‘Loki’ Changed the Marvel Cinematic Universe Forever

And that’s a wrap on Loki Season 1! We’re now three series deep into Marvel Studios’ TV takeover, which makes this the third post about whether or not a superhero show was a success. I think it’s clear that Marvel Studios is making very good television—and those Emmy nominations back this claim up, even if one of them is a stretch. But now, after dropping three seasons in six months, it seems clear that there are three different, equally valid ways to measure a Marvel show’s success. There’s ambition, there’s viewership, and there’s, for lack of a better term, mattering.

WandaVision’s success was in its ambition, in the way it took two bit players and made them two of the most emotionally complex live-action superheroes ever. The Falcon and the Winter Soldier was less ambitious, stylistically, as it was more or less a straightforward action series/political thriller—but wow, did it bring in the viewers. Mind you, WandaVision’s ratings were impressive too, and the show got way more meme traction than possibly any other show in 2021, period. And both WandaVision and TFATWS definitely matter in the grand tale of the MCU. We have a new Captain America—and we know he’s legit because he’s in a car commercial! But Loki is the first Marvel show to tick all three of these boxes—especially that third one.

Mattering may not matter to MCU fans without a background in comic book fandom, but to the comic fans? Nothing is more important. Comic book fans want to know, first and foremost, that the stories they’re reading acknowledge what came before or have an impact on what’s to come—but preferably both. That’s why stories that change continuity are so controversial, and stories set outside of continuity are seen as skippable. It’s a metric of success that might just be unique to comics, and that’s why it’s applicable to the MCU shows. That’s why fans of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. are so spicy about the suggestion that their fave show may not be part of the MCU anymore. Those episodes will still exist whether or not they’re part of the MCU, but they won’t matter—and, for some reason, that matters a lot. After 13 years, the MCU is as dense a continuity as anything you’d find in a comic shop—and that’s why mattering is important.

Of all the Marvel Studios shows we’ve seen, Loki matters the most to the MCU’s shared continuity.

Yeah, Loki was also creatively ambitious and meme-able and the biggest ratings hit of the three. But where Loki really succeeded was in the continuity department. It’s not hyperbolic to say that Loki’s Season 1 finale is the biggest game-changer in the entire MCU since that Thanos cameo at the end of 2012’s Marvel’s The Avengers. That’s all because of Jonathan Majors, a.k.a. He Who Remains, a.k.a. Kang.

Kang is a big deal. He’s a major villain from the comics and one of the few Marvel supervillains with the power and gravitas to follow in Thanos’ footsteps. We already know that Majors will appear as Kang in 2023’s Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, but, considering the character’s surprise debut in Loki (even if we saw it coming), we’ll probably be seeing a lot of Kang variants in a lot of surprising places between now and then. That Loki finale is now a major MCU moment because it contains our first look at the guy who’s gonna be terrorizing all of our faves over the next few years.

The fact that Loki pulled off that reveal, introducing a completely new and completely major character in the last episode without it feeling forced, is commendable. But it’s even bigger than that. Not only is Kang the MCU’s next Thanos-level threat, but the chain reaction of events triggered by Sylvie stabbing HWR literally redefines the MCU as we know it. With He Who Remains out of the picture, the timeline’s able to branch out willy-nilly. Where once there was a sacred timeline, there’s now a tangle of timelines that the MCU is definitely going to explore.

We knew before Loki debuted that 2021’s Spider-Man: No Way Home and 2022’s Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness would focus on alternate realities. But because of Loki, we now know why they’re focusing on alternate realities. On top of that, the next MCU show is the animated What If…? series, a series that will show off nearly a dozen of these newly-created splintered timelines. So, uh, hope you like multiverses!

And all of that, all of those feature film ramifications, spins out of Loki—a TV show on Disney+. This ain’t the first connection between screens big and small; Black Widow gave us an end credits scene that tied into two D+ shows. But Loki doesn’t just tie into the movies. Loki redefines the movies. Loki redefines the MCU. Moving forward, a lot of major moments will all be traced back to the fulfillment of Sylvie’s vendetta against the TVA. In the world of comics, that’s a massive sign of success. It’s like forever altering the trajectory of the biggest film franchise in history was Loki’s actual glorious purpose.

Stream Loki on Disney+