The first teaser for Marvel Studios' upcoming Disney+ slate didn't reveal much about Loki. Whereas The Falcon and the Winter Soldier and WandaVision took up the most screen time and gave the biggest reveals, it would seem that the God of Mischief's contribution was a lot more subtle. Upon closer inspection, however, the small tease may give way for a highly anticipated Marvel Cinematic Universe debut.
The notable detail comes from the jumpsuit Loki wears in the teaser image which bears the branding "TVA." While the uniform itself seems to be the garb of a prison inmate, the acronym stands for the "Time Variance Authority." Essentially, the TVA is a group of time cops who help keep the Marvel multiverse neat and orderly. Whatever shenanigans Loki gets up to in his upcoming series, it must be pretty serious to draw the organization's attention.
It makes sense the TVA would set their sights on Loki just given that the version of the character set to appear in the show is technically from the past, having escaped capture just after the Battle of New York. It was in Endgame that the MCU first introduced time travel, and a screw up in the past where a supervillain gets to jump through reality with free reign of an Infinity Stone would likely be at the top of the TVA's to-do list. But Loki isn't the only one who's been screwing around with the fabric of the multiverse.
When last audiences saw Ryan Reynolds' Deadpool, he had just finished with a time travel plot of his own. When Cable visited Deadpool's present-day from a dystopic future dead set on preventing his timeline from occurring, it was up to the Merc with a Mouth to make sure he did so without harming an innocent kid. In the end Deadpool was successful, but the Merc with a Mouth is rarely so pure with his intentions. At the end of Deadpool 2, Wade Wilson makes away with Cable's time travel device and gallivants through reality changing however he pleases.
Initially, Deadpool uses the device to save his love Vanessa and fallen X-Force member Peter, but soon after he travels to the X-Men Origins: Wolverine timeline to murder a previous incarnation of his character. He then travels to Ryan Reynolds' home and murders the actor before he could accept a role in Green Lantern. The whole sequence is played as a gag but taken at face value it's the exact kind of delinquency the TVA is meant to guard against.
This would be the perfect way to introduce Deadpool to the MCU, whether Loki was to bump into Wade in the TVA's prison or if they were to partner up to escape. What's so juicy about capitalizing on the reality-hopping angle for Deadpool's introduction is that it allows Marvel to preserve one of the best parts of the Fox X-Men franchise, while still allowing the MCU to do their own iteration of all the other mutants later on. It would even create an in-canon reason for Deadpool to have such weird metaverse awareness.
This doesn't even begin to touch on how great the chemistry of the two characters would be. Given that the incarnation of Loki from the upcoming series would be the darker version from the early days of the MCU, Deadpool would be a great comedic foil to help lighten the load. Little is known about what exactly the Loki series will touch on, but this scenario may be one of the most exciting possibilities.
Loki, starring Tom Hiddleston, is set to hit Disney+ sometime in Spring 2021. Rick & Morty writer Michael Waldron will write the series and be billed as creator, with Sex Education's Kate Herron directing all the episodes.