‘Avengers: Endgame Encore’ Officially Makes Marvel’s Best Series Required Viewing

Published Oct 1, 2026, 9:36 PM EDT

Julio is a Senior Author for Collider. He studied History and International Relations at university, but found his calling in cultural journalism. When he isn't writing, Julio also teaches English at a nearby school. He has lived in São Paulo most of his life, where he covers CCXP and other big events. Having loved movies, music, and TV from an early age, he prides himself in knowing every minute detail about the things he loves. When he is older, he dreams of owning a movie theater in a small countryside town.

Avengers: Endgame Encore is officially supposed to lay the groundwork for the release of Avengers: Doomsday later this year, but it might have just given everyone some extra homework. The good news is that this new piece of required viewing is the best series Marvel has ever released. The former God of Mischief himself (Tom Hiddleston) shows up in Avengers: Endgame Encore's first end-credits scene, interrupting Steve Rogers' (Chris Evans) and Peggy Carter's (Hayley Atwell) dance to warn them about an upcoming threat and tell them that he can help. In the last, everyone at the TVA freaks out as they watch the multiverse collapsing in real time. It's up to Avengers: Doomsday to clarify what is really going on in these scenes, but those who have watched this Disney+ series have one hell of a head start.

‘Loki’ Properly Introduces the Multiverse to the MCU

The Marvel Cinematic Universe has its own confusing timeline, but, thankfully, one doesn't need to have watched everything to enjoy Loki. That's because the series begins with Loki fleeing after grabbing the Tesseract and vanishing after Avengers: Endgame, only to be almost immediately intercepted by Time Variance Authority agents. He is then taken to the TVA headquarters, where he learns about the Sacred Timeline (the main MCU timeline), and that what he just did risked creating a new branched timeline that has to be "pruned."

Throughout the series, Loki meets many versions of himself that were pruned, too, like the vengeful Sylvie (Sophia Di Martino), and TVA agents like the jet-ski-loving Mobius (Owen Wilson) and O.B. (Ke Huy Quan), as well as He Who Remains (Jonathan Majors), a Kang variant who created the TVA to protect the Sacred Timeline and prevent a multiversal war. Loki also comes to understand that his own "glorious purpose" isn't to rule Asgard, but to protect the multiverse and the beings that live in its infinite branches.

Seasons 1 and 2 are technically part of the MCU's Phase Four and Five, respectively, but that really doesn't matter for Loki's story and continuity. Loki has always been one of Marvel's best characters and finally gets his due in the series, leaving the title of God of Mischief behind to become the God of Stories and the official protector of the multiverse — which is why his role in Avengers: Doomsday is so important.

‘Loki’ Also Introduces the Multiverse's Most Important Rules

Image via Disney+

The Multiverse Saga is arguably the most science fiction-y part of the MCU so far, with its own rules and lingo. Avengers: Endgame explains how some of it works via the time heist, and while that may seem confusing at first, these shenanigans are actually what make it so fun. Concepts like "incursions" and "anchor beings" have already appeared in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness and Deadpool & Wolverine, respectively, and Loki greatly expands this by explaining the hows and whys of the multiverse.

The TVA's job is initially to keep the Sacred Timeline from branching off, as that inevitably leads to a multiverse. There are many tools and mechanisms to prevent branched timelines, but ultimately, full containment proves impossible in the long run, with the Multiversal Tree eventually replacing the Sacred Timeline as the TVA's priority. Now, instead of erasing every timeline except for the Sacred Timeline, they work to prevent branched timelines from colliding and causing incursions.

With so many branches, there are different variants of the same beings. As they make different decisions across timelines, the multiverse grows, and pruned branches are sent to the Void at the End of Time (also seen in Deadpool & Wolverine), where they await permanent destruction at the hands of the transtemporal entity Alioth. Incursions are often inevitable, but in Avengers: Endgame Encore, Mobius and O.B. witness more than three thousand simultaneous incursions, which is unprecedented.

Loki’s Role in ‘Avengers: Endgame Encore’ Hints at the TVA’s Demise

In the first end-credits scene in Avengers: Endgame Encore, Loki showing up at Steve and Peggy's house is supposed to link all the way back to him vanishing with the Tesseract in 2012 during the time heist, but everything that happens in between takes place in the Disney+ series. As the God of Stories, he quite literally holds the multiverse together, but the scope of his individual abilities is still a mystery.

It's also unclear how Doctor Doom (Robert Downey Jr.) will fit into all this as the main villain, but in the end-credits scene in The Fantastic Four: First Steps, he shows up at the Baxter Building using a device that sounds exactly like a TVA Timedoor, so it's likely that he's encountered the TVA somehow. If that's the case, and considering the thousands of incursions seen in Avengers: Endgame Encore, then the TVA ultimately fails in its job as the multiverse's official regulatory agency.

All these questions are for Avengers: Doomsday to answer, but to fully grasp how important Loki's role and the TVA really are, you definitely have to watch his series. The good thing is that Loki only has two seasons, is one of the best projects Marvel has ever released, and there's still plenty of time before Avengers: Doomsday comes out, so it won't be anything close to an ordeal. So, get to watching, unless you want to end up in the Void at the End of Time.