Victor Timely’s stay at the TVA was both short and long. Soon after arriving he tried to stop the Temporal Loom’s complete failure but before he could, temporal radiation turned him into human spaghetti. What exactly happened to Victor? And what does his demise mean for Loki, the TVA, the Sacred Timeline, and the entire MCU? His un-Timely death just unleashed total chaos—and infinite Kang Variants— on the multiverse.

What Happened to Victor Timely on Loki?

Victor Timely provided the final component O.B. and Casey needed for the device they’d built to expand the Temporal Loom’s capacity. The Throughput Multiplier that Victor designed would ensure the Loom could handle more strands of universes safely, stabilizing the Sacred Timeline.

Just like in the season two premiere with Mobius and the Temporal Extractor, someone needed to physically place that piece of equipment on the Loom. That meant going outside the TVA and risking exposure to extreme temporal energy and “fatal corporeal de-husking.” (A term we know from an official show poster featuring O.B.)

Despite the risk, there was no time to waste. The Loom was ready to burst under the strain of too many branches. Victor, whose temporal aura had unlocked the blast doors, offered to go. Sadly his bravery led to his death. Even with a suit on, the instant Victor stepped outside he burst into ribbons. The amount of temporal radiation had become too much.

Why did Victor turn into spaghetti instead of simply exploding or having his skinned peel off, though? In the show’s season two premiere, Loki asked O.B. what would happen if the Temporal Extractor failed to the pull the Asgaradian out of the time stream. Ouroboros answered with a question. “Well, have you heard about how if you fall into a black hole you turn into spaghetti?” Loki had not, but we have.

What Is “Spaghettification?”

“Spaghettification” is a theoretical concept introduced by Stephen Hawking in A Brief History of Time. It hypothesizes what the immense density and gravitational pull of a black hole would do to someone or something who crossed the black hole’s event horizon. As NASA explains, “This effect essentially stretches out the object more and more as the object gets closer to the black hole, creating a long, thin shape.”

That is what O.B. warned Loki about, but it’s not exactly what happened to Victor Timely. For one Victor wasn’t caught in the time stream like Loki had been. Victor also wasn’t stretched into one long Variant noodle. Temporal radiation caused Victor to burst into multiple spaghetti-like ribbons, something we’ve seen before in the MCU.

Who Else Was Turned Into Spaghetti in the MCU Before Victor Timely?

Thanos used the Reality Stone in Avengers: Infinity War to briefly transform Mantis into loose ribbons.

The Scarlet Witch also used her dark magic to brutally murder Reed Richards of Earth-838 in Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Magic. Wanda stretched Reed out into long spaghetti-like pieces before making his head explode.

Reed Richards’ slower, painful splintering more resembled Victor Timely’s instant death in many ways. However, the Kang Variant’s fate will have far greater ramifications for the entire multiverse. That starts with what Victor failed to stop.

What Happened to the TVA at the End of Loki Season 2 Episode 4?

Without the Throughput Multiplier in place the ever-increasing number of branches overwhelmed the Temporal Loom. The “heart of the TVA” could no longer weave all those strands of existence into one neat timeline. The result was an explosion of all branches and unrefined time that seemingly destroyed the TVA.

Without the Time Variance Authority there is no one to help manage the chaos of a multiverse that also lacks the guardrails offered by the Sacred Timeline. And we know that means because we know what happened before the TVA existed.

What Does the Implosion of the Temporal Loom Mean for Loki and the MCU?

The Temporal Loom’s explosion literally threatens all threads of reality in the MCU. In Loki season two, episode six, we learn that no branch of existence is safe after the Temporal Loom’s meltdown, they are all dying. We see both Sylvie’s and OB’s separate branches disintegrate into nothing before our eyes. Sphagettification is now happening across branching timelines, essentially destroying every MCU universe and every variant in existence.

But that’s not the only threat that exists for the MCU. He Who Remains created the TVA after defeating his Variants in the Multiversal War. Their battle nearly resulted in the end “of everything and everyone.” The TVA was He Who Remains’ solution to avoiding total annihilation, because without the organization, his Variants would always be a threat to existence. Without the TVA, Kang Variants always live since time is a circle. The TVA alone eliminated them as threats forever. (Except possibly Victor, who might have been He Who Remains’ backup plan specifically because Victor was not a threat, though we need more information to know for sure.)

The breaking of the Temporal Loom, and therefore the Sacred Timeline, means the system created to prevent Kang Variants from existing is gone. That means they might all have come back the second the Loom exploded. That would explain the existence of the Council of Kangs at the end of Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania. All those infinite strands of existence that just broke free of TVA control represent infinite Kangs.

That might ultimately explain why Victor himself turned into strands.

Is Victor Timely’s Spaghetti Fate Related to the Branching Timeline?

Temporal radiation is not a black hole, so Stephen Hawking’s theory doesn’t fully explain why Victor Timely became spaghetti in Loki. There’s also too much we don’t know about how time works in the MCU, specifically at the TVA, to explain exactly what happened to him and why. And since we know the season did not end with the Loom’s explosion, there’s still more to learn. But we can’t ignore that Victor literally branched out right before every branch of reality broke free.

Did Victor splinter into strands because the branches of reality did that to him? Or did the Loom finally burst because He Who Remains’ Variant did? If so, does that mean Victor’s temporal aura spaghetti-ed and brought all the Kangs back? Did He Who Remains actually want that so he’d come back, too? The last thing he told Sylvie after she stabbed him was that he’d see her “soon.” Was Victor his backup plan to restore himself rather than save the TVA? Does He Who Remains just assume he’ll win the next Multiversal War same as before?

Whatever answers await us during the final episode of Loki season two, one thing is clear: the untimely death of Victor Timely unleashed infinite strands of chaos on the multiverse. Fortunately, if anyone knows how to deal with time chaos it’s the God of Mischief, who already knows what it’s like to slip through time.

Originally published on October 26, 2023.

Mikey Walsh is a staff writer at Nerdist. You can follow him on Twitter and Bluesky at @burgermike. And also anywhere someone is ranking the Targaryen kings.

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Are the original Avengers returning? Is Doctor Doom set to replace Kang as the “Big Bad” of the Multiverse Saga? And just what the heck is going on with the Blade reboot starring Mahershala Ali? Variety ran a story about the troubles Marvel Studios is having post-Avengers: Endgame, and in particular, post-pandemic. While Marvel has still had tremendous box office success, the glut of series and movies has made the MCU daunting for the casual fan. We’ll break down each of the big reveals from the Variety article, and what these reveals might mean for the future of the MCU as a whole. We should note, we’re focusing on what this means for future films and series here and not any behind-the-scenes drama.

Are the Original Avengers Making an MCU Comeback?

According to the report, there have been talks to bring back the original Avengers back for a film. This would include Robert Downey Jr.’s Iron Man and Scarlett Johansson’s Black Widow, both of whom were killed off in Avengers: Endgame. While the Variety pieces used the word “revive,” we would be shocked if they literally resurrected the versions who died. It’s far more likely we’ll meet their Multiversal variants in Avengers: Secret Wars, which would mean that they’d still be played by Robert Downey Jr. and Scarlett Johansson.

Putting on our Nerdstradamus cap on, we think Avengers: Secret Wars, while loosely based on the 2015 comic, will at least feature a Battleworld made of various mashed-up realities and timelines. That puts every character, dead or alive, back on the table. So yes, that means the original Avengers are reunited—in a way. And also probably teamed up with the likes of Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine, and maybe Tobey Maguire’s Spider-Man. If they ever wanted a real “victory lap” film, likely before Secret Wars reboots everything, something like this might be the only way to come close to the success of Endgame. It’s not something even the most cynical person who grew up with Marvel films would ever miss. And we’d bet it was always the plan too.

Is the MCU Replacing Kang with Doctor Doom as the Multiverse Saga’s Main Villain?

And now, there’s the Kang problem. Between Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania and Loki, everything was gearing up to have Jonathan Majors’ Kang the Conqueror be the main villain of Phases 5 and 6. But then, all of Major’s personal and legal troubles began (which the Variety article details). It all leaves the MCU in a pickle. How do you make Avengers: The Kang Dynasty with possibly no Kang? The article suggests that at a recent Marvel Studios Palm Springs retreat, executives discussed backup plans, including pivoting to another comic book adversary, probably Doctor Doom.

Victor von Doom is one of Marvel’s greatest villains. Heck, he’s one of the entire comic book medium’s greatest villains. So a pivot toward the megalomaniacal ruler of Latveria makes sense. Also, as will all things MCU, the answers lie in the comics. In the 2015 Secret Wars series, Doom essentially steals the god-like power of the omnipotent Beyonder. It could be that Doom usurps Kang’s role and power in the story in a similar way. The Kang Dynasty could become The Doom Dynasty, and there’s ample Marvel Comics precedent for that. While the original report suggests the upcoming end of Loki forces Marvel to have Kang as the primary antagonist, we bet they have an out planned.

What Is Happening with the MCU Version of Blade?

So what about poor Blade? Things have certainly been contentious in the world of the Daywalker ever since SDCC 2019, when Feige announced Mahershala Ali as the iconic vampire hunter. The project has apparently gone through at least five writers, two directors, and one shutdown six weeks before production. Feige most recently hired Michael Green, screenwriter for Logan, to start from scratch. The hope is that Blade will now make it for a 2025 release date. The supposed budget may have come down to $100 million or so, way less than the standard MCU fare.

We think if that’s the case, it’s a wise move. Blade is a bloody, horror action franchise. Cleaning it up to be a PG-13 tentpole defeats the purpose. If Marvel Studios is releasing an R-rated Deadpool 3, why not do the same for Blade? Nobody wants to see a sanitized version of the character. We would not be shocked if going back to the drawing board for Blade means looking at what worked in the original Wesley Snipes films (well, at least the first two) and giving the Marvel vampire saga a modern spin. The report says Mahershala Ali almost walked away from the project, but we think Kevin Feige is too smart to let that happen.

The X-Men May Be the Focus Post Multiverse Saga in the MCU

The report also mentions Kevin Feige’s trump card is the acquisition of the X-Men library of characters from Fox. Although it is rumored that many of the original Fox-era mutant heroes are returning for Deadpool 3 and possibly Secret Wars alongside Hugh Jackman, we’re guessing this is a big swan song for those iterations of the characters. A reboot of X-Men is inevitable, and we agree Marvel Studios is likely to pivot to all things mutant post-Secret Wars. Feige knows the X-Men world has much unrealized potential. They can make government operative strike teams like X-Factor or mutants in a Doctor Who-style world like Excalibur. A mutant black ops team? There’s X-Force. While we doubt the Avengers brand is going away, we foresee a big pivot towards Marvel’s mutants.

