The “Loki” TV show was one of the few truly great Marvel series so far. The show took a fan-favorite character that never really got his proper due in the movies and gave him several episodes of story to flesh out his character, give him a proper arc, some bizarre introspection via a romance with a variant of himself, and some truly stunning visuals courtesy of directors like Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead.

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Perhaps most impressively, “Loki” was the first live-action Marvel Studios TV show to get a second season, and the show took that opportunity to deliver one of the most poignant moments in the history of Marvel and a true ending to the title character’s journey. In the season 2 finale, Loki finally found and embraced his glorious purpose by essentially becoming The God of Stories, holding together the very fabric of all existence in his hands, keeping the branching timelines in harmony and effectively ending the idea of aberrations.

It was a perfect ending, so of course Marvel had to ruin it by bringing Tom Hiddleston back for “Avengers: Doomsday.” Though you’d be forgiven for thinking there is no way in hell this could be feasible, nerds online already have their brains working on theories for how it could happen.

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In the original “Secret Wars” comic, The Beyonder is a godlike being with such tremendous power he gathers heroes and villains from across the Marvel multiverse on Battleworld, which is essentially a Thunderdome the size of a planet. Why does he do this? So he can watch heroes and villains fight to the death for his own amusement. In the comics, the character is a proxy for the reader and how they demand certain things out of comic books.

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In both the original and the 2015 comic book version of “Secret Wars,” Doom steals the powers of The Beyonder to rule Battleworld as a god, and “Avengers: Doomsday” is building up to a “Secret Wars” movie that takes place in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

What about Loki, you say? Well, given the God of Mischief is now the God of Stories, Redditors are theorizing that Loki could be given the powers of The Beyonder, as he already holds all the timelines together. Doom could potentially kidnap Loki and force him to tamper with every timeline in order to bring together all the Avengers and X-Men from across the multiverse for a big battle royale.

Will whatever the Russo Brothers have up their sleeves for “Avengers: Doomsday” be worth the trade-off of undoing the cathartic satisfaction we experienced at the end of “Loki” season 2? We’ll find out on May 1, 2026.

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