The following contains spoilers for the first episode of Marvel Studios’ Loki.

When 2019’s Avengers: Endgame closed out the 23-film “Infinity Saga,” fans already knew of multiple Marvel Studios productions in development - as satisfied as they were, many couldn’t help but wonder what would come next. After all, it’s difficult to narratively follow up a conflict that almost resulted in the destruction of the universe. Then again, what is a single universe when compared to a whole network of them?

Marvel Studios’ Loki, though mostly concerned with its title character’s journey through time and space, has begun building the bedrock of the MCU’s future by including the introduction of the multiverse. The information that’ll encircle the many movies and shows of the second “Saga” in the coming years was fed to audiences in the show’s pilot. Despite its placement as the third Marvel production of its era, could Loki's show be the true kickoff for the next 23-film event?

RELATED: Why ‘Loki’ Could Be The Most Crucial Disney Plus Series For The MCU

As the recently-imprisoned Loki is shoved through the bureaucratic Time Variant Authority’s security checks, he’s greeted on a nearby television by Miss Minutes, the TVA’s apparent mascot. Designed by way of classic corporate American pop art and armed to charm with a thick Southern accent, the cartoon clock lays out the TVA’s history and purpose, which includes a reveal more shocking than anything divulged in the previous two Marvel Studios shows, WandaVision and The Falcon and the Winter Soldier.

Through a scarily authentic recreation of 1960s TV animation, Miss Minutes reveals the existence of an ancient multiverse. Ages ago, this multiverse’s many timelines clashed in cyclical conflict, vying for supremacy. The ensuing chaos came close to swallowing whole the multiverse, obliterating the many timelines. In an effort to prevent dimensional doomsday, three cosmic beings called the “Time Keepers” reconstructed the multiverse into a single “Sacred Timeline.” The TVA maintains the timeline by preventing “Variants” - members of the Sacred Timeline who deviate from the instructed path - from accidentally spawning branches of timelines which would, according to Miss Minutes, inevitably result in the exact battling and bloodshed the Time Keepers wanted to avoid.

In just 100 seconds, Miss Minutes provides the single most important exposé in the MCU since the introduction of the Infinity Stones in 2014’s Guardians of the Galaxy. Though Marvel Studios has been clear about their plans to use a multiverse in the MCU over the last two years, the notion that it doesn’t currently exist within the canon is itself a deviation from the normal path laid out for stories of this kind. In most popular media that utilizes multiversal theory, like Stranger Things or Rick and Morty, creation is never part of the equation. Normally, the existence of multiple universes within a franchise is established alongside the ability to travel between them, any genesis completely ignored. Loki’s pilot posits the MCU has chosen to start its multiverse saga one step back from most - the Marvel Cinematic Multiverse must be created before it can be explored.

Though Loki’s only just begun his unpaid internship at the TVA, it’s difficult to imagine that a character so obsessively driven by self-preservation would simply finish his assignment with agent Mobius and return to the Sacred Timeline, fully aware of his gruesome death. Additionally, the idea that Marvel Studios would explain the apparent existence of a previous multiverse without leading into a new one is not only “absurd,” as the God of Mischief would say, but it’s also provably false. During her PSA, Miss Minutes describes the creation of a new multiverse as “madness” - one of the biggest productions of Marvel Studios’ “Phase 4” slate of movies and shows is 2022’s Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. The consistency in adjective use is clear as day: whether it be by Loki’s hand, Stephen Strange’s, or someone else’s, a multiverse will be created, and it will serve as the centerpiece of the MCU’s second multi-film conflict: the Multiverse Saga.

But of all the jaw-dropping implications in the animated sequence, the one that will likely be discussed the most is the TVA’s worst-case scenario: “another multiversal war,” as Miss Minutes says. Putting aside what wars waged between universes even look like (the animated sequence only depicts streaks of color bumping into each other), the way the possibility is treated as a foregone conclusion is an easy indicator that it’s precisely where the MCU is headed. A superpowered being - whether aligned with the forces of good or not - will initiate the widest and most devastating conflict the Avengers have ever faced. Though the Saga’s Endgame equivalent may not arrive for many years, it makes sense for the first domino to fall with Loki - after all, why else would Loki’s show receive a prologue within Endgame’s time-heist shenanigans?

Furthermore, designing a story around creating a multiverse provides an excellent thematic foundation for this new saga. Miss Minutes essentially confirms fate is tangible and actively enforced in the MCU. Everything that transpired during the Infinity Saga is exactly how it should have, according to the Time Keepers - but when an arbiter of fate is introduced to a story, it’s extremely rare for that story’s protagonist to abide by them for long. Schools of thought like free will and predestination cover so many facets of the human condition, from religion to the meaning of life; it’s a boon for character development and thematic exploration, the same way themes of family and community were so integral to the Infinity Saga.

By all accounts, the seeds of the Multiverse Saga have been sown, and though this garden of possibilities is years away from reaching its bloom, Loki’s pilot proves there’s no rush. It may take a decade to arrive at a multiversal battle between the next generation of Avengers and the next great cosmic threat to all of existence, but there will be plenty of multiversal conflicts before then.

More: Loki: Episode 1 Review