Avengers: Endgame was supposed to be just that: the endgame, the final moments of the Infinity Saga. However, that hasn’t quite turned out to be true. Recently, Avengers: Endgame has returned to theaters as a way to debut Marvel’s new “Infinity Vision” format. This event, titled Avengers: Endgame Encore, brought the three-hour epic back to theaters with the added bonus of new footage.
Even though these extra scenes only totaled a few minutes, they massively changed the state of the MCU heading into Avengers: Doomsday this December, including something that was hinted at in trailers before. It may seem small, but it could make a Disney+ TV show the most pivotal part of the whole franchise.
Avengers: Endgame was made even bigger (and longer) in Avengers: Endgame Encore.
Marvel Studios
There were four new scenes added to Avengers: Endgame Encore. One followed Doom as he forged his mask, and another showed Hulk meeting Doom. But the other two had a unique focus: Loki. One, tacked on immediately after the final scene of Steve and Peggy dancing, showed Loki at the door in his Time Variance Authority uniform, asking for Steve’s help with something. Another came later, showing the crew at the TVA — Agent Mobius, O.B., and Casey — watching two timelines on a collision course. “The multiverse is collapsing,” O.B. says.
Why focus half of these additional scenes on Loki? Because, simply put, he’s kind of the patron saint of the multiverse in the MCU. In his series Loki, which premiered all the way back at the start of MCU TV in 2021 and ran for two seasons.
Loki’s sacrifice in Loki Season 2 was supposed to prevent the multiverse from collapsing, but that’s exactly what’s happening in the bonus scene in Avengers: Endgame Encore.
Marvel Studios
Even though this series came and went without much of a dent in MCU canon, it’s actually proving to be very important for Doomsday. Loki established the TVA as the regulatory body in charge of rogue timelines, which would be “pruned” and eliminated. They existed to keep the multiverse at bay, but that was undone by Loki in Season 1. At the end of Season 2, he sacrificed himself so the multiverse could exist in harmony without collapsing. However, it looks like something happened to make that sacrifice all for naught.
The way timelines work in the MCU has always been very complicated and often quite confusing, but Loki actually spells it out and makes it a little easier to understand, though because it’s buried in the archives of Disney+, you’d be surprised how many fans have never seen it. Relying on previously established lore from a TV show is a risky move — just look at how Dr. Strange in the Multiverse of Madness relied on WandaVision to its detriment — but maybe these teases will encourage fans to get up to speed.