Why We Shouldn’t Count Out the MCU Just Yet

Although the original report has a real “the sky is falling” approach, the truth is more complex. A “failure” for Marvel is a big success for anyone else. If The Flash made as much as Quantumania, they’d be popping champagne bottles over there. But for Marvel, compared to the peak of the Infinity Saga, it paled. Marvel’s biggest enemy is its own success. The first decade of the MCU, from Iron Man to Avengers: Endgame was unprecedented in terms of success. We’re talking about a franchise of 23 films, all opening at #1 at the box office. All with Fresh Rotten Tomatoes scores. And all of which collectively made a staggering $25 billion. To expect that kind of wild success indefinitely is totally unrealistic. We’d suggest not writing off the MCU just yet. And even if it dies, what stays dead in comics forever? The answer: Nothing.

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In the latest chapter of Loki season two, we learned some pretty huge revelations about the relationship between former TVA judge Ravonna Renslayer (Gugu Mbatha-Raw) and He Who Remains, a.k.a. Kang the Conqueror (Jonathan Majors), thanks to Miss Minutes. But what does it all mean, and how does it tie into some of the earliest Marvel comics? Buckle up, because the Ravonna and Kang romance is a very twisted affair.

Ravonna Renslayer and Kang Were Partners Before the Multiversal War

In episode four of Loki’s second season, Miss Minutes explains a crucial piece of Ravonna Renslayer’s history to her. Information she would not be happy to hear. She explains that Ravonna and He Who Remains were working together as partners during the Multiversal War and were likely romantic partners as well. At some point, he indicated she would lead with him in the aftermath. Together, they’d rule from the Citadel at the End of Time. But He Who Remains betrayed Ravonna. Remember when Victor Timely said he doesn’t work with partners? That seems to apply to He Who Remains as well. So he sends her back to the TVA and erases her memories along with the rest of its employees. As Miss Minutes explains to an angry Ravonna, she says “Maybe we don’t need him. Maybe we never did.” This leads Ravonna to attempt to take over the TVA herself, along with Miss Minutes.

The Complex Marvel Comics Love Story of Ravonna Renslayer and Kang the Conqueror

In the comics, Princess Ravonna Lexus Renslayer made her first appearance in Avengers #23, back in 1965. She and Kang have a rather complicated relationship, to say the least. She was the daughter of King Carelius, who ruled 40th century Earth. Kang tried to destroy any monarch who did not submit to him, like Ravonna’s father. But Kang fell in love with the stubborn and determined Princess Ravonna, and she also fell in love with him, admitting to it only before her death. In fact, she threw herself in front of a deadly blaster bolt meant for him, dying to save his life. But this was not the end of the Kang/Ravonna romance.

Another variant of Kang eventually plucked a version of Ravonna from the timeline moments before her death, while another Kang preserved her body in stasis, hoping to gain the power of Life (or Death) from the cosmic Grandmaster in a game. A Grandmaster who is far more powerful than his MCU played-by-Jeff Goldblum counterpart. He’d then use the Power of Life to revive her. Although he won the game, he chose the Power of Death to get revenge on the Avengers, instead of the Power of Life to revive Ravonna. Grandmaster revived Ravonna anyway, who was now furious and betrayed that Kang had chosen vengeance on his enemies over his love for her. The lovers were now mortal enemies.

In the Marvel Comics, Ravonna Renslayer Becomes the Terminatrix

Now hellbent on revenge, Ravonna eventually infiltrated the Council of Cross-Time Kangs. Not long after, she took on the very ’90s identity of the Terminatrix. She put Kang in stasis, much as he had done to her when she was presumed dead. She then fought a future variant of herself known as Revelation. After many time travel machinations and attempts at altering her own future, Ravonna and Kang were reunited. And she seemingly forgave him. Then, she literally stabbed him in the back. She went back in time to Timely, Wisconsin in 1903 to start things over with an earlier version of Victor Timely, hoping to rewrite their narrative.

He Who Remains Wiped Ravonna Renslayer’s Memories in the MCU

So how does all that comic lore inform Loki? Earlier in the season, we heard recordings of He Who Remains saying “Ravonna Renslayer, you are quite a marvel. I would be proud to lead with you. Thank you, for being on my team.” Now, we know these very words to her were spoken by He Who Remains after the Multiversal War. But He Who Remains betrayed her and sent her back to the TVA and enacted Protocol 42, which saw her and all the other TVA employees have their memories wiped. It’s also why Agent Mobius doesn’t remember He Who Remains. He wiped Mobius’ mind of all knowledge of him and replaced it with false memories of the Time Keepers. We’ll see how this anger and betrayal leads to a changed, and more dangerous, Ravonna Renslayer in the remainder of Loki’s second season. Maybe we’ll see the Terminatrix after all.

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Episode three of Loki season two on Disney+ introduced us to a variant of He Who Remains. As a child, this variant, Victor Timely, received a TVA instruction manual in the year 1868. This acquisition of future knowledge led him to become an inventor. In Loki, we meet adult Victor Timely at the Chicago 1893 World’s Fair, where he is presenting his rudimentary version of the Temporal Loom. Timley gets caught up in the time-traveling shenanigans of Loki and Mobius, who travel to his branched timeline to find him. But how is the MCU’s Victor Timely different from the one found in Marvel Comics? So far, the Victor Timely in Loki is a totally different character from his Marvel Comics counterpart—aside from both being variants of the despotic Kang the Conqueror.

Victor Timely, the Victorian Era Marvel Comics Kang Variant

In Marvel Comics, the Victor Timely variant of Kang the Conqueror first appeared in 1992’s Avengers Annual #21. Writer Peter Sanderson and artist Rich Yanizeski created him. In that issue, we learned this Kang variant traveled back to Wisconsin on January 1, 1901, the first day of the new century. Once there, he established the town of Timely. He named it after his newly assumed name, Victor Timely. This small town, with its quaint All-American Victorian feel, would serve as a 20th-century base for his future self. From this chronal vantage point, Timely would eventually evolve into the Prime Kang and make life miserable for the Avengers.

The relatively immortal Victor Timely became an industrialist, turning Timely into a boom town of industry. He became a business rival of people like Thomas Edison and Henry Ford. As the 20th century unfolded, Timely faked his death repeatedly. He would then assume the identity of his own son Victor Timely Jr., then Victor Timely III, and on and on. He introduced very advanced technology to unsuspecting scientists of the time. Timely was the man who introduced the concept of androids to Dr. Phineas Horton. The same man eventually created the first android Human Torch in 1939. The Torch, in the comics, would also become the basis for the synthezoid Avenger, the Vision.

Timely, Wisconsin and Kang’s City of Chronopolis

Timely, Wisconsin also became the hub from which Kang would create the city of Chronopolis. Existing outside normal time and space, Chronopolis would serve as a hub for Kang’s conquest of all known time periods. Various eras of history intersected in Chronopolis, only perceivable to Kang himself. It eventually bled into the realm of Limbo, which exists outside of time. It’s something very similar to how the Time Variance Authority functions on Loki.  

The MCU Victor Timely and How He Differs from Marvel Comics’ Version

The MCU Victor Timely on Loki does not seem to be a Kang from the future who has settled in the past. That is, unless they throw some last-minute twist at us. From what we can tell, Loki‘s Victor Timely was born in the 19th century when Ravonna Renslayer and Miss Minutes interfered in his life and created the version of Victor Timely we see in 1893. From all indications, it appears the MCU’s Victor Timely belongs to that time and that he isn’t a future Kang who went back in time. The main similarity between the comics and the MCU is that Victor Timely is an assumed name. We may never know what the true birth names of the Kangs really are.

The MCU Victor Timely may actually evolve into Kang during Loki‘s run and may even be the same version from Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania. But for now, Victor Timley’s ultimate MCU fate and future are some of the big questions the Loki series sets up. We’re interested in what we’ll learn about Timely going forward.

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The first season of Loki on Disney+ brought back Tom Hiddleston as the seemingly unkillable Asgardian God of Mischief. It was a huge success. The series introduced MCU fans to the Time Variance Authority, or TVA, who watch over the timeline of the known universe. Loki also formally introduced the concept of the Marvel Multiverse. We also got a perfect foil for Loki in the form of his variant Sylvie. Perhaps most importantly, it’s the only MCU series to get a second season (so far). But what wild adventures through the spacetime continuum will Loki’s second round include?

Here’s everything we know about Loki season two.

Loki Season Two’s Plot

The first season of Loki ended with Sylvie killing He Who Remains (Jonathan Majors), thereby erupting the Sacred Timeline and unleashing the Multiverse in full. When Loki returned to the TVA, it was altered in the timeline, and no one remembered him. Not to mention, statues of He Who Remains (or one of his variants more likely) stood tall in the TVA’s halls.

The synopsis for Loki season two says:

Loki Season 2 picks up in the aftermath of the shocking season finale when Loki finds himself in a battle for the soul of the Time Variance Authority. Along with Mobius, Hunter B-15 and a team of new and returning characters, Loki navigates an ever-expanding and increasingly dangerous multiverse in search of Sylvie, Judge Renslayer, Miss Minutes and the truth of what it means to possess free will and glorious purpose.

We can see what will go down in Loki season two in this Disney+ trailer.

Behind the Scenes

Season one writers Michael Waldron and Eric Martin are coming back, with Martin now the head writer instead of Waldron, and Waldron serving as executive producer. One of the creatives from season one not returning is showrunner Kate Herron, according to a report from Deadline. Co-directing several episodes in season two, also according to Deadline, are Moon Knight’s Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead. Natalie Holt is also back as the series composer.

Loki Season Two’s Cast

Tom Hiddleston returns, of course, as the titular Loki. Also returning is Owen Wilson as Mobius, Sophia DiMartino as Sylvie, and Gugu Mbatha-Raw as Ravonna Renslayer. Eugene Cordero as ever-present TVA employee Casey (he’ll play a series regular in season two), and Tara Strong as the voice of Miss Minutes will also come back. No word yet on Jonathan Majors as one of the Kang variants, although the giant statue of him at the end of season one suggests we will see him again.

Ke Huy Quan (Everything Everywhere All at Once) is in season two of Loki, but we don’t know details about his role yet. Additionally, Deadline reports that Game of Thrones‘ Kate Dickie will likely play the villain in Loki‘s second season.

Loki Season 2 Release Date

Loki season two will release on October 5, 2023 and 6:00 PM PT/9:00 PM ET.

Originally published on August 24, 2022.

The post Everything We Know About LOKI Season 2 appeared first on Nerdist.

Somebody get Steve Miller on the phone cause the God of Mischief could use his expertise. Odin’s son keeps on slipping through time in the new trailer for Loki season two. But that’s far from the biggest problem he’ll face when his MCU series returns to Disney+. He has to save both the multiverse and the Sacred Timeline from the most dangerous man the past, present, and future have ever faced. Fortunately Loki still has some friends around to help him.

Tom Hiddleston is back for another season of time-hopping adventures, only this time the stakes are even greater. The decision of Sophia Di Martino’s Sylvie to kill He Who Remains at the end of season one unleashed so much chaos Loki himself is now getting pulled through time itself. His unplanned trips through the past and future is why he knows there’s a very fine line separating his world and “utter destruction,” in what looks like an action-packed season.

That is unless Owen Wilson’s Mobius can slow things down. He likes to be more methodical in his work. He likes to savor a nice piece of pie when facing annhilation, which, fair.

