Loki
has been streaming on Disney Plus for months now, so how could it explain any more Avengers: Endgame mysteries so late after its conclusion? Well, each new MCU movie or TV show impacts the main storyline. And with each new finale, we get one more important piece of the overall puzzle. In this case, What If…? just concluded, with Marvel airing the finale on
What If…? makes you realize that the multiverse is a lot bigger and more dangerous than we could have imagined. Most living beings have no idea there is a multiverse, and it’ll come as a massive revelation to the Avengers in the MCU. The What If…? TV series also brought us incredible villains and a greater need to contain those threats. But before I explain how it all ties to Loki and Endgame, I’ll have to remind you that massive spoilers follow below.
Loki changed everything
The Loki finale is probably one of the most consequential pieces of MCU content so far. One episode is enough to give us a massive villain, a Kang variation (Jonathan Majors), who can destroy entire alternate timelines with his TVA organization. The goal of that project is to ensure the Sacred Timeline adheres to a carefully devised plan.
The Kang variant tells us that everything in the Sacred Timeline happened because he wanted it to happen in that particular way. The fact that Loki (Tom Hiddleston) and Sylvie (Sophia Di Martino) have made it to him is also predestined. This means Kang micromanaged everything we have witnessed in the MCU Infinity Saga until that point. He wanted events to happen in a particular way to prevent multiversal war. All Nexus events that created alternate realities had to be destroyed.
The What If…? connection
We learned in What If…? episode 8 that Ultron (Ross Marquand) would have been a more dangerous foe than Thanos (Josh Brolin) had he beaten the Avengers. He could have understood the Infinity Stones and used them in a way mortal beings couldn’t. And he would have destroyed the entire universe before realizing there’s a multiverse. Then, he would just restart his cycle of bringing death to everything.
The What If…? finale made us realize how dangerous that Infinity Ultron was. The Watcher (Jeffrey Wright) broke his vows and fought the villain by acting as a Nick Fury of the multiverse. He created the Guardians of the Multiverse, an Avengers-like team of superheroes who managed to halt Ultron. Mind you, they only blocked Ultron from doing more damage rather than eliminating the threat completely.
This made me realize how good the main MCU timeline had it. Thanks to the Kang version, our Avengers beat Ultron. This ensured the universe survived. Furthermore, this made me realize how important Kang’s role really is. And how powerful of a villain he could become. He must have mapped the fates of all the Avengers in great detail. He was there every step of the way.
In other words, absolutely everything in Infinity War and Endgame happened that way because Kang wanted it. Marvel used a cheap trick for sticking the landing with Endgame. Doctor Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) said in Infinity War that they only win in a single scenario. That helped explain any issue with the Endgame plot. Whatever you might not like in the sequence of events, we had an answer. The Avengers had no other way of fixing things.
Kang is the answer for every heartbreaking Avengers Endgame plot detail
One of the puzzling decisions the Avengers made in Endgame concerns the battle plan. Of all the available superheroes, they decided to send to entrust one of the most daring missions to two space newbies. Clint Barton (Jeremy Renner) and Natasha Romanoff (Scarlet Johansson) went to Vormir to retrieve the Soul Stone.
Black Widow had some space travel experience, but it was minimal. And Hawkeye had none. Yet, they went to the most dangerous place possible to complete a mission they had no idea how to finish. The rest is history. Nat sacrificed herself so that the Avengers could live in what turned out to be one of the epic, heartbreaking moments of Endgame.
That’s to say that Marvel needed this couple to fight that battle. Even if it didn’t make perfect sense, Nat and Clint had to travel to Vormir. And there are ways to explain it all. The other Avengers have to travel to universes they know to perform specific tasks, as seen in the Time Heist. Also, others would not dare go to Vormir, to begin with — that’s you Ant-Man (Paul Rudd). Then, of course, there’s Strange’s “only way.” Events had to follow a particular plan so that Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.) could save everyone at the end of Endgame.
Now that we saw Loki and What If…?, it’s absolutely clear that Kang wanted it this way. Black Widow and Hawkeye might be an unlikely pairing for Vormir, but they had to go. Kang might have tried other variations of the mission — fixing the world after Thanos’s early win. But the only one that stuck the landing was the one where Nat and Clint realize what they have to do, and do it. For Kang, there probably was no other way. As for the audience, we got this amazing scene:
