The Marvel Cinematic Universe always raises the bar whenever Earth's Mightiest Heroes assemble on the big screen. Every new Avengers movie is bigger and greater in scope compared to the last, and the same appears to hold true for the highly anticipated Avengers: Doomsday.
So far, it has been officially confirmed that 27 characters will make an appearance in the upcoming crossover, and such a lengthy list isn't even complete yet. But given that so many heroes will fight for the spotlight, we need to ask the question: Who will benefit from having a leading role, and who will barely get any screen time?
Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame devised a clever solution for balancing many characters between the two. Those who barely had any participation in the former film took a step forward in the latter. With that in mind, we can assume the same strategy will be utilized in Doomsday and Secret Wars to ensure that fans get a chance to see their favorite heroes shine at least once across the two projects. However, it seems an iconic fan-favorite will be the exception to this rule as he will steal the spotlight on both occasions.
Loki will reportedly have a prominent role in Avengers: Doomsday and Secret Wars
There's a reason he always comes back from the dead. According to renowned insider Alex Perez (via The Cosmic Circus), Loki will have a prominent role in Avengers: Doomsday and Avengers: Secret Wars, and it will be due to all the information he learned on quantum mechanics, physics, and engineering during the second season of his Disney+ show. Furthermore, we can't forget how he's single-handedly keeping alive all branched timelines of the MCU.
To understand why the God of Mischief is instrumental moving forward, we need to do a bit of a recap. Loki season 2 was all about a race against time. He Who Remains had the sole mission of keeping his universe completely isolated by pruning all of its branched timelines, which are alternate realities that originate from a single decision going in a different direction than it was supposed to, eventually resulting in a different chain of events. If a branched timeline is left unattended, it can grow with the passing of time and eventually risk colliding with another universe, causing an incursion in the process.
Given that Sylvie killed He Who Remains during the ending of Loki Season 1, there's no one left to ensure the MCU doesn't have any more branched timelines. While that seemed like a good idea on paper (as entire alternate realities weren't decimated in the blink of an eye), it also raised another problem: The TVA couldn't keep up with so many branched timelines, and the entire MCU was at risk of collapsing. While Loki tried to do everything in his power to prevent this catastrophe, he failed on every single attempt. Finally, he had to do the unthinkable to save us all: Learn about quantum mechanics.
See, the TVA had a device called the Temporal Loom, which refines time itself into a physical timeline. However, with the rapid growth of all the branched timelines, the Loom started to fall short, and it couldn't process so many realities at once. While the brilliant mind of O.B. could have built a device that would expand the Loom's capacity, he didn't have enough time to do so before the collapse of reality as a whole. So, Loki decided to travel to the past, learn everything he could from O.B., and build the device himself back then so that it could be ready for use after the passing of He Who Remains.
While the device didn't work and Loki ended up holding all of the MCU's branched realities on his own, his knowledge of the multiverse will surely prove useful in the future. After all, it's been heavily rumored that Doctor Doom wants to stop the threat of incursions by eliminating the multiverse as a whole and instead creating Battleworld (which is a conglomeration of multiple universes in one). Surely Earth's Mightiest Heroes will look to undo Doom's actions, and Loki could be the only man who's knowledgeable enough to separate Battleworld into multiple universes yet again.
That could open the doors for the God of Mischief to join forces with other brilliant minds, such as Reed Richards and perhaps a multiversal version of Tony Stark. Besides, the fact that the former supervillain alone holds many branching timelines on his hands will surely put him in Doom's crosshairs at the beginning of the movie. Last, but certainly not least, Avengers: Doomsday and Secret Wars both have the potential to feature Thor and Loki's long-awaited reunion, which could be enough to bring tears to our eyes.
Loki has been an instrumental character since the first phase of the MCU. We've seen him grow from a fearful villain to perhaps one of the most selfless heroes in recent memories, and we can't wait to see what the upcoming Avengers movies have in store for him.