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While the plots of both Avengers: Doomsday and Avengers: Secret Wars remain under tightly-guarded wraps at Marvel Studios, the cast announcement for Avengers: Doomsday appears to have let slip a pretty significant spoiler about one of the plot mechanics that is going bridge the two movies — namely, just how is the MCU as we know it going to transform into the world of Secret Wars?

The answer lies in the fact that Loki actor Tom Hiddleston has been announced to appear in Doomsday — an appearance that can only mean bad things for the current reality of the Marvel Multiverse.

The final episode of Disney+’s Loki series, 2023’s ‘Glorious Purpose,’ sees the character wrestle with the question of how to prevent the collapse of all reality in the wake of the death of He Who Remains, who had previously been pruning the multiverse into the Sacred Timeline, in order to prevent a multiverse war and utter destruction. The answer he finally arrives at is that he himself has to replace He Who Remains, and surrender permanently at the end of time to literally hold the multiverse together and keep reality alive. It is, after a lifetime of selfish behavior, the ultimate sacrifice, because it requires that Loki has to always be present to keep reality together, or else… bad things.

So let’s just say that the fact that we’re going to see Loki at all in Doomsday doesn’t seem entirely promising for reality.

While it’s unlikely to expect Avengers: Doomsday or Avengers: Secret Wars to map entirely onto an existing comic book storyline — see earlier MCU efforts like Avengers: Age of Ultron or Captain America: Civil War, neither of which entirely adapt their comic book namesakes — one constant in Doctor Doom’s behavior in his comic book incarnation is that he will always try to steal omnipotence or something similar whenever given the chance; it’s therefore not too much of a stretch to assume that Loki’s benign reign as the person keeping all of reality together will be interrupted by Doom, before everything goes horribly wrong… leaving only a small patchwork of existence left for Avengers: Secret Wars to take place.

This is, of course, simply speculation — but, given the context, it also feels like the only direction the movies can go in, given their ultimate destination. We have a little over a year before Avengers: Doomsday his theaters (on May 1, 2026) to find out if we’re right or wrong.

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