MCU Theory: Sylvie’s Timeline Bombs Created The X-Men

Caution: spoilers ahead for Loki.

The X-Men will land in the MCU one way or another - might Loki's Sylvie Laufeydottir be responsible for their arrival? Ever since Disney's acquisition of Fox in early 2019, MCU fans have been eagerly anticipating major new characters who previously sat beyond Kevin Feige's reach. The Marvel Studios boss has already confirmed the Fantastic Four are on their merry way, and Marvel's first family look set to debut, appropriately, toward the end of Phase 4. Four-tunately, Mr. Fantastic and his friends are relatively simple to introduce. For one thing, the group's origin can easily take place within the present MCU timeline. Also, Fox's Fantastic Four movies have largely been forgotten, meaning audiences are already ready for a fresh (better) take.

The X-Men, however, pose a far more complex challenge. Marvel's mutants can't just pop out of thin air, nor is there any workable way to reveal they were "here all along." And it's not just Charles Xavier's super-school the MCU needs to address - it's an entire race of heroes and villains wielding a wide array of superpowers throughout recorded history. Bringing mutants to the MCU will take some considerable doing, and the mechanics of their coming remain a mystery to everyone but Feige himself (and perhaps even him too).

Given how mutants are so deeply ingrained in Marvel lore, many fans believe the X-Men will be brought to the MCU via the multiverse. Somewhere out there in the quantum vastness is an alternate universe where mutants have existed for centuries, and this reality will soon crossover with the mainline MCU. The multiverse is something Tom Hiddleston's Loki is intimately familiar with thanks to his recent adventures on Disney+, and the God of Mischief might've just witnessed variant counterpart Sylvie push the domino that ultimately leads to Xavier's X-Men battling Magneto's Brotherhood on the big screen once again.

Sylvie's Bombing Meant A Lot To The Timeline

Loki TVA helped Lady Loki attack the timeline

As told by the Time Variance Authority, the MCU was previously comprised of numerous warring realities, but now exists upon one Sacred Timeline. Any deviation from that path is "pruned" by reset charges that decimate the growing splinter timeline and, as part of her revenge plan against the TVA, Sylvie stole a bunch of these temporal grenades and set them off simultaneously. Instead of targeting unwanted Nexus events like the TVA do, Sylvie bombed a selection of years and locations across the Sacred Timeline, ranging from 14th century Rome to Dartford, England in 2006. The damage caused by this bombardment can be seen on the TVA's own monitors, with an explosion of unplanned Nexus events triggering branch timelines at a staggering rate.

Thanks to the TVA's helpful instruction video, we know these splinter realities are significantly changed from the established MCU in at least one aspect. The diversity of Variant Lokis proves by itself how heavily one simple alteration can affect history, and Sylvie made alterations en masse. The Nexus timelines also carry a strict time limit for pruning, and should a branch reality develop beyond this point, it can't be brushed away with a mere reset charge. This means many wildly different riffs on the MCU were created in the aftermath of Sylvie's attack. The real question is whether any of them survived.

Loki Didn't Show The Aftermath Of The Bombing

Loki Episode 2 Reset Charge On Time Door

When Sophia Di Martino's Sylvie made her shock Loki debut, it seemed that bombing the Sacred Timeline was her masterplan all along. The Variant had been busily collecting reset charges from downed Minutemen, after all. In truth, the tactic was merely a distraction to draw the Minutemen away from TVA headquarters, keep them busy fixing the bombing damage, and then waltz into the Time-Keepers' room for sweet, sweet vengeance. After that plan fails and the two Lokis are arrested, however, the entire bombing becomes an afterthought. The TVA appears to have shaken off the attack, dealt with the diverging timelines easily enough, and returned to bag themselves a two-for-one Loki discount on Lamentis-1. Since her plan was only a diversion, it's possible that Sylvie calculated an assault that would divert the TVA's attention, but wasn't beyond the organization's capabilities, thus avoiding permanent damage to the Sacred Timeline. Had Sylvie not been stranded on Lamentis-1, the ploy might've bought her enough time to succeed.