This Loki season two trailer also features some surprise moments, like the marquee teasing the Marvel Comics’ villain Zaniac. Oscar-winner Ke Huy Quan is also getting in on the fun. This teaser also seems to confirm something the MCU has only been alluding to, which is that the TVA and Citadel exist inside the Quantum Realm. And, despite the actor currently facing very serious allegations, the trailer does tease the return of Jonathan Majors’ Kang.

The series also stars Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Wunmi Mosaku, Eugene Cordero, Rafael Casal, Tara Strong, Kate Dickie, Liz Carr, and Neil Ellice. Loki season two debuts on Disney+ on October 6. That is unless someone messes with the timeline. Then it might already have premiered last month. Or it will next year? Or today? Maybe Steve Miller knows?

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Forget Thanos, Ultron, and Loki. In the pages of Marvel Comics, the Avengers’ biggest adversary was always Kang the Conqueror. And after years of waiting, he arrived in the MCU on Loki, played by Jonathan Majors. Marvel’s Kang the Conqueror appeared in full villain mode in the MCU’s Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania. These appearances are all just the warm-up act. Because we know he’s going to unleash chronal hell in Avengers: The Kang Dynasty, and in all likelihood, in Avengers: Secret Wars. But who (or what) is Kang from the Marvel universe? More than any other Marvel villain, the answer here is quite complex.

Jump to: Kang’s Origins // The Many Kang Variants in Marvel Comics // Kang and the MCU

When Does Kang the Conqueror First Appear in Marvel Comics?

Despite primarily being an Avengers villain, the Stan Lee/Jack Kirby creation Kang first appeared in the pages of Marvel’s Fantastic Four. This detail made him a part of the Fantastic Four film rights, and therefore, it wasn’t until Disney purchased Fox that Marvel Studios could use him properly. His first appearance was in 1963’s Fantastic Four #19, as the Pharoah Rama-Tut. Kang the Conqueror wouldn’t appear in a more recognizable Marvel form until a year later, in 1964’s Avengers #8. But let’s begin at the beginning, which in this case, means ancient Egypt, by way of the 31st century.

Kang the Conqueror’s Path From Fantastic Four Villain to Avengers Adversary

Kang is complicated to explain, thanks to the many, many variants of him across multiple Marvel timelines. For the purpose of clarity, we’re going to focus on what they call “Prime Kang,” and we’re going to focus on this Kang’s chronological Marvel appearances. Nathaniel Richards, who may or may not be a descendant of the Fantastic Four’s Reed Richards and Doctor Doom, was born as a human male in 31st century Earth. As a young man, he discovered his ancestor Doctor Doom’s time platform, which he used to travel to ancient Egypt.

He conquered this past era and became the Pharoah Rama-Tut. But a time-traveling Fantastic Four defeated him and sent him packing to the far-flung future. This war-ravaged 40th century Marvel Earth the soon-to-be Kang landed in, 1,000 years further from his birth era, utilized technology the population no longer understood. So Richards used his scientific knowledge to conquer this time period and became Kang the Conqueror. Kang had no superpowers to speak of, but he had a genius intellect and access to all time periods. This allowed him to access almost godlike technologies.

But the 40th century was not enough for him, and Marvel’s Kang decided to conquer other eras as well, with the goal of eventually ruling over all of history. This is when he came into conflict with the Avengers. As a young man, Kang the Conqueror was obsessed with Earth’s “Heroic Age,” and saw them as the only ones who could stop him. So Kang traveled to the past to destroy the Avengers. This marked the first of literally dozens of times combatting Earth’s Mightiest Heroes. Kang was more of a master strategist than Thanos, but despite incredible power, he wasn’t on the level of the Celestials—despite trying to steal their technology once.

Jump to: Kang’s Origins // The Many Kang Variants in Marvel Comics // Kang and the MCU

The Many Identities and Variants of Kang in the Marvel Universe

Eventually, Kang time-traveled so much in Marvel Comics that multiple variants of himself spread across spacetime. If one Kang died, another always existed in an alternate timeline to cause trouble. One version of Kang went by the name the Scarlet Centurion, an identity he adopted after his time in ancient Egypt, but before becoming the Kang we know—even though the Kang identity appeared in Marvel Comics first.

Those are all just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to Kang variants. In one story, he traveled back to the early 1900s and took the name “Victor Timely,” and built a small town in Wisconsin from which he could alter the flow of time. In the year 2099, he was the owner of a large company known as “Kang the Conglomerator.” In the 21st century, another CEO-style variant of Kang went by Mr. Gryphon. He even melded once with Ms. Marvel and became “Kamala Kang.”

On Earth-18854, Kang took the power of Galactus himself and became “Kang the Time Eater.” Because of his control of time, he may even be more powerful than the Celestials themselves. Not all of Marvel’s Kangs were totally cold and power-hungry, however. One fell in love with one of his subjects, a woman named Princess Ravonna. In one timeline, they even had a son together named Marcus. He would assume a former alias of his father’s, the Scarlet Centurion.

Immortus, the Most Dangerous Kang Variant

But the version of Kang the Avengers tangled with the most was Immortus. This was a much older version of Kang. After having conquered timeline after timeline, Kang grew weary of battle. The alien race called the Time-Keepers approached him. They were time travelers from the end of the universe and the last living creatures known to exist. Kang became their agent and began preserving Marvel’s timelines instead of conquering them. He did all of this for the Time-Keepers, in exchange for immortality (hence the new name). The former Kang accepted and reinvented himself again, this time as Immortus, the lord of the other-dimensional realm of Limbo.

But conquering timelines and pruning them are also aggressive acts—just not in the same way the younger Kang was prone to. All of this constantly brought Immortus into conflict with the Avengers. Although this Kang variant did officiate at the wedding of Vision and Scarlet Witch. Speaking of Wanda Maximoff, Immortus was later revealed to be the one behind the Scarlet Witch’s dark side turn in Marvel’s comics. Kang’s manipulations caused all the tragic events in her life. He didn’t only Wanda; Immortus’ hand lead to a teenage Tony Stark’s death in the ‘90s as well. (Don’t worry, he got better.)

In the comics, we even saw a “Council of Cross-Time Kangs,” made up of hundreds of Kang variants from across the multiverse. But Marvel later revealed this Kang Council to be a trap of sorts, one made by Immortus to slowly eliminate all variants of himself to ensure that only he remained at the literal end of time. Confused yet? We know, it’s a lot. And that’s without getting into how Kang once manipulated time to fight the X-Men and the crew of Star Trek: The Next Generation. Yes, that is an event that happened back in the ’90s.

That Time Kang Was an Avenger

The most intriguing version of Kang first appeared in 2005, and readers didn’t even know it was Kang at first. After the Avengers broke up (in the pages of Avengers: Disassembled), a young hero named Iron Lad appeared. He wore an advanced version of Tony Stark’s armor, one that was neuro-kinetic in nature. When teen Kang discovered what his dark destiny had in store for him, he fled back in time to seek the Avengers for protection. He landed at a point in time when the team had split up, so this Kang used his know-how to assemble Marvel’s Young Avengers team. Eventually, he realized he must return to his own time and fulfill his destiny and become a villain, or he’d damage the timestream even more.

Jump to: Kang’s Origins // The Many Kang Variants in Marvel Comics // Kang and the MCU

The MCU’s Version of Kang, a.k.a. the Time Tyrant in Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania and Phase 6

Loki‘s Kang and Ant-Man’s Kang in the MCU

Loki introduced us to “He Who Remains,” played by Jonathan Majors, as the last version of Kang who ruled from his Citadel at the End of Time. He explained how his variants all went to war with each other, leading to a huge multiversal conflict. He warned Loki and his variant Sylvie that if they killed him, it would ignite another multiversal war. When Sylvie ended him, the multiverse ripped open again.

Loki had another nod to the comic book Kang’s Marvel history, which we may see explored in the MCU. This one had to do with one of the TVA agents, Ravonna Renslayer. She was based on Kang’s great love from the comics. Another way “He Who Remains” echoed Marvel’s comics was with his elimination of other Kangs and their timelines. This was very Immortus-like. But now that Loki‘s Kang is dead, we’ll likely see his much more destructive MCU variants spread chaos throughout Marvel’s Multiverse.

Lord of the Quantum Realm

In Ant-Man and the Wasp Quantumania, we learned that the Kang we met in the Quantum Realm was exiled there by his other variants, essentially for being worse than the rest of them. There, he met the also-lost Janet Van Dyne (Michelle Pfeiffer). At first, they were seemingly friends, and she tried to help fix his time chair to get home. But when she learned that he had conquered countless timelines and destroyed them, she turned on him. Janet tried everything she could to stop him from ever getting out. She even aided in the rebellion against him when he conquered the Quantum Realm. After she returned to the Quantum Realm, along with her husband, daughter, and Scott and Cassie Lang, they stopped Kang from escaping again. They also toppled his microverse empire.

Kang’s MCU Future

It looked like Scott and Hope killed Kang in the finale of Quantumania, but he possibly disappeared into another time period. The end-credits revealed the Council of Kangs, and introduced Immortus, Rama-Tut, and a version of Scarlet Centurion, all infamous variants of Kang—not to mention hundreds of others we saw in the Council. Will the Kang of Avengers: The Kang Dynasty be one of these? Or will the Kang we met from the Quantum Realm be the “Big Bad?”

All of Quantamania‘s adventures will, of course, lead to The Kang Dynasty and Secret Wars. All in all, Kang the Conqueror’s MCU future looks to be very exciting. Or should we say, one of his futures? When it comes to Kang, there are an infinite number to choose from.

Jump to: Kang’s Origins // The Many Kang Variants in Marvel Comics // Kang and the MCU

Originally published on August 1, 2022.

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Cassie Lang (Kathryn Newton) came face to face with Kang the Conqueror (Jonathan Majors) in Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania. And the interactions between the size-changing young hero and the mad villain were decidedly not pleasant. But what if we told you that in the comics, the two were, however briefly, a romantic pairing? Yes, this was absolutely a thing that happened, and the MCU could adapt in some form down the line.

Now, before you go calling the police on Kang, the version of Nathaniel Richards that Cassie smooched with was also a teenager. And she didn’t even know the adult Kang at the time. She just thought he was Iron Lad, a teenage version of everyone’s favorite armored Avenger. This brief romance took place in the pages of Young Avengers and could have ramifications for the future of the Multiverse Saga. Here’s the comic book history of the Stature/Iron Lad romance.

How Cassie Lang Became a Young Avenger

During the time that Cassie’s dad Scott Lang/Ant-Man was seemingly dead at the hands of the Scarlet Witch, a despondent Cassie went to live with her mother and stepfather. Forbidden from being a superhero, she ran away from home. She was hoping to join up with the teen team known as the Runaways. But she learned of a Young Avengers team forming in New York, and went where they were instead. She informed them she had been taking Pym Particles for years, and could grow to giant size. She took the name Stature, and was immediately smitten with another Young Avenger named Iron Lad. He was equally smitten with her. She thought he was a young hero, inspired by Tony Stark. But things with Iron Lad were not what they seemed.

