The first trailer for the highly anticipated Loki Disney+ streaming series debuted recently. There are lots of reasons to be excited about the Loki series; kust one is the huge role that the Time Variance Authority will play. The TVA has been a component of the greater Marvel Comics universe since their debut in Thor #372.
Despite their long tenure within the Marvel universe, they're as omnipresent an organization as say S.H.I.E.L.D. With this being their first foray into live-action, it's likely fans and casual viewers alike will have questions about the time-traveling institution.
10 Time Police
The function of the Time Variance Authority is, in effect, to be time police. The organization monitors all timelines - to a point - within the multiverse. Their primary function is to prevent others from altering the past or future of any timeline, which naturally leads to a lot of conflicts. Time travel is fairly common in the Marvel Universe, and this puts the TVA into opposition with both heroes and villains who seek to set things right or wrong, depending on their perspective.
9 Null Time Zone
The base of operations for the Time Variance Authority is the Null Time Zone. This realm exists outside of normal space and time. There are numerous features of this zone, including the Hall of Discontinued Universes. This 'room' within the zone contains the remnants of discarded timelines. The Fantastic Four visited this strange place in issue #353, during one of the best Fantastic Four runs of all time by writer and artist Walt Simonson.
8 Cross-Time Central Express Railroad
A unique component of Walt Simonson's Fantastic Four story was the Cross-Time Central Express Railroad. The team has been on the run from the Time Variance Authority in issue #353 after initially investigating a time bubble twenty years in the future (which led to the first-ever use of the Ultimate Nullifier). With the zone, nothing quite makes sense. That's brought home when Reed Richards and Sue Storm show up in a steam locomotive, which the team then uses to traverse the infinite expanse of the Null Time Zone.
7 Clones of Gruenwald
The Time Variance Authority is something of a meta concept, and nowhere is that more apparent than in its primary staff. The managers of the TVA are primarily clones of Mark Gruenwald, a Marvel writer who actually came up with the concept. Gruenwald made a habit of putting himself in his comics in background cameos. He also penciled issues during his long tenure at Marvel, which included a ten year run on Captain America from 1985 to 1986 and the 1986 Squadron Supreme mini-series, which some consider to be better than Watchmen.
6 Chronomonitors
Clones of Mark Gruenwald (and fellow Marvel writer Tom DeFalco later on) aren't the only employees of the Time Variance Authority. Most of the low-level staff is composed of the Chronomonitors. These beings appear human, except they have no face at all.
The Chronomonitor comes into being with any new quantum reality, their genesis tethered to the monitoring of that reality from that point forward. Given the many-worlds theory in quantum mechanics, which seems to be in play within Marvel, there are infinite numbers of Chronomonitors.
5 Justice Peace
The Time Variance Authority often employs bounty hunters and mercenaries to track down those who seek to disrupt timelines. Comic books are full of cool bounty hunters. Justice Peace might not be one of them. Peace looks like a more colorful version of Judge Dred and rides a speeder bike-like craft, with stop and go lights on the front. Justice Peace originates from the possible future of Earth-869371, and lived in the largest city-state in North America at the time, Brooklynopolis.
4 Mobius M. Mobius
One of the many clones of Gruenwald working in the Time Variance Authority is Mobius M. Mobius. Defined by his bushy mustache, Mobius was a member of middle management who rose through the ranks of the TVA. He confronted and attempted to punish the Fantastic Four for their perceived transgressions during the Simonson run. Owen Wilson appears to be playing Mobius M. Mobius in the upcoming Loki series, complete with patented mustache.
3 Retroactive Canon
The Retroactive Canon is one of the weapons in the arsenal of the Time Variance Authority and one of the most meta elements of the organization. The weapon, called the Ret Can for short, erases the victim, deleting their existence by undoing their birth and entire history in a single shot. It's of course a nod to the classic comic trope of the retcon.
There have been a lot of Marvel retcons over the years, and some of them weren't that good. The Fantastic Four were instrumental in avoiding one that would have been the worst.
2 The Trial of She-Hulk
Jennifer Walters is known as a superhero lawyer, but once, she was on trial by the Time Variance Authority. In the first arc of the 2005 She-Hulk series, she's put on trial by the TVA for attempting to warn fellow Avenger Hawkeye of his impending death. She's sentenced to die by the Retroactive Canon, but her aid in defeating the villain Clockwise helps make her case. It helps her jurors are largely people from her past, all brought out of time from before their deaths. Given the TVA's role in Loki, it's possible they could be just one of the characters linked to the upcoming Disney+ She-Hulk series.
1 The Time Keepers
The ultimate endgame of the Time Variance Authority is revealed to be the Time Keepers. These three temporal beings are the creation of the last director of the TVA, at the very end of time. These beings emerged as the villains behind Avengers Forever, one of the best Avengers runs ever by writer Kurt Busiek and artist Carlos Pacheco. The Time Keepers seek to eliminate any variant timelines, but neglect to erase one in which they become even more villainous versions of themselves, the Time Twisters.