing branches out from the trunk which is the main path. The branches are all still part of one organism so it’s all one. Different tree=different universe. Forest=multiverse. Now picture a pair of pants if you will. What do men’s pants have that women’s pants don’t? Once you know the answer to that riddle, that is what the Dark Dimension, Mirror Dimension, Noor Dimension, and Ta Lo are in relation to the Sacred Timeline. Pockets. Not pizza pockets, not hot pockets, not pocket monsters. Pants pockets. POCKET DIMENSIONS. Asgard is simply another realm, not a pocket dimension so think of Asgard like a nest where Earth would be a different nest and the dimensions as holes in the tree where all manner of different creatures inhabit them.

Remember VHS tapes? That you could rewind and fast forward? Good times huh? (Cue song by Cher or Stressed Out by Twenty-One Pilots). 616 can fast forward as far as eons after the 31st century (as claimed by He Who Remains) and rewind all the way to before the Big Bang when but Celestials, Dark Elves, and 6 specific singularities existed. That’s 15 billion years ago from the start of the 21st century give or take, plus the years from the start of the 21st century all the way to the 31st century which is 1000 years. And then add billions of years onto that, number undeterminable. In this future much after the 31st century, a Multiversal war assumedly goes down where Kangs from different universes (trees) want to conquer the Multiverse Forest for themselves so one of them takes it upon himself to use a creature called Alioth to end said war although it is never explained exactly how it ends or what happened to the other Kangs. He Who Remains then says that he “ISOLATED” their universe, whatever the hell that means.

By that logic, I assume that he somehow became a sort of time cop and utilizes time to monitor the Sacred Timeline from the beginning all the way to the end of time hence his Citadel at the End of Time. Being a professional gardener, he prunes the branches on his tree that may bring forth any of his variants lest he leave a branch long enough for a Kang squirrel to jump from universal tree to universal tree and he can’t have that. Any sort of event that may potentially bring about a Kang is known as a Nexus event. That tree ain’t big enough for more than one Kang. Lot of unexplained information and then there’s the Kang variant hanging out in the Quantum Realm. Remember, the Quantum Realm is just a pocket to the Sacred Timeline. Not another universe. So we know that he was exiled from the Council of Kangs sometime in the future and ends up in the QR sometime between 1987 and 2018 and meets Janet Van Dyne again in July 2026. I see two explanations for Kang being there: either Kang is 616’s variant and is there somehow or he actually got exiled there specifically by the Council. I assume that they, along with He Who Remains exist outside time or so far ahead in time.

So far we know that the only being capable of traversing the Multiverse by will is America Chavez. We saw her unintentionally jump through various realities, one which was known as 838. And like one of the realities that we saw, the concept of the Multiverse is a mess of paint, thrown haphazardly all over a wall. Audiences are expected to just follow and understand and that’s why casual non-hardcore MCU fans were dropping like flies- its become too complex to keep up with, anything that involves time always is. Don’t even get me started on Kang’s vague backstory in Ant-Man on how he obtained his power. He just has powers. Ugh. This, I hope, is remedied in Loki Season 2, now that its begun and will be focusing on a variant of Kang known as Victor Timely. Maybe the season will give us answers. HOPEFULLY.

Lastly, to clear up matters whether the events of Loki had anything to do with NWH, they do not. It was an independent event, one where Wong explicitly said that the Runes of Kof Kol straddle the limits of known and unknown reality and he was right because the spell, which was supposed to make everyone forget that Peter Parker was Spiderman, was tainted and instead had the effect of opening a rift into 616 and allowed anyone who knew Peter was Spiderman into 616. This included Tobey Maguire’s and Andrew Garfield’s incarnations of Peter to get through and variants of their villains (Octavius, Osborn, Electro, Lizard, Sandman) as well as Tom Hardy’s Venom. Garfield’s and Maguire’s realities are known as 120703 and 96283 respectively and since we saw both of them make an appearance in Across the Spiderverse, we know that universe is connected as well. With the Multiverse concept now in the MCU its easy to connect anything to anything from Caillou to Dragonball to Power Rangers to Dora. Nuff said.