When does Loki take place in the Marvel timeline?
This is going to get confusing. The question of where Loki takes place in the Marvel timeline is a complex one, mostly thanks to the show already leaning heavily on time travel and a great deal of new exposition. Throw in the Time Variance Authority with their ability to exist outside the traditional confines of linear time and Lokis place in the MCU is suddenly called to question. We not only dont know where the God of Mischief is, but its also tricky to pinpoint when he is too. Still, there are answers to the temporal teaser. Below, well run through the short (and long) answer to where Loki fits into the Marvel timeline. (Image credit: Marvel Studios)  The beginning of Loki technically takes place during 2012s The Avengers. Happily enough, thats also the in-universe MCU year of 2012, 11 years before the events of Avengers: Endgame. During the first Avengers, Loki is defeated by the titular superhero team and is waiting to be being whisked away to Asgard. As a warning, this is as simple as its going to get. Avengers: Endgame, though, throws a serious spanner in the works. Following the death of Thanos, some members of the Avengers travel back in time to the events of the first Avengers movie and inadvertently cause a split timeline in 2012. Ant-Man and Iron Mans attempts to grab the Tesseract from SHIELD/Hydra custody are thwarted by a rampaging Hulk. Amid the chaos, Loki absconds with the Tesseract. Thats where the Loki series picks up from  and its a serious paradox for those who know Lokis MCU future. Hes not meant to be in the Gobi Desert, for starters, during the end of 2012s Avengers. (Image credit: Marvel Studios)  Captain America patched up most of the paradoxes by returning the Infinity Stones to their rightful place in the main timeline (now known as the Sacred Timeline) after the returning Thanos defeat. However, Lokis escape with the Tesseract in one version of 2012 still causes a split timeline known as a "Nexus Event"  a time-based anomaly that verges off from the Sacred Timeline. Thats why the TVA wants to kill Loki during the Disney Plus shows premiere  to make sure only one Loki exists as part of the Sacred Timeline and to avoid any timey-wimey headaches like the one youre currently suffering through. The Loki (which well call 2012-Loki to make things distinct) that escaped is the one were following in the TV series. Its an earlier version of the same character who would go on to appear in future movies. To be clear: 2012-Loki is, as far as we know, a separate character to the Loki who perished in Avengers: Infinity War. That Loki would go on to live in the Sacred Timeline and undergo serious character development through the already-charted events of Thor: The Dark World and Thor: Ragnarok before dying at Thanos hand. 2012-Loki, helpfully, finds out all about that thanks to a movie reel from the TVAs Mobius M. Mobius. In terms of a dated timeline, the TVA exists out of time  so we cant put a current year on Lokis TV show, though it definitively takes place chronologically after 2012 and the whole thing happens because of the events of Endgame that saw Earths Mightiest Heroes travel back in time. Main timeline Loki goes on to be imprisoned and lives through everything that weve seen in the MCU up until this point. The story of 2012-Loki, though, has yet to be written. Lokis timeline up to The Avengers, in terms of MCU appearances, is nice and simple: Thor (set in 2011) then The Avengers in 2012. Then, the timeline splits in 2012 thanks to the events of Avengers: Endgame. We get two Lokis out of that: mainline Loki who gets taken back to Asgard after his defeat, and 2012-Loki who steals the Tesseract. The mainline Loki then appears in Thor: The Dark World, Thor: Ragnarok, and Avengers: Infinity War. This is not the same Loki that appears in the Loki series. 2012-Loki goes from The Avengers into a split timeline caused by time travel in Avengers: Endgame. He escapes to the Gobi Desert with the Tesseract in 2012 before being taken in by the TVA. 2012-Lokis story is still ongoing, so we dont know where (or when) hell end up next. In list form, it looks like this  starting with the mainline Loki timeline:  Thor (2011)  The Avengers (2012)  Thor: The Dark World (2013)  Thor: Ragnarok (2017)  Avengers: Infinity War (2017)  Mainline Loki dies  2012-Loki is the same character as mainline Loki up until the time travel scene in Avengers: Endgame  which takes place during 2012 in a split timeline version of The Avengers. (Image credit: Marvel Studios)  One version of Loki is. In much the same way Thanos saw his future selfs death in Avengers: Endgame, the God of Mischief was given a recap of the tragic events that played out involving his mainline self in the Sacred Timeline. That Loki is dead; 2012-Loki is very much alive  and able to go anywhere and do anything now he's under the watchful eye of the TVA. We shudder to think about how he could mess with the timeline further when all is said and done. Much more straightforward. Find out when the next episode drops with our Loki release schedule.