Iron Lad was actually a teenage version of Kang the Conqueror, only one from decades before he became a villain. Discovering his terrible future fate as a despot, he went back in time to the 21st century. There, he hoped he could become a hero and not a villain. He used advanced future tech to build a suit of armor and became Iron Lad. But the era he arrived in was one after the events of Avengers Disassembled. The iconic team of heroes as he read about them was effectively no more. So using the then-destroyed body of the android hero Vision, he activated protocols in his memory system to find the next generation of Avengers.

Stature and Iron Lad: Star-Crossed Heroes

Believe it or not, Cassie was not among the heroes in the Vision’s protocols, but the team happily accepted her as a member anyway. Cassie and Iron Lad instantly felt an attraction, and the two shared a kiss on their first adventure. But then the adult Kang arrived from the future, and young Iron Lad learned that he must go back to his future time. If he didn’t fulfill his destiny and become a despotic villain, the Avengers’ past would be irrevocably altered. He bid a tearful goodbye to Cassie, just as the two developed real feelings for one another.

But before he left, he integrated the Vision’s programming with his Iron Lad armor, creating a new “teen” version of the synthezoid Avenger. Since this new android hero had all of Iron Lad’s memories and part of his personality, he fell for Cassie Lang just the same. But ultimately, the whole thing was too awkward for Cassie to deal with, and the potential romance with teen Vision never went anywhere. Ultimately, both Cassie’s flirtation with both Iron Lad and Vision were doomed from the very start.

Will We Get an MCU Version of Cassie and Iron Lad’s Romance?

That’s the comics version of things. One thing the MCU has done differently is that Cassie met Kang the Conqueror as an adult first, something that didn’t happen in the comics. For comics Cassie, evil Kang was an abstract, someone her dad’s team once battled. In the MCU, she experienced his malice firsthand. So if and when she meets the Iron Lad version of Nathaniel Richards, if she doesn’t know his ultimate destiny when they fall for each other, we expect it to have a lot of complications. Hopefully, this will all play out whenever Marvel Studios finally gives us a Young Avengers project. That’s got to be any time now, right?

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Kang, Kang, Kang. So many Kangs, so little time. But actually a ton of time, yet still a lot of Kangs. Anyway, we live in the age of Kang in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Kang the Conqueror has stepped in to fill the villain vacuum left in the wake of Thanos’ double deaths. And while Jonathan Majors is a super muscular dude, it’ll take a number of him—across many universes and timelines—to give the growing number of Marvel heroes a proper run for their money. Phase Five just began and we’ve already met several Kangs. Avengers: The Kang Dynasty won’t come out until May 2025, so that’s plenty of time for even more Kangs!

Here are the Kang variants we’ve met in the MCU so far.

He Who Remains

Our first blush with the Conqueror wasn’t even with the name Kang. Stuck at the very end of time, one particular variant, seemingly in an effort to protect reality from himself, pruned all other timelines of any would-be Kang variants. This is He Who Remains, the final “villain” in season one of Loki. A much more humble (to a degree) version of Kang, he may have done a lot of bad things but for, it seems, the right reasons. However, he seemed to know Loki and/or Sylvie wouldn’t have agreed to take over for him because his final words “See you soon” are far too portentous to be coincidental.

Exile Kang

The main Kang from Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, we learn, is actually an exile from the Council of Kangs we see at the end of the movie. This Kang is, evidently, the worst possible Kang. Too cruel or something even for the rest of the Kangs. We learn precious little about him in the movie but he seems to have fought the Avengers previous (or perhaps later?) and killed several of them. Whether that’s in a different universe or a future within Marvel’s 616 Universe is still unknown.

We also know that this Kang is extremely powerful, enslaving the whole of the Quantum Realm in relative ease. He built an army so he doesn’t have to get his hands dirty, but we see in the movie’s third act that he’s more than capable. Totally ruthless, he disintegrates fleeing Quantumanians just because he’s angry. He also turned Darren Cross into M.O.D.O.K. which is maybe his cruelest act ever.

Is Exile Kang the Same as Prime Kang?

This is an interesting question. The end of Quantumania has Kang sucked into the imploding/exploding multiversal engine. It sure seems like he’s dead, and even the later Kangs assume as much. But the movie—for all its faults—did a very good job of establishing Kang the Conqueror as a threat and a force to be reckoned with. The rest of the Kangs all seem to think he’s bad news, and despite his possible remorse of his actions, he knows there’s no other way for him. (Remorse because he seems to weep openly at what he must do.)

It’s entirely possible that this Kang will return, and remain the main Kang of the MCU. His costume and general demeanor seem to indicate he’s Prime Kang, and it would be a shame if he’s gone for good. Now will we see other Kangs as main villains of movies and shows? Certainly. But the first Kang of Phase Five should definitely come back.

The Pharaoh Rama-Tut

At the end of Quantumania we see the Council of Kangs. There are, roughly, 19 million of them. The movie features three of these variants specifically, and each corresponds to the most famous of Kang’s variants. First is Rama-Tut, who is actually the very first version of the character we ever saw in Marvel Comics. The villain in 1963’s Fantastic Four #17, he’s a time traveler from the future who uses his advanced tech to conquer Ancient Egypt. It wasn’t until Giant-Size Avengers #2 in 1973 that we learn Rama-Tut was a future version of Kang.

Immortus

Another variant of Kang who debuted long before anyone knew he was Kang. Immortus first appeared in Avengers #10, only two issues after Kang. Immortus is, in most continuities, a Kang variant who took over as emissary and keeper of time at the end of all things. In a lot of ways, Immortus has traditionally done things that He Who Remains did in Loki. Here, with his wizened, distant look and headwear, he seems more like the ruler of the Kangs than of some benevolent future Kang. But time will tell! (Get it?)

Immortus is also the Kang who informs the others that the Avengers killed “the exile” and that they need to prepare for more conflict. Like Gary Oldman in The Professional, Immortus summoned EVERYONE.

The Scarlet Centurion

It wasn’t entirely clear in the film which variant of Kang was the third of the Council’s triumvirate. This Kang seems younger than the other two, with his Snagglepuss-like voice. He also seems to have received a number of cybernetic upgrades, making him partially, if not mostly, mechanical.

We thought this Kang seems to evoke either the Scarlet Centurion variant from the comics (despite being silver rather than red) or Iron Lad (though, again, certainly not obviously Iron Man-adjacent). Turns out, thanks to an interview with director Peyton Reed for ET Online that it was indeed Scarlet Centurion. Or “Centurion” as Reed called him. This makes sense, as Centurion really is the third biggest Kang variant following Rama Tut and Immortus.

However, unlike the other two, there is no one definitive beginning for the Scarlet Centurion. He’s often a distant future offspring of Kang, or just a younger Kang from a different universe. Either way, Snagglepuss voice.

Victor Timely

In the post-credits scene for Quantumania, we see Loki and Mobius have ended up in the early 1900s where someone named Victor Timely is giving a demonstration of his technological achievements. We see this Victor Timely is, in fact, Jonathan Majors sporting a period hairstyle and facial hair. In the comics, Victor Timely was a Kang variant who first appeared in Avengers Forever #9. After a humiliating defeat in the comics, he traveled back in time to the early 20th Century, set himself up as a Thomas Edison-esque inventor and created a business and tech empire.

Perhaps this version of Kang is the big villain of Loki season two, or perhaps it’ll end up being yet another variant in disguise. Who can say?

Kyle Anderson is the Senior Editor for Nerdist. You can find his film and TV reviews here. Follow him on Instagram and Letterboxd.

Originally published February 23, 2023.

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Ah, a new phase. Feels good to break off a new one. And with the first movie in the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s Phase Five, we get a lot of things to chew on. We meet Kang and M.O.D.O.K. and spend a lot of time in the quantum realm in Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania. But arguably the most meat occurs in the final moments and the mid-credits and post-credits scenes. So much to discuss! But in order to do that, we’re going to have to spoil the end of the movie. So if you’d like to wait until you see Quantumania, this is your jumping off point. Everyone else, join me below to learn about Quantumania‘s ending and credits scenes!

Ant-Man the Wasp: Quantumania‘s Ending

The movie, which has all of the members of the Lang/Pym/Van Dyne conglomerate in the Quantum Realm, ends with Scott and Hope defeating Kang the Conqueror by sucking him into his exploding/imploding multiversal engine core. The end of Kang, right? Well, no. As Scott narrates the denouement, a mirror to the movie’s opening, he starts to worry they didn’t actually stop Kang. You see, this Exiled Kang kept saying he wanted revenge on those who exiled him. They, it seems, were even worse than he was.

Scott shrugs it off as the credits roll. But the mid-credits scene shows him exactly why he was right to worry.

Ant-Man the Wasp: Quantumania‘s Mid-Credits Scene

The mid-credits scene shows us something I did not expect to see so soon: the Council of Kangs! That’s right, we know Kang has a million variants but I thought Marvel Studios might hold off on showing them. But no. We first see Rama-Tut, the version of Kang who appeared first in Marvel Comics. He cross paths with the Fantastic Four in Fantastic Four #19. He speaks with two other Kang variants. The most prominent of these is Immortus, who actually first appeared only two issues after Kang Prime, in Avengers #10.

The third of these is less clear. It’s a bald Jonathan Majors with a silver metal body. It’s possible this is a version of Scarlet Centurion (without the red hue, of course). It could also be the MCU’s take on Kid Immortus or Iron Lad, though that’s much less likely.

At any rate, they talk about how outsiders killed the exile variant. The Avengers have started to touch the multiverse and this is potentially very bad for Kang-kind. Immortus has called all the other Kangs together. We then cut to an arena where Kang upon Kang appears and all seem to holler and carouse together, waiting for the meeting to commence.

This final collage of Kangs hearkens back to the first appearance of the Council of Kangs in Avengers #292. We even see a shouting lizard Kang who appeared in that panel.

Pretty good mid-credits, setting up the entire roster of Kangs… almost.

Ant-Man the Wasp: Quantumania‘s Post-Credits Scene

The post-credits scene finds us in the early 1900s with someone showing off some very futuristic tech to the Victorian crowds. We see it’s Jonathan Majors with a wild hairstyle and facial hair and little round glasses. We also see a banner which says he’s Victor Timely.

Victor Timely was a Kang variant who first appeared in Avengers Forever #9. After a humiliating defeat in the comics, he traveled back in time to the early 20th Century, set himself up as a Thomas Edison-esque inventor and created a business and tech empire.

As Timely speaks, we see Loki and Mobius whispering about how this is the man Loki met and was subsequently warned about. He’s terrifying, Loki says. This lets us know this post-credits scene is actually a scene from Loki season two, a fact that director Peyton Reed has now officially confirmed. Thus, we will not have long to wait for more Kang, in any of his many guises. Season two of Loki will air some time mid-2023.

So many Kangs, so little time!

Originally published on February 16, 2023.

