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Are ‘Quantumania’, ‘Loki’, and ‘Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3’ all conspiring to foreshadow the X-Men’s belated MCU debut?

Marvel is known to seed the existence of certain characters years before they make their official debuts.

Loki
Photo via Disney Plus/Marvel Studios

This article contains major spoilers for Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania

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Later this year, audiences will get the second season of the Loki television show on Disney Plus. The show’s inaugural outing ended with a cliffhanger and not, until now, have fans finally received anything even approaching a hint as to where the follow-up will lead the titular god of mischief and his friends at the TVA.

Following Scott Lang’s defeat of Kang at the climax of Quantumania, we see Tom Hiddleston’s Loki and Owen Wilson’s Mobius tracking down another Kang variant in the Victorian era. Here, Wilson’s character is not convinced of his malevolence while Loki is, but don’t let that back and forth misdirect you. It’s the setting in which they dispute Kang’s nature that holds all the secrets.

Specifically, the villain of the coming Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 film was active in the Victorian period. High Evolutionary Herbert Wyndham was born in England, began his experiments in the 1920s, and soon had a serum in his possession that allowed for genetic alteration. The villain will be brought to life by Chukwudi Iwuji in Gunn’s final Marvel movie, and, depending on how long Loki and Mobius stay in this time period, we could very well be catching a glimpse of Wyndham. As well, Marvel is known to seed the existence of certain characters years before they make their official debuts, and, so, it is necessary to also look at just who from the X-Men franchise may be running around in the background of Loki’s story in addition.

At this time, Nathaniel Essex was also working in the sciences. Better known as Mr. Sinister, he inspired Wyndham to pursue a similar path before crossing paths with Apocalypse and willingly agreeing to be transformed into the monstrous figure comics fans know and love. After this, he would fight the X-Men several times, cross paths with James Howlett/Logan/Wolverine before the gruff Canadian lost his memories, and even engineered a child one of the heroic characters would have. Some of this is probably too dense to include in several hours of television, but we may at least get a reference to Wolverine if we’re lucky.

For now, all we can do is wait and see. Here’s hoping that, whatever happens, the sequel lives up to the hype.

Loki season 2 has yet to receive an official release date.