It took a year, but I'm convinced Marvel just subtly set up Loki's return to the MCU with the perfect response to his ending

Warning: This article contains SPOILERS for What If...? season 3

Just over a year ago, Loki'The story of No MCU had a perfect ending. Having survived the original plans to kill him outright in Phase 2, Thor's adopted brother has run the spectrum from villain to antihero to bona fide hero, all while saving billions of lives by negotiating his own freedom.

In Loki At the end of Season 2, the God of Mischief ascends to a new role as God of Stories, on a throne at the heart of the multiverse. The twist is the moving culmination of Loki's entire arc, as Tom Hiddleston's antihero reclaimed his own history and brought Odin's prophecy about his son sitting on a throne to reality. There is currently no indication that Marvel plans to make Loki Season 3, but that doesn't mean he shouldn't be back in one of the MCU's future releases. In fact, I would say it was a necessity at this point.

Surprisingly, And if...? Season 3 may have set the perfect path for Loki's return, despite Tom Hiddleston's only appearance being as the Frost Giant variant of Loki, whose current plan for paternal approval is to turn Jotunheim into a luxurious ski resort. This part has absolutely nothing to do with Loki's future: instead, it's the revelations at the end that really matter.

Loki's future in the MCU is essential despite his perfect ending

The Multiverse will face another major challenge in the coming years

Despite how final Loki's "sacrifice" was, there's certainly no way Hiddleston's redeemed antihero won't return as the MCU's Multiverse Saga moves toward its conclusion. If the next Avengers: Secret Wars follows something similar to the script offered by the original comics, so the entire Multiverse - in fact, all of existence - will be in danger. Loki may have assumed his new role to allow all strands to coexist and fulfill their destinies, but allowing a total extinction event seems a step too far.

Thanks to the confusing history of the MCU's multiverse, threads, dimensions, planes of existence, and realities seem like interchangeable concepts that serve different stories as the writers see fit. Secret Wars' the writing team will have to navigate this, likely taking the lead from The wonders' post-credits scene that saw the “prime” reality colliding with one containing Kelsey Grammer's Beast and Maria Rambeau's Proton variant, but Loki's position at the heart of the multiverse is still not something that can be ignored.

There is, of course, the frightening possibility that Loki will have to be removed from the picture for whoever plays the role of the main villain in Secret Wars. This could be part Avengers: Judgment Daythe story and the perfect way to prepare for the threat of Doctor Doom, assuming he will be the last big bad in the Multiverse. But Loki choosing to intervene would be much more exciting, and And if...? establish exactly the logic of how this could happen.

And if...? The Watcher Plot Perfectly Defied Loki's Ending

Uatu admits one of the MCU's most destructive villains could very well be right

Despite all the multiverse twists and colorful variants, the most interesting idea introduced in And if...? Season 3 is a challenge to the Watchers' status quo. After intervening a few times previously And if...? episodes, Jeffrey Wright's Uatu was taken ahead of his fellow Watchers - the Eminence, the Executioner, and the Incarnate - and made to answer for his crimes as a heretic.

Uatu takes a stand, rather than crumble under the divine power of his fellow Watchers, proclaiming the failure of his mission and his oath to refuse to interfere. In an eloquent exchange, Uatu says that a garden must be cultivated to thrive, not just observed. His speech undermines the idea of ​​any incredibly powerful force in the multiverse – including Loki – being passive in the face of an enormous threat:

Surely you must realize that for a garden to prosper, it must be cultivated, so that its trees grow taller, its flowers bloom brighter and... and the pests that threaten to destroy everything are eliminated.

His argument is that right living must be encouraged and toxic elements – the weeds of the multiverse, by analogy – must be pruned. In a shocking turn of events, the Observer essentially admits that the logic of the TVA's mission under He Who Remains was, in fact, correct. Yes, it was over-applied as Loki'David's first villain represented God for his own ends, but the idea of ​​careful cultivation for survival in the bigger picture as needed still fits.

What price would you get for Loki having the same revelation? He is not the Abiding One and is not the Observer at the other end of the spectrum, but the God of Stories has the responsibility to preserve the multiple branches of the multiverse. It is particularly intriguing that Uatu uses the garden analogy to And if...? while Loki sits at the foot of a tree. Could we be prepared to see the same kind of abandonment of position for the greater good in Loki's future?

All 8 episodes of And if...? season 8 is now available on Disney+.

• Release date

  February 14, 2025
  

• Release date

  July 25, 2025
  

• Release date

  July 24, 2026