Kyle Anderson is the Senior Editor for Nerdist. You can find his film and TV reviews here. Follow him on Instagram and Letterboxd.

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Jonathan Majors stole the show as Kang the Conqueror in Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania. Just as he stole the show with his cameo as “He Who Remains” at the end of Loki season one. But the post-credits scene in the third Ant-Man might have tipped us off to a big secret. The time-traveling, universe-erasing Kang might be partially responsible for one of Marvel’s very first superheroes: the Human Torch. And as a matter of fact, we’ve seen the Human Torch in the MCU already. Kind of.

And no, not the Human Torch from the Fantastic Four. We know those old Fantastic Four movies are not MCU canon. There was a Human Torch who preceded Johnny Storm in the comics, over two decades earlier. This Quantumania post-credits scene helps explain this MCU Easter egg that is now 12 years old and that has had fans waiting years for Marvel Studios to pay off.

The post-credits scene from Quantumania shows Loki and former TVA agent Mobius, probably in a scene from Loki season two, in a turn of the 20th-century sideshow where a man named Victor Timely takes to the stage. Timely (an ode to Marvel Comics’ original name) is of course a variant of Kang also played by Jonathan Majors. Loki seems terrified, as well he should be. But Kang’s malevolence is neither here nor there. What’s important is this Kang variant’s name, as well as what time period he’s in.

Victor Timely, the “Forgotten” Kang Variant

In 1992, readers learned that a Doctor Phineas T. Horton studied under Victor Timely. Horton was the genius inventor of the original Human Torch, Marvel’s first superhero (along with Namor the Sub-Mariner). Yes, the original Human Torch wasn’t exactly human at all, but a sentient android. Back in 1939, young comic readers didn’t question how a scientist could invent such a miraculous creation. Computers didn’t even exist. But years later, readers began to question how someone with 1930s tech could create something light years ahead of his time.

It was writer Peter Sanderson, along with artists Rich Yanizeski and Fred Fredericks, who answered that question back in Avengers Annual #21. He explained how Kang had traveled back in time, settled in the 20th Century, and assumed the name Victor Timely. He created the small town of Timely, Wisconsin, in the year 1901. There, he spent decades plotting to take control of the new century, all while disguised as the town Mayor. He’d introduce technology far too advanced for the era to select individuals who worked for him at Timely, Inc, who in turn produced miraculous machines. In 1929, he met Dr. Horton. It’s unclear exactly how much Timely showed him of future tech. But it must have been quite a lot, because what Horton created was, dare we say, a true marvel.

Kang’s Interference Led to One of Marvel’s Original Heroes

Debuting in Marvel Comics #1 in 1939, the Human Torch was described as “a synthetic man.” Although androids had existed in sci-fi stories already, the Human Torch was different. He wasn’t just a robot that looked like a man, he was made of synthetic flesh and blood. The best comparisons would be the replicants in Blade Runner or the Cylons in Battlestar Galactica.

When Horton revealed his creation to the world during a press conference, his skin lit on fire upon contact with air, terrifying the audience. Declared a monster, the people sealed Horton in concrete. But he escaped and learned to control his flame. He took the name Jim Hammond and became a police officer, and superhero on the side. He fought against the Nazis with Captain America and Namor, as part of the team called the Invaders. In fact, in the comics, he was the one who killed Adolf Hitler with his bare hands. We don’t usually condone cold-blooded murder, but in this case, we make an exception.

Doctor Horton created the Torch with synthetic replicas of human cells using plastic and carbon polymers. These cells duplicated the structures found in organic human cells. This is something he learned about from Victor Timely, a.k.a. Kang, centuries before he should have. In essence, Kang’s interference in the timeline led to the Marvel heroic age as we know it. And the Human Torch’s importance would extend further. Kang’s other variant, Immortus, would duplicate the Torch into a divergent timeline, a version whose body served as the basis for the Vision.

The Captain America: The First Avenger Connection

So how on Earth does this tie into the MCU? Well, in Captain America: The First Avenger, we prominently saw a large display containing a human figure in a glass case at the Stark Expo. Above the case, it says “Dr. Phineas Horton presents the Synthetic Man.” That’s definitely the Human Torch, in his red costume and everything. We’re meant to assume that after Steve Rogers and Bucky left the Expo, events similar to those that happened in the comics took place. That would mean that, at some point in the MCU, a heroic Human Torch fought crime and burned Nazis. And the appearance of Victor Timely in Quantumania now connects the dots on how such a being could exist in 1942—especially without access to something like the Tesseract.

Marvel Studios has never shown us the adventures of the original Human Torch. This despite letting us know he existed since way back in 2011. But with the arrival of Victor Timely into the MCU, the dots are connecting to that Easter egg from years ago. He might not need a movie or a series of his own. But at some point, we’d love to see the Human Torch take flight. Maybe in an unseen adventure with Steve Rogers and Namor in WWII? Perhaps in an episode of an upcoming season of Loki? Thanks to Quantumania, we now know how and why he existed at all. Now, let us see him fight some bad guys too.

Featured Image: Marvel Studios

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Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania brought Kang to the MCU. It also brought a whole lot of Kang the Conqueror’s Variants to the franchise. The only thing the movie has more of than versions of Jonathan Majors’ character is unanswered questions. Some of them are obvious, like, “Where the hell was Judy Greer?” and “How could you not include Judy Greer?” But because most of the story—like Loki before it—takes place outside of normal time, it’s not even clear what we should be asking. Things work differently in the Quantum Realm, and that means we have to approach Quantumania differently, too. The challenge is figuring out exactly what we don’t know. And these are the right questions to ask to do just that.

What Comes First: the Events of Loki or Quantumania?

The Quantum Realm exists “outside time and space,” same as the domain where He Who Remains built his Citadel. (We’ll get to whether or not they’re the same place a little later.) We can’t use a linear understanding of time to easily place events occurring at either location in a normal chronological order. We have to forget everything we know about how time usually works.

That’s easier said than done, of course. We can’t fully comprehend the concept of existence without time. The best we can hope to do is understand where the events of Loki take place relative to the events of Quantumania. Right now we have no idea.

What we do know is the correct sequence will have huge ramifications on the entire MCU. It will also affect Kang’s future in it. Assuming He Who Remains told Loki and Sylvie the whole truth, He Who Remains won the first-ever Multiversal War and defeated all his Variants. He then organized all realities into the neat, closed circle of the Sacred Timeline. That prevented his Variants from ever rising up again, risking all of existence in every reality via an apocalyptic incursion.

If He Who Remains did all of that before Quantumania, the third Ant-Man movie likely showed us the start of the second Multiversal War, the one that results in Kang taking over the TVA. (That will mean Loki season one started before Quantumania but technically ended after it.) This is the easier of the two possibilities to follow, as it also explains why the Council of Kangs now oversee a fractured, messy connection of realities. He Who Remains’ death caused the orderly Sacred Timeline to fracture and branch.

If instead, though, Sylvie killed He Who Remains after Quantumania then we have total chaos and no idea what’s going on. In that scenario we can’t even begin to guess at a timeline of events within the MCU. We can’t even know the real number of Multiversal Wars ever fought. Neither can we place the creation of the Council, Sacred Timeline, nor He Who Remains’ reign in any sort of chronological order.

All we know is that the possibility suggests the most dangerous Kang ever is about to be unleashed. He would have more experience than any of his Variants, because he was the only one exiled outside of time while they didn’t exist at all. His memories and knowledge are all intact.

Confused? That just means you’re paying attention, because when it comes to the timeline of Multiveral Wars there’s so much we don’t know. And that includes not even fully knowing everything we don’t even know to ask.

Is Kang the Exile the MCU’s Answer to Marvel Comics’ Prime Kang?

The story of Marvel Comics’ Kang is so complex it’s nearly impossible to untangle. But there does seem to be one clear difference between him and his new MCU counterpart. In Marvel Comics, every Kang Variant is the byproduct of Prime Kang, the original Nathaniel Richards. Nathaniel’s time hopping creates alternate realities, which in turn creates alternate versions of him. This leads some of his more famous Variants, like Immortus, to try and ensure Prime Kang’s further actions leads to their eventual creation. (The ramifications and rules of this kind of time travel would make Scott Lang cry.)

He Who Remains (who we are again are assuming was telling the truth) explained why Kang Variants are different in the MCU. The MCU is a world with infinite parallel worlds, and these worlds contain infinite Variants. You don’t need to travel between them to create new timelines like Kang in the comics, they already exist. (Like how Doctor Strange had Variants without multiverse hopping.)

But is Kang the Exile the live-action equivalent of the comics’ Prime Kang, the one Kang who matters above all else?

Considering Quantumania raised the very real possibility (some would argue near certainty) that its main Kang is not dead, all while showing the Council of Kangs fears him, the Exile might very well be the MCU’s own type of Prime Kang. And if that’s true, the story of every Kang Variant still runs—and ends—through him.

Is Victor Timely Actually Kang the Exile?

Quantumania‘s second post-credits scene is from the upcoming second season of Loki. In it Mobius and the God of Mischief watch a Kang Variant during the early part of the 20th century. This Variant performs on stage under the name Victor Timely, a character we also know from Marvel Comics.

The comics Victor Timely is really Prime Kang who went to Wisconsin in the year 1901 to show off his amazing technological advancements. There he founded the city of Timely, Wisconsin, which also contained Chronopolis, “a crossroads into virtually every era in human history” that “lays just out of phase with the timestream and is therefore undetectable.”

Loki believes Victor Timely is the terrible Variant that He Who Remains warned him about, the one that took over the TVA. We don’t know for certain if Kang the Conqueror is the new TVA leader, but if Loki is right about Victor there’s a good chance Timely is also the Exile. We’d just need to know how and why Victor Timely ended up in that exact spot in the timeline following his defeat to Ant-Man. And also how he plans to build his new Empire from there.

What Exactly Does the Council of Kangs Do and What Are They Readying for War?

Quantumania‘s first mid-credits scene featured an arena of Kang Variants. That included three of the most important ones from Marvel Comics: Immortus, Rama-Tut, and (we think, even though he doesn’t wear red) Scarlet Centurion. Those three, who appear to be the Council’s leaders, meet outside time and space, just as He Who Remains did from his Citadel. Only the Council oversees an interconnected, chaotic blending of realities, a far cry from the previously neat and ordered Sacred Timeline.

What exactly is the group’s purpose? Are they a de facto TVA? Did they ban the Conqueror to the Quantum Realm? Is that why the Council formed originally, to team up against him? And if they fear him, why are they so mad an Avenger killed the Exile they couldn’t? What exactly is the harm in others traversing the multiverse if it’s already a mess? Why would they risk calling all of their Variants to war when they believe their greatest enemy is already dead?

In Marvel Comics, the Council of Kangs exists in Limbo, outside time and space. What they didn’t know was that Prime Kang set up the group as a form of control. He used the Council as an easy way to kill his Variants and control every reality and timeline. If that’s also why the Council exists in the MCU, it raises even more questions about its role in the franchise.

Do the TVA and He Who Remains’ Citadel Both Exist in the Quantum Realm?