As things stand, Loki hasn't revealed how Sylvie's bombing was fixed by the TVA, whether Sylvie caused irreversible Nexus changes, or whether any branches escaped pruning in the mad rush across time and space. And if viewers don't know for sure what became of Sylvie's bombing, the door of possibility remains very much ajar.

Theory: Sylvie's Bombs Created A Branch Where The X-Men Exist

Whether or not the TVA's "one Sacred Timeline"claim is true or not, it seems irrefutable that Sylvie's bombing sparked a wave of new realities into existence. The attacks spanned a wide period of Earth history, going back at least as far as the 14th century, and likely even further. One effect of Sylvie's bombs might've been a timeline where humanity's X gene turned from dormant to dominant, creating a sub-species of mutants that can be traced back throughout mankind's history, similar to how fans remember from the Marvel comics.

In Loki episode 4, the audience is led to assume that any such alternate timelines would've been erased as the Minutemen frantically rushed to restore order, but we've seen already how a Nexus timeline accelerates faster depending on the severity of the change. Loki and Sylvie falling making eyes at each other, for example, ascends steeply because the ramifications are so significant. The activation of the X gene surely represents an even greater variation, and would develop at such a rapid rate the TVA may not have pruned it in time.

Having passed the point of no return, an additional MCU reality might now exist - one where mutantkind was left to develop up to the modern era, with Professor X's X-Men and Magneto's brotherhood replacing the Avengers, HYDRA and Thanos. This would be somewhat akin to Fox X-Men universe fans know and love (albeit not the same continuity), where mutants are the only superheroes in town. Sylvie couldn't possibly have planned for this eventuality, but given how unpredictable timeline variance can be, it's only logical that if she disrupted mankind's evolution far back enough in history, the entire species' might've developed differently - namely through laser eyes, psychic powers and super-long tongues.

How The X-Men Can Appear In The Sacred Timeline

The X-Men from the Dark Phoenix movie, with Jean Grey prominent

If Sylvie did accidentally create the X-Men with her volley of reset charges, that still doesn't explain how Wolverine, Toad and Cyclops can mix it up with Wanda, Thor and Captain America in the MCU. If the altered X-gene timeline still stands, the most obvious route is taking the same Quantum Realm Ant-Man led the Avengers through in Avengers: Endgame, since this mysterious plane seems capable of serving as a route between worlds and realities.

Operating specifically within Loki's ballpark, however, it's possible the God of Mischief himself could bring the X-Men into Marvel's movie universe. One popular theory suggests Loki will end with every deleted variant being brought into the Sacred Timeline. The God of Mischief has endured more than enough empty TVA rhetoric, and now the likes of Mobius have been outed as ex-Variants, Loki might be compelled to lead the captured souls back home, where some can resume their former lives, and others can forge new ones. This could be how mutants traverse into our universe, especially if the X-Men timeline created by Sylvie did get pruned. In this case, mutant characters would carry a semblance of X-Men history with them - key events that happened in their altered continuity. Intriguingly, Loki's New York apocalypse post-credits in episode 4 suggests pruned timelines are saved, rather than destroyed. So even if the X-gene reality got pruned, it might still exist in a form Loki and Sylvie could rescue.

Although the TVA's word is worth as much as Mobius' imaginary jet ski, there might be some truth to their story about an ancient war between conflicting timelines, and this tale provides another route the X-Men can take into the MCU. Just as the "Time-Keepers" were said to have melded universes to create the Sacred Timeline, the MCU's reality could (eventually) be merged with Sylvie's X-Men timeline to create a hybrid of the two - effectively retconning the MCU's fictional history to allow for mutants. No one ever said parachuting Charles Xavier and the gang into the MCU sandbox would be easy, but Sylvie's timeline bombing at least poses one option for Kevin Feige to consider.

More: Loki: Every MCU Easter Egg In Episode 4

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