(Warning: Includes spoilers for Loki Season 1)
“This universe is only one of an infinite number. Worlds without end. Some benevolent and life giving. Others filled with malice and hunger. Dark places where powers older than time lie ravenous…and waiting.”
- The Ancient One, Doctor Strange (2016)
Growing up watching Marvel movies and eagerly following every new project in the MCU, I cannot help but marvel (pun intended) at the groundbreaking science and technology featured in the movies. Now, as the Marvel Cinematic Universe dives deeper into its highly anticipated fourth phase, more and more audiences are becoming acquainted with the concept of a "multiverse" within the franchise. Even the upcoming Doctor Strange movie is called Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. But what exactly is a multiverse, really? Is our universe actually part of a larger multiverse?
In simple terms, the theory of a multiverse implies that our universe is not the only existing one, rather part of a larger, hypothetical group of multiple universes, hence the name "multiverse." Together, all of these parallel universes make up the entirety of existence, even possessing their own laws of physics which govern the nature of each universe.
Since the theory's first conception in the 1950s, there have been many speculations as to how a multiverse is formed, but to dive into that we must first have a better understanding of the conception of our own universe. You might have heard about the theory of the Big Bang and the expansion of the universe; about 13.8 billion years ago, the universe started from a tiny, hot and dense point that exploded, followed by a period of “inflation” which happened less than a second after. In such a brief amount of time, the universe underwent a period of expansion, “inflating” and becoming exponentially larger in size. Eventually, the said inflation elapsed and resulted in a slower, increasing expansion, forming stars, galaxies, planets and eventually, life.
This small period of inflation is critical to describing how our universe is structured. First introduced by physicist Alan Guth in 1980, the theory of inflation provides an explanation as to how the shape of our universe came to be, and perhaps the most prominent way to describe it.
Although the inflation of the universe is thought to have ended about 14 billion years ago, some suggest that it might not have stopped everywhere at the same time. There is a possibility that as inflation ends in one universe, it will continue in another. This could mean that while inflation ended in our universe, it may have continued in other distant, larger portions of reality. Such a phenomenon would create an infinite sea of “eternal inflation” filled with many individual universes, each with its own sets of particles, laws of physics, fundamental constants, and arrangements of forces. Thus, the creation of a multiverse.
In the MCU, we are first given a teaser of the Multiverse in Doctor Strange (2016) and in Avengers: Endgame (2019), we get a better glimpse of how the Multiverse works within the movie's time travel mechanics. Time travel in the movie works according to multiverse theory, but with its own twists. In the multiverse theory, each time a different outcome occurs at a quantum level, the universe will split and create a new universe for each quantum possibility. Each branch of that universe is isolated from and cannot influence one another. In the MCU, everytime someone travels back in time, they create a new parallel universe. In short, according to the real multiverse theory, a new universe is created at every decision point, whilst the MCU's version only recognises branch timelines that arise from time travel. For example, when the Avengers travel to 2012 New York to retrieve the infinity stones, there were at least 3 possible outcomes. In the original timeline, the Space Stone and the Mind Stone (stored in the Tesseract and the Scepter respectively) were brought back to Asgard. In the event where the Avengers successfully steal the targeted stones, they would create a branch in the timeline and fundamentally alter the shape of the multiverse. Part of the plan backfires however, as Loki ends up escaping with the Tesseract, causing Tony Stark and Steve Rogers to travel back to 1970 and setting up the events of Loki (2021).
After travelling to a different point in time, Loki then gets arrested by the Time Variance Authority (TVA), an organization that works to prevent time-travel based interference and preserve the state of the multiverse in a single "sacred timeline." The reasons for these motives would be explained in the Season 1 finale, where He Who Remains, the mastermind behind the TVA, is revealed. Eons ago, He Who Remains discovered variants of himself and cooperated with them to better each of their realities. However, there were also evil variants of himself who sought the power granted by their multi-dimensional travel. The variants engaged in a Multiversal War that almost wiped out all of existence. Though he fears the possibility of another war, He Who Remains ultimately left Loki and Sylvie to decide the fate of the Multiverse, which ends in Sylvie killing him and causing the Sacred Timeline to branch, sparking the beginning of a new Multiversal War.
Recently, viewers are being introduced to the many alternate timelines within the Multiverse in What If…? (2021). Each episode shows us various major events in past MCU movies with a twist, such as Peggy Carter becoming Captain Britain, T'Challa as Star-Lord, Ultron defeating the Avengers, and more. Who knows what else the Multiverse has in store?
Now, with upcoming movies like Spider-Man: No Way Home, Doctor Strange 2 and Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania that might deliver us more details on the Multiverse, it is interesting and exciting to see where the MCU will go beyond its current boundaries.
References
Sutter, P. (2021). "What is multiverse theory?". Retrieved October 26, 2021 from https://www.livescience.com/multiverse
Kuhn, R. L. (2016). "Confronting the Multiverse: What 'Infinite Universes' Would Mean". Retrieved October 28, 2021 from https://www.space.com/31465-is-our-universe-just-one-of-many-in-a-multiverse.html
Walsh, M. (2021). "Everything You Need to Know About the MCU's Multiverse". Retrieved October 26, 2021 from https://nerdist.com/article/marvel-multiverse-explained-doctor-strange-wandavision-loki-mcu/
Druhora, D. (2021). “The Last Word: The Multiverse of Clifford Johnson”. Retrieved October 31st, 2021 from https://magazine.viterbi.usc.edu/fall-2021/the-last-word/the-last-word-the-multiverse-of-clifford-johnson/
Ward, C. (2021). "The MCU Might Have Introduced The Multiverse. Are We Just One Of Many Realities?". Retrieved October 31st, 2021 from https://www.syfy.com/syfy-wire/multiverse-science-wandavision-alternate-reality
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