We know, we’ve already tired of hearing it too, but the phrase “outside time and space” is essential to understanding the MCU’s new existential threat. He Who Remains, Kang, and their Variants operate outside the confines that bind other beings. When they exist they exist outside a timeline that never ends. It’s also a timeline they can freely move about into any world they please. They don’t age, either, and they have access to all forms of technology.

And the only places in the MCU where we’ve seen living people exist like this is the Quantum Realm, the Void at the End of Time where He Who Remains sent pruned Variants, and the place where he built his Citadel.

After Loki‘s first season we theorized his Citadel existed in the Quantum Realm. After Quantumania that seems all but certain. Both places share physical traits, like their notable blue and purple skies. The Quantum Realm was also the only place that could “hold” Kang, just as it was the only place where He Who Remains could oversee all realities and the Sacred Timeline.

Janet said the Quantum Realm exists below “the void.” It was a noteworthy phrase to describe a place considering He Who Remains sent pruned Variants to “The Void” where Alioth ate them. The Void existed at “the end of time,” and the Citadel existed past that. The Disney+ show also revealed that outside the TVA sat a complex world full of bustling cities and civilizations. Same as the Quantum Realm.

That’s a lot of evidence for the TVA, Citadel, and Council of Kangs all existing in the Quantum Realm. But if that is true, it raises questions about how the same place could serve as both prison for Kang the Exile and kingdom for He Who Remains. It also means we don’t actually know if the people of the Quantum Realm are now free. They defeated Kang, but when did they do that? And does/did/will He Who Remains rule them when the Conqueror doesn’t?

For now those answers exist outside time and the space in our brains.

Did Janet Only See Kang’s Past Memories or Were Some From Kang’s Future?

Initially it seemed obvious what happened when Janet Van Dyne read Kang’s mind via his neurokinetic ship. She saw the Conqueror’s past where he wiped out entire realities, killing trillions. That’s what led to his banishment.

But Kang himself did not know exactly what she saw, suggesting she saw something he doesn’t know about. And since his life is not bound by the normal passage of time, we can’t rule out the idea Janet also saw “memories” from his future. If she did it means the Exile is not dead. He might be regrouping in a universe below the Quantum Realm. He might already be Victor Timely. Or he might also be an infinite number of other people we haven’t even met yet.

Yeah, it’s all a lot. Trying to figure out what Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania means for Kang’s future in the MCU is like entering a probability storm. Only, this storm is a lot more fun than the one Scott Lang got stuck in.

Mikey Walsh is a staff writer at Nerdist. You can follow him on Twitter at   @burgermike. And also anywhere someone is ranking the Targaryen kings.

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You know that futuristic city we saw in the trailers for Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, located within the Quantum Realm? That was almost certainly the MCU’s version of the city of Chronopolis. In the comics, Kang the Conqueror ruled this kingdom, located outside of time. Chronopolis appeared mainly in comics that Marvel published during the ‘90s. Judging from the Ant-Man trailers, Chronopolis contains highly advanced technology, likely from Kang’s MCU origin point in the far future. Clearly, it’s a place Janet van Dyne (Michelle Pfeiffer) is very familiar with—and did not want to return to. Here’s the backstory of the historic city of Chronopolis. Or should we say, a city made of history?

What Is Marvel’s City of Chronopolis?

In the pages of Marvel Comics, Chronopolis was the city that Kang called home. It first appeared in 1992’s Captain America Annual #11. The epic Avengers Forever mini-series in 1998 featured the destruction of Chronopolis. The layout of the city was circular in shape, and like the mythological Atlantis, a giant clear dome structure protected it. Inside, Chronopolis contained access points to all the different time periods Kang had conquered in the Marvel universe. The full map of Kang’s Chronopolis is below.

Each part of Kang’s kingdom was a slice of a specific time period. So one section looked like ancient Egypt, while another appeared as Victorian England, and so on. One could only go back and forth between parts of the city via hidden portals. But this free movement was not something an average citizen could do, and was largely reserved for Kang himself. The heart of the Chronopolis’ ability to function was the immensely powerful Forever Crystal.

Where Is Marvel Comics’ Chronopolis Located?

Chronopolis was located in Limbo, the pocket dimension that exists outside of time. Originally, Chronopolis occupied the same spacetime as another one of Kang’s first strongholds, the town of Timely, Wisconsin. After licking his wounds following an early battle with the Avengers, a variant of Kang’s went back in time to January 1, 1901, and founded the town of Timely. (The name itself was an in-joke, as Timely Comics was the original name of Marvel Comics).

From Timely, this Kang Variant, known as Victor Timely, created futuristic technology from his era of origin, in the hopes of gaining control of the following century. It’s where the advanced technology used to create the original Human Torch of the ‘40s, as well as many Hydra weapons, originated. Eventually, another Kang variant used this same location; he built Chronopolis there. Only it was “out of phase” with Timely and imperceptible to most regular people.

Was Marvel Comics’ Chronopolis Connected to the Quantum Realm?

In the comics, we knew the Quantum Realm as the Microverse. (There are all kinds of legal reasons the MCU version of a sub-atomic universe had a name change, mostly pertaining to a 1970s action figure line). Chronopolis was not located in the Microverse/Quantum Realm, but instead in the furthest outskirts of the realm of Limbo. Although, it was also partially located in “our” reality as well. But it looks like the MCU will give Chronopolis a change of address and place it in the Quantum Realm.

LEGO Marvel Super-Heroes‘ Chronopolis

In the game, LEGO Marvel Super-Heroes 2, a version of Chronopolis appeared composed of different points in time from famous Marvel locations. This was similar to Battleworld in the 2015 Secret Wars series. The locations included Avengers tower, Medieval Europe, the planet Xandar, Asgard, the swamp home of Man-Thing, and many more. There was even a whole new map of Chronopolis, which you can see above. We’re guessing that in the upcoming Avengers: Secret Wars, Marvel Studios will combine a version of Chronopolis with Battleworld, transforming it from a city to a whole planet. LEGO may yet inspire the MCU and soon, Chronopolis could be a key setting in it as well.

A Quantum Realm Chronopolis in the MCU

Ant-Man and the Wasp

We first saw hints of Chronopolis in a “blink and you’ll miss it” scene in Ant-Man and the Wasp. It’s hard to make out, but one can see the domed Quantum Realm city in that Phase 3 film. Although never outright stated, the fact that Janet Van Dyne seemed to have clothing and gear that she didn’t go into the Quantum Realm with suggested that there was a civilization in the Quantum Realm. We just didn’t get to see it in that film.

Loki Season One

In Loki, He Who Remains, himself a variant of Kang, lived alone in a Citadel at the End of Time. Was that Fortress the remains of Chronopolis? We’re not entirely sure. However, the Chronopolis we saw in Ant-man and the Wasp: Quantumania trailers sure seems similar to Loki’s Time Variance Authority in the season one finale. All the giant statues of Kang certainly gave off similar vibes. It would not surprise us to see similar monuments dedicated to his own greatness in Quantumania’s Chronopolis. Kang’s ego spans millennia, after all.

Chronopolis in Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania and MCU Phase 5

From what we saw in the trailers for Quantumania, there are several large rings that circle around buildings in Chronopolis. Many fans think that means both Shang-Chi’s Ten Rings, as well as Ms. Marvel’s bracelets, have a connection to the tech we saw in Chronopolis. There are also what appear to be lots of alien races present. (Although “alien,” as in from another planet, might not be the best description here). We’ll discover the truth about the MCU’s version of Chronopolis, and just how much the Quantum Realm city has in common with its Marvel Comics counterpart when Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania hits theaters on February 17.

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We have slightly over a month before MCU Phase 5 begins, with the release of Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania. Unlike the previous two Ant-Man films, this one won’t be just a comedic “palette cleanser” after a big MCU event. It will be the big MCU event. It properly introduces the villainous Kang (Jonathan Majors), setting the stage for everything in the Multiverse Saga. All culminating in Avengers: The Kang Dynasty and Secret Wars. And we now have our latest trailer for Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania and it’s a big one.

This tease of Peyton Reed’s third installment in the saga of Scott Lang reveals much more in terms of the actual plot. You can watch the full trailer from Marvel Studios right here:

The one thing Scott Lang wants most in this world is time. He wishes so much to get back the five years he lost with his daughter after Thanos’ snap. And it sounds like he might just listen to Kang’s tempting offer when the superpowered villain promises he can give it back to him. But, of course, he’ll discover it’s not wise to make deals with the devils.

A new synopsis also shares more about the movie ahead:

Super-Hero partners Scott Lang (Paul Rudd) and Hope van Dyne (Evangeline Lilly) return to continue their adventures as Ant-Man and the Wasp. Together, with Hope’s parents Janet van Dyne (Michelle Pfeiffer) and Hank Pym (Michael Douglas), and Scott’s daughter Cassie Lang (Kathryn Newton), the family finds themselves exploring the Quantum Realm, interacting with strange new creatures and embarking on an adventure that will push them beyond the limits of what they thought possible. Directed by Peyton Reed and produced by Kevin Feige, p.g.a. and Stephen Broussard, p.g.a., “Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania” also stars Jonathan Majors as Kang, David Dastmalchian as Veb, Katy O’Brian as Jentorra, William Jackson Harper as Quaz and Bill Murray as Lord Krylar.

Interestingly, David Dastmalchian won’t return in his previous Ant-Man role of Kurt, but instead in the role of “Veb.” Meanwhile, Bill Murray will play the mysterious Lord Krylar, a character who only appears briefly in Marvel’s comics.

This Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania trailer already looks bigger (and dare we say, weirder) than either of the two previous films. In both Ant-Man and Ant-Man and the Wasp, our visits to the Quantum Realm were fairly limited and brief. This time, we explore this section of reality way more in-depth than ever before. And they’ve filled it with unusual residents, including the big screen debut of M.O.D.O.K. Not to mention thousands of Ant-Mans are bubbling up all around us.

We also have a couple of new posters for Quantumania, which show off our three main characters and our big bad.

We’ve got Paul Rudd as our titular hero (in his full mask), Evangeline Lilly in her Wasp costume, and Cassie Lang (Kathryn Newton) in her own superhero suit. Also looming above them all is Jonathan Majors as Kang the Conqueror himself. We see what looks like Chronopolis, the city that exists outside of time, which in the MCU will be located within the Quantum Realm, and so much more. Between the Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania posters and trailer, we say… Bring on the microscopic, epic fun.

Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania will release on February 17, 2023.

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Kevin Feige loves to keep fans waiting, and he did just that at SDCC. After revealing the end of Phase 4 and the entire slate of Phase 5, he then teased the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s Phase 6. The long-awaited Fantastic Four movie will kick off the phase. Feige also shared that there would be two new Avengers movies: Avengers: The Kang Dynasty on May 2, followed by Avengers: Secret Wars, which will now release on May 1, 2026. (Initially, it was slated for November 7, 2025.) We also learned that the current phase we’re existing in—which will end with Secret Wars—is called the Multiverse Saga. 

