Marvel uses the word “multiverse” for two very different things. One is a branch, a fork in a single timeline that the TVA can prune or tend. The other is a separate universe, a whole reality with its own history and its own movies. The studio rarely says which one it means. That habit gets expensive when “Avengers: Doomsday” arrives on December 18th.
Here is the short version. A branch is a fork in one timeline, and a universe is a whole world with its own past. Branches get pruned or tended. Universes collide. Read Marvel’s stories with that split in mind and a lot of them click into place, and you can also see where the studio blurs the line itself. Warning beyond this point there are spoilers for “Loki,” “Avengers: Endgame,” “What If…?,” “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness,” “Spider-Man: No Way Home,” “Venom: Let There Be Carnage” and “Deadpool & Wolverine”.
A branch is a fork in one timeline, and a universe is a whole world with its own past.”
Start with the branch, because “Loki” gave it a name. Slashfilm describes variants as deviations from the Sacred Timeline that create alternate timelines through their actions. The TVA existed to prune those forks before they spread. The series itself begins with a branch that “Avengers: Endgame” created, when Loki (Tom Hiddleston) escapes with the Tesseract in 2012. By the season 2 finale he has gathered the dying branches into a tree called Yggdrasil. Slashfilm says the branching timelines now co-exist in harmony. They are still forks of one story, and the TVA just stopped cutting them.
“Endgame” gave the branch its first diagram. Hulk (Mark Ruffalo) visits the Ancient One (Tilda Swinton) in 2012 to borrow the Time Stone. She answers with a magical version of the branching-timeline chart Doc Brown draws in “Back to the Future Part II,” according to TheWrap. Pull a stone out of its timeline and Looper says the film describes a new branch that is dark and chaotic. BGR notes that Hulk promises to return every stone to prevent any nasty timeline branches. That promise drives the ending, when Looper says Captain America carries each stone back to where it started.
Then the film blurs its own line. TheWrap calls the Ancient One’s world “a parallel universe,” and it says the Avengers are either visiting an alternate universe’s past or building an alternate timeline inside their own. The outlet adds that the difference hardly matters, because “Endgame” does not dwell on its mechanics. That is the problem in one sentence, because if a timeline and a universe are interchangeable then the words stop meaning anything.
“What If…?” leans into the vagueness. Sportskeeda says the first episode imagines Peggy Carter (Hayley Atwell) taking the super-soldier serum instead of Steve Rogers (Chris Evans). Uatu (Jeffrey Wright), the Watcher, narrates and does not interfere. The trailer pitched reality as a “prism of endless possibility,” Slashfilm reported. Slashfilm described the show as a set of alternate realities, versions of the MCU that are slightly or vastly different from the films. A single divergence that fills a whole season is not a branch anyone prunes, because it has become a world.
“Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness” is where the other idea takes over. Doctor Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) crosses into Earth-838, a world with its own Illuminati and its own history. The Ancient One tells Strange back in 2016 that this universe is only one of an infinite number, Slashfilm recalls. Slashfilm also warned that Marvel movies are less and less interested in explaining the differences between Earths 616 and 838, so BGR does the explaining. An incursion occurs when the boundary between universes erodes and they collide, it says. The Illuminati say their own Strange caused one, and BGR says one of the two worlds involved was wiped out completely. Nobody prunes that. Two real worlds are trying to occupy the same space.
“Spider-Man: No Way Home” does the same thing with a cast. Doctor Strange’s spell goes wrong and pulls visitors from other universes into the MCU. Peter Parker (Tom Holland) meets two older Peters, played by Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield, plus villains such as the Green Goblin (Willem Dafoe). Slashfilm notes that the villains arrive from the moment before they died, while the two Peters come from their own present days. Slashfilm’s recap shows how easily the two words mix. It wonders whether curing a villain will start “a whole new timeline” and “give birth to a new universe.” Sportskeeda says Electro (Jamie Foxx) sits on a separate timeline even from Garfield’s Peter although they share a universe.
Sony’s Venom films stage the same collision as a tease. In the “Venom: Let There Be Carnage” credits scene, Eddie Brock (Tom Hardy) and his symbiote are thrown into a different hotel, where the TV shows Peter Parker being outed as Spider-Man, according to Looper. ScreenCrush quoted director Andy Serkis in October 2021 saying the scene left audiences knowing “these universes are going to somehow collide.” ScreenCrush adds that Hardy said he believes the Venom universe and the Spider-Man universe are linked. That is a statement about two worlds, not a fork.
“Deadpool & Wolverine” shows the muddle from both sides. Slashfilm puts Wade (Ryan Reynolds) on “his timeline, Earth-10005,” while Looper calls the same world “Wade’s universe.” Digital Trends names Logan (Hugh Jackman) its anchor, a figure whose death would mean “the end of their timeline.” Whatever the word, the world is complete, and it starts to unravel once its anchor is gone. The main MCU gets the same treatment. Looper says a TVA agent shows Wade Earth-616, aka “The Sacred Timeline,” a name that began as one line and now labels a universe. Looper also says it is implied that the Void’s castaways come from universes the TVA pruned.
Now put that next to “Avengers: Doomsday.” TechRadar prints the plot brief, which promises heroes from “three distinct universes” on “a deadly collision course.” Look at the verb. Branches fork. Universes collide. TechRadar says the film will expand on incursions, the events where the boundary between two universes breaks down, and it says the only outcome is the destruction of one or both realities. Looper’s reading of the July trailer agrees with that. Charles Xavier (Patrick Stewart) watches a cataclysm in the sky, which Looper says represents an incursion. A diagram behind Reed Richards (Pedro Pascal) shows three connected circles.
Marvel has not said which three universes those are. TechRadar’s reading is that the Fantastic Four and the MCU heroes unite to stop their worlds from crashing together, then travel to the Fox X-Men universe, which refuses to join them. Slashfilm adds that fans think a brief moment between two of the Fantastic Four hides an incursion in the background, with a whole universe coming apart. That is a fan reading, not a Marvel statement. Either way, the premise needs real, separate worlds. A fork cannot collide with its own trunk.
That leaves the TVA. Back in 2023, Dexerto wrote that the tree frees the agency from pruning, so it can tend the timelines while the story heads toward “Secret Wars,” which would likely involve the incursions of different universes. Loki is on Marvel’s cast announcement for Doomsday, and TechRadar’s August list of 30 actors still includes him. A caretaker of branches may be the wrong tool for a collision of worlds. We find out when the film opens.
What Do You Think? Is a branch still a branch once it gets its own movies? Did “Loki” make the tree too tidy for a collision of real worlds? And if Doomsday forces a choice between two universes, should the TVA step in at all?
Catch up properly: every MCU movie and show in chronological order on the MCU+ Universe Tree.
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