The MCU has officially reached peak self-referential levels, previously thought impossible, as the TVA featured in Disney’s Loki series and the Deadpool & Wolverine film is now being tied into… the actual comic books.
Alright this one is kind of hard to explain, but heads up in case you’ve yet to see it - explaining this is essentially going to spoil the entirety of Deadpool & Wolverine.
I think there’s like three people alive who haven’t seen that film yet, so if you happen to be one of them then here’s your spoiler warning (also, shout out to Comicbook’s Cameron Bonomolo for the source).
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TVA is an upcoming comic book series from Marvel Comics that will feature characters from the MCU’s Time Variance Authority, such as Agent Mobius, B-15 and Miss Minutes… but it doesn’t actually seem like it’ll tie into the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
Captain America: Brave New World is up next for the MCU.
To clarify, it seems like the series is just an excuse to make some of these characters canon.
The TVA itself isn’t something that originated in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, as the group actually originated in Thor vol. 1 issue #372 back in October 1986, but several of these characters are non-canon to the comics - well, until now.
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Think of it like how Harley Quinn first appeared in the Batman: The Animated Series cartoon, before she was eventually added to the comics several years later in the late 90s.
Characters like Agent Mobius and Miss Minutes aren’t the only things that are jumping ship from the MCU though, as the TVA series will also focus on Peggy Carter’s Captain Britain and an out-of-time variant of Gambit (hey, that’s just like the Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness and Deadpool & Wolverine!)
Of course, there’s always the chance that this will in fact actually loop back around to becoming MCU-canon, as the TVA do directly deal with multiverse-related nonsense.
So I guess, if you think about it, this comic about the MCU that’s not part of the MCU is actually part of the MCU because one of the multiverses in the comics is the MCU… my head hurts.