Jump To: Secret Wars // The Kang Dynasty

That moniker makes a lot of sense seeing as there have been plenty of Multiverse shenanigans so far. Most interesting is the reveal that the Phase 6 of the MCU saga will end with Secret Wars. This is something we’ve been predicting for a while. In the comics, the most recent Secret Wars event was used to streamline the massive multiverse of Marvel Comics. So it makes sense that after introducing the multiverse, the MCU might want to do the same. But it’ll be really interesting to see how we get there. Now thanks to Hall H, we have a little more of an idea of the roadmap. 

If you’re wondering what Secret Wars and The Kang Dynasty are in terms of the comics, of course, we have you covered, so read on for a little primer on the history of each. 

What Is Secret Wars?

In 1984, Secret Wars was the first epic Marvel crossover event comic, pitting Marvel’s most popular heroes against their worst villains. The 12-part series had the all-powerful entity called the Beyonder place these characters on a so-called “Battleworld,” where their conflict would decide the fate of humanity. The original series was mostly a gimmick to sell toys. But writer Jonathan Hickman took the bones of that concept and ran with it for a new version, back in 2015. 

In this critically acclaimed reboot, Battleworld was composed of multiple realities from across the Multiverse, ruled by Doctor Doom. Versions of virtually every character Marvel fans have ever loved appeared on Battleworld, doing battle with each other. And it looks like we might see this play out on the big screen, with something that might blow fans’ minds. Secret Wars may have the possibility of making the Infinity Saga like just a warm-up act. 

Secret Wars has been a rumored MCU outing for a long time, so we’re excited to see it in Marvel’s Phase 6. Famously, the Russo Brothers have brought up over and over again that they would like to helm the Secret Wars film. But, alas, Kevin Feige has revealed that this won’t come to pass for now. In fact, the Russos won’t connect to either the Secret Wars or Kang Dynasty Avengers movies. Per Deadline, Feige notes, “They’re not connected to it…They’ve been very direct about that. We love them, they love us. We want to find something to do together, it’s not this.”

What Is The Kang Dynasty?

Marvel Studios likes to take titles from well-known comics but apply them to all-new stories. Most famously, they did this with Avengers: Age of Ultron. The movie had a totally different story than the comic of the same name, aside from the basic “Avengers vs. Ultron” of it all. We may see the same thing with The Kang Dynasty. 

In the comics, “The Kang Dynasty” was a 16-part story by Kurt Busiek, who wrote one of the best Avengers runs of all time with multiple artists. The basic plot of the 2001-2002 story saw Kang in the present announce his intentions to the UN to take over the world, in order to prevent all negative futures from happening. We could see something like this taking place in the MCU, which would lead an all-new team of Avengers to stop Kang. 

Of course, we don’t know any details about The Kang Dynasty yet. But The Hollywood Reporter revealed that Shang-Chi director Destin Daniel Cretton will also helm Avengers: The Kang Dynasty. So we already know its going to be fire. Additionally, per Deadline, Jeff Loveness will pen this Phase 6 Marvel movie.

Both movies will hit the MCU and theaters in 2025!

Originally published on July 23, 2022.

Featured Image: Marvel Studios

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Ever since the first trailer for Hawkeye debuted fans have been eager to see the much-teased musical inspired by Steve Rogers. Titled simply Rogers: The Musical, the play is key to the first episode. It’s where we first see Clint and his kids on their holiday trip to NYC. But something strange is afoot. As Clint mentions, Ant-Man is in the musical and, according to the titular hero, he shouldn’t be there. Of course, at first glance, Clint is right. Ant-Man wasn’t at the Battle of New York, was he? Well, actually, post-Avengers: Endgame he was. And if the makers of the musical somehow know that, then we’re in a brave new MCU timeline.

Is Rogers: The Musical Telling the Story of the Battle of New York?

The song that we see in the first episode is called “Save the City.” Its refrain “I could do this all day” is a reference to the famed Captain America line we hear in The First Avenger, Civil War, and Endgame. But, interestingly, it’s not in the first Avengers movie where the Battle of New York took place. As Clint and his daughter talk about the show, Clint mentions another anomaly. Ant-Man is part of the chorus, implying he was at the Battle of New York. But, as Clint explains, Ant-Man was never actually there. That makes it seem like the musical’s creators have taken some creative license. But there is another option too, and it has much bigger implications…

What if Rogers: The Musical is Actually Telling the Story of Endgame?

While the NYC setting and team makes it seem like we’re watching the Battle of New York, the fact that Ant-Man is there and Steve is singing “I could do this all day” got us thinking. If we cast our minds back to Endgame then another answer becomes clear. When Steve Rogers and Tony Stark returned back to 2012 in order to collect the Mind Stone, they had company in the form of Scott Lang A.K.A. Ant-Man. That places Ant-Man at the Battle of New York. And it retcons another key part by adding Steve saying “I could do this all day” while fighting himself. Those two things make it easy to argue that Rogers: The Musical is actually telling the post-Endgame version of the Battle of New York. But if that’s the case then it causes a big problem for the MCU’s timeline and the rules the Ancient One laid out in Endgame.

Why Does it Matter Which Version We’re Seeing?

Well, if we’re seeing a song about the 2012 Battle of New York, that makes perfect sense. It means that post-Endgame the world went back to normal. And potentially the creators of the show just put some questionable continuity into the play for a laugh. But if we’re watching a version that actually represents the Endgame iteration of 2012, then something’s wrong. In Endgame, the Ancient One and the Hulk explain that once all the Infinity Stones are back in their rightful place the timeline will go back to the way it was before. We saw Steve leave to return them at the end of the movie. But if people know that Ant-Man was at the Battle of New York and that Cap said “I could do this all day,” then the timeline never reset. While we trust that Steve put the stones back, there’s one thing that wasn’t in its rightful place… Steve himself.

While we all assumed that everything had gone back to normal post the Blip, there may be an anomaly. Steve going back in time and living his dream life with Peggy would have likely started a paradox. And if the musical number we saw in Rogers: The Musical is anything to go by, his choice might have stopped the timelines from fixing themselves. It could also be that when Loki stole the Tesseract, he created a variant timeline where people know what happened during the Endgame version of 2012. Whatever the answer, this is either a silly continuity joke or a massive hint that the timelines are messed up. And with Kang now in the MCU, the second option seems more likely than ever.

Featured Image: Marvel Studios

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For nearly sixty years, Kang the Conqueror has been one of the greatest villains the Avengers ever fought. Known alternately as Kang, Immortus, and several other names, this despot from the 31st century wants nothing less than to rule over all of time. And now, he’s an official part of the MCU, as played by Jonathan Majors on Loki. But it’s taken this many years for Kang to receive his own series at Marvel Comics.

The new five-issue series Kang the Conqueror comes from the writing duo of Jackson Lanzing and Collin Kelly (Green Arrow, Star Trek: Year Five), with art by Carlos Magno & Espen Grundetjern. We got the chance to chat with Lanzing and Kelly on the long-awaited solo series for the time-obsessed villain. Or is he really even a villain? Jackson and Kelly dive deep on the many, many versions of Kang, and how all these variants inform one life story told over five issues, as well as preview the first six pages from issue one.

Marvel Comics

Nerdist: Is this limited series finally a fully fleshed out Kang origin story?

Collin Kelly: Issue one is Kang’s proper origin, and issues two through five are Kang’s life story. We are hoping to, by the end of issue five, take you through the entirety of King’s life. So that any Kang story that you have read over the course of the last several decades, you can look at it and see where it fits inside the secret history of Kang the Conqueror, and the personal story he’s been through.

Marvel Comics 

Nerdist: We know that Kang can be anywhere in time, but where is he at mentally? What is he hoping to accomplish in this series, besides obviously conquer everything from the beginning to the end of time?

Kelly: It’s kind of tricky, you’ll see what we do in issue one. The main character that we’re really following along with his life, and I know it sounds so corny, but he just wants love. He wants acceptance, and to find that human connection for who he is. And not what the universe means for him to be. Kind of the same thing that any kid who has been love starved wants, who hasn’t had that really strong adult influence in their life. You end up just kind of trying to grasp someone that can tell you it’s going to be okay, and you are going to be okay.

Marvel Comics

Lanzing: We became really surprised heading into this. Because we kind of thought it was going to be a book about fathers and sons. A book about how our elders train us. And then trying to fight that training, discovering that it’s harder to escape than we thought. We’re really going to look at what it’s like when this kid is just stuck as becoming Kang.

And then certainly once we got to issue three and four, we started digging deeper and deeper into [Kang’s love interest] Ravonna Renslayer. Ravonna became our entire backbone. She’s the key to the book in looking at what she means to Kang, and what he needs out of her. You start to see the personal and rather tragic story of a guy who cannot let go of love, and who cannot let go of loss. And who thinks that it’s the only thing that’s going to save him, when in fact it is in many ways, it’s the thing that dooms him.

Marvel Comics

Nerdist: Will we only be reading about one Kang in particular, or will get glimpses of other Kangs across the Multiverse? Because I think Iron Lad probably has some points to make.

Lanzing: Iron Lad is also our favorite Kang. So we are absolutely going to be having some nods to Iron Lad. And if you want to know more about that, issue two is where that all drops out. But when we came to this project, we both fell in love with Kang the Conqueror through Young Avengers #1. That series came out in the exact right space for us. We’re both huge fans of that series, and what Allan Heinberg and Jim Cheung did on that book drew us both in. And that book’s release timed really well. Because it’s exactly when Collin and I met in college. So we both became rabid fans of Iron Lad in that book. And from there, we went and became bigger fans of Kang.

Marvel Comics

Over the years I’ve really enjoyed the fact that the character can facet into all these different directions. A big part of our pitch coming in on Kang  from the get-go was we want to put Kangs against Kangs. We want to look at what it means when this character has to deal, not with the Council of Kangs, because I think they’re going to really good job of kind of putting that back in its box, but rather just with his own legacy. His own self, his own sort of a trying timeline. And looking at how Iron Lad, Kang the Conquer, the Scarlet Centurion, and even Immortus to some degree, now all fit into that wide range.

Kelly: When you look at it from a certain perspective, you know, they’re all the same Kang, right? They are all variants of each other. They are all from a certain view, the same timeline. So really being able to look at him and how he’s grown and how he may have picked up different monikers, but it’s still the same fundamentally flawed a person, no matter what reality you find him in. That’s a really important story for us to tell about him.

Marvel Comics

Nerdist: Is this new series essentially the definitive Kang origin story?

Lanzing: A lot of the villain origin comics are just going to take you through the standard story. They’re going to walk you through the character and let you understand how they “came to be a villain,” so to speak. We’re revealing in issue one, that Kang the Conqueror has been kind of lying about it. He’s been fibbing a little bit about where he came from, and exactly what his origin is. He reveals that his origins tie into his own future self. He is himself sort of an Ouroboros of a person.

We’re really hoping to get into the idea that Kang isn’t just Nate underneath Kang. He isn’t a true villain. He’s a kid who’s that’s abused and mistreated, and then love starved. And that all of those things are really going to lead to a life that’s going to desire conquest. So our hope is that we’re really giving you a ton of sympathy for this kid, even as we’re revealing to you that later on, he has lied for some fifty years about where he actually came from.

Nerdist: Kang’s family tree is a little messy. Can we expect any interactions with his ancestors? Or clarification of just who his ancestors actually are?

Lanzing: It’s a “Yes.” But really, it’s a “Yes, but.” Here’s the thing. There was something really lovely and useful about the fact that they’ve been very specific to never tell you officially what his lineage really is. Is he a descendant of the modern Nathaniel Richards? Or a descendant of his son Reed Richards? Maybe a descendant of Victor Von Doom? Is he somehow a descendant of all three? And the more that you define him that way [with a known lineage], I think the less interesting he becomes.

The fact that he is looking back at his history and saying “Yeah, I have an important ancestor somewhere in here” is kind of the point for him. It’s not that he knows all of his ancestries. It’s that he really wants to believe that he comes from something more powerful. He comes from this boring, boring world, and he wants to believe that he’s something more. So you’ll see what we do in the first six pages of Kang #1 to address this. To sort of talk about it a little bit and then to move on from it, because the real father to Kang… is Kang.

Marvel Comics

Nerdist: Kang is of course one of the Avengers’ greatest enemies, somewhere up there with Ultron and Thanos. Even though this is a Kang solo series, is his obsession with the Avengers something you’re going to deal with?

Kelly: We go into it a bit in issue three. But we are going to see it more in issue five. That’s when we really kind of dive into his overall obsession. This isn’t necessarily a man raised with a kind of single-minded determination to destroy the Avengers. You never have that kind of single-mindedness until a light switch flips. And something really changes in his life that builds that obsession. It’s something that we’re going to build to and eventually, really dive into.

Nerdist: Both of you have Star Trek comics on your resume. A franchise that was well known for time travel stories. Did any Trek time travel stories inspire Kang?

Kelly: Weirdly, time travel and the two of us go back quite a ways. Both of us come from Hollywood originally and still live here. We’ve been telling time travel stories since we’ve met effectively. It was actually my senior thesis at school. So we cribbed from lots of things, including from Star Trek. We will talk your ears off when it comes to time travel1 But also when you ask about Trek specifically, it’s like, well, they’ve kind of done time travel in every way. And so has Marvel Comics.

Nerdist: Finally, I can’t help but wonder if Kang has his very own playlist. And what would be on it.

Lanzing: Yes! We do have a playlist. You can check it out on Spotify.

The first issue of Kang the Conqueror hits on August 18.

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We who live in orbit of the MCU have been mulling over the matter of Kang for quite a while. Right on the heels of Avengers: Endgame, we began to wonder whether all that timeline-shifting would result in dimensional rifts. As we know now, thanks to the finale of Loki, where there come rifts, there comes Kang the Conqueror. It wasn’t until December 2020 that we heard official news that the character would be taking form in the franchise; specifically, in the forthcoming Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, where he’d be played by Jonathan Majors. Once that news hit us, we wondered if we might get a preliminary introduction in one of Disney+’s Marvel shows. We were wrong about WandaVision, but Loki ended up making good on the promise of He Who Remains.

Marvel Studios

The final episode of Loki introduced us to one of countless variants of Kang. The character took form as a chatty, well-mannered, Machiavellian diplomat with a proclivity for eating apples painfully slowly. And all his charisma can be thanked to the acting prowess of Jonathan Majors. But as a discussion in Entertainment Weekly has revealed, this wasn’t the only role that Majors played on Loki. As it turns out, he lent his voice to the Time Keepers, the would-be rulers of the TVA.

Loki showrunner Kate Herron told EW that she took advantage of Majors’ talent when casting the unseen Time Keepers.

“Something that was really fun for me was we hadn’t, for example, cast the voice of the Time Keepers yet, because you know Wizard of Oz was an obvious reference of ours. I was like, ‘Oh, let’s get Jonathan to do it, because he’s an amazing character actor,'” she said. “We sent him the art of all the characters and it was really fun [because] he was sending us all of these different voices he could do for each character, which was great.”

You may know Majors for turns in Lovecraft Country or The Last Black Man in San Francisco. If you haven’t seen his previous work, know that He Who Remains is just a taste of his talent; that he provided numerous distinct voices to Loki should only prove that further. We’re excited to see Majors embody Kang full force in Quantumania and, presumably, Loki season two. It was worth waiting on the Conqueror if it meant an actor like Majors bringing him to life.

Featured Image: Marvel Studios

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The clock hasn’t run out on the God of Mischief’s adventures through time just yet. Loki is coming back for a second season. But things will be very different when the show returns. Sylvie set off another Multiversal War, and a much more terrifying Variant of He Who Remains has won. What does that mean for the series, the MCU, the TVA, and both Lokis? Here’s everything we know, think we know, and still need answers to.

Marvel

A New Timeline and a New TVA

Marvel

The death of He Who Remains did not result in his return to the TVA, as he thought it might. Season one’s final scene revealed a Variant of his triumphed in the latest iteration of the Multiversal War. But the TVA still exists in this new timeline. It also has the same people working for it. The new ruler’s approach to maintaining a Sacred Timeline is not completely different than the old one’s. But just how much is the same remains to be seen.

As is the actual identity of the Variant who now controls the TVA. If it’s who we think it is, He Who Remains warning to Loki and Sylvie was well-founded. The new head of the TVA is much worse.

Kang the Conqueror

Marvel

Jonathan Majors will play Kang the Conqueror in the MCU. The character is set to appear in Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania. The time-controlling baddie is one of the Avengers’ most memorable, most dangerous villains in Marvel Comics. But that’s not exactly who we met on Loki.

He Who Remains was one of the character’s many Variants. Majors might end up playing multiple versions of that 31st century scientist. But Kang is the current best bet to be the new head of the TVA. And if that wasn’t his statue Loki saw at the end of the season finale, Kang will do everything he can to usurp whomever it belongs to.

Kang might already be here, ready to battle the Avengers. If he’s not, he’s coming soon. The only good news is that maybe one of his Variants will also come along to help fight him.

An Altered Timeline

Marvel

The new timeline’s Mobius didn’t recognize Loki. That doesn’t portend well for the God of Mischief. Beyond Mobius not remembering the timeline we witnessed, it suggests that Lokis might be a rare breed in this new reality. They might also be a doomed one. It’s less clear if a new timeline will mean a new past for the MCU. The TVA exists outside of time. Will things within time be slightly altered too? Dramatically different? Or exactly the same as before?

We wouldn’t bet on wholesale changes to Marvel‘s MCU past. But we wouldn’t be surprised by small changes. And we definitely think an altered timeline has huge implications for the future.

Loki and Sylvie

Marvel

As mentioned above, Mobius and Hunter B-15 don’t remember the old timeline. However, Loki definitely does, likely because he met He Who Remains. If that’s why, Sylvie will remember him too, making the pair the Multiverse’s best bet to do anything about this new Variant in charge. The old Sacred Timeline either broke or never existed. (Just because He Who Remains said time was a loop doesn’t mean it is.)

The problem (one of many) for Loki and Sylvie is that even if they can work together, they might be alone in this battle. It won’t be easy for a god renowned for lying to get anyone to believe the outrageous story they will tell. And two Lokis telling such a tale is twice as likely to be ignored. Even worse for them, one potential ally is someone neither can trust. And the other is a hologram.

Judge Ravonna Renslayer

Marvel

Judge Renslayer still believes in the agency’s mission. This despite learning that the Time Keepers never existed, and not knowing who controlled the old TVA. He Who Remains sent her files that strengthened her resolve to stop the destruction he claimed would follow the collapse of the Time Variance Authority. But those mystery files also made Renslayer seek power herself. She’s on a quest to find free will. And she thinks the only being who has free will is the person in charge.

Renslayer might have been He Who Remains’ failsafe. At the very least, she is a threat to the new leader of the TVA. Possibly as her comic book time-defying space-pirate persona Terminatrix. More importantly, she might also be the only other person besides Loki and Sylvie in all existence who knows about the old timeline. But can three known liars with an ugly past work together?

Miss Minutes

Marvel

If knowing the identity of He Who Remains helped Loki and Sylvie keep their memories, the old TVA’s trusted sentient hologram might also remember him. Miss Minutes was more than just a projection. She was capable of lying and emotion. She was angry at Loki and Sylvie for not accepting an offer to be reinserted into the timeline. Is Miss Minutes also capable of feeling loyalty? Will she serve the new TVA ruler the same way? Or work against him to restore the Variant who created her?

The fate of time and reality, across infinite universes, might depend on three conniving Variants and a sassy orange hologram with a Southern accent. Not great!

Season Two’s Release Date

Marvel

When Loki season two comes to Disney+ might be the most important question of all. Will it air before or after Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, which comes to theaters in March 2022? Will we see it before Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, which premieres in February 2023 and will feature Kang? As we know, time in the MCU isn’t always linear. The events in one movie or TV show can greatly change what happens in the next MCU installment. An entirely new timeline doesn’t make predicting what will happen next any easier either.

Knowing Loki‘s second season release date would still provide a lot more context for what to expect from both the show and the MCU. Each might have a different Kang Variant as its primary enemy. Or the Conqueror could appear across many installments of the franchise. As soon as Disney announces the placement of Loki season two in its release order schedule, we can really ramp up the speculation. Right now we’re only at a 10 out of 10.

Other Connections to the MCU

Marvel

Between the introduction of Variants, the multiverse, and Jonathan Majors, Loki has plenty of connections to other upcoming MCU projects. But those obvious ones aren’t the end of them. The upcoming animated series What If…?, which will explore alternate versions of the franchise, might be way more important than anyone expected. And Loki also had a potential musical connection to Marvel’s upcoming Eternals. Why was that there?

And those are just the ones we know about. Other foreshadowing, clues, and relevant plot points to the MCU at large might only become apparent in future films.

All Our Remaining Questions

Marvel

Before Loki‘s first season finale we had nine major questions we hoped would be answered. Some were, but not all. While—as you can see—many new ones were raised. But these are the outstanding season one issues we’d still like to like to learn more about:

“Where” Does the Place Beyond the Void Exist?

Marvel

“Past the end of time” isn’t definitive. Especially now that we know that time isn’t one single loop and it might never actually end. With Kang’s upcoming battle with Ant-Man and the Wasp in a movie called Quantumania, we’re not ruling out the possibility the Citadel resides in the Quantum Realm. But we’re not ruling out any other possibility either.

What Was Sylvie’s Nexus Event?

Marvel

Maybe this will always remain a mystery. But the moment in the elevator, when Sylvie asked Renslayer about her nexus event, had major Checkhov’s Origin Story vibes. The answer might end up being more important than anyone realizes yet.

What Will Happen to All the Variants If the TVA Is Destroyed?

Marvel

The TVA still exists in the new timeline. What would actually happen without the agency though? And what will happen to the Variants who work there? Hopefully something less awful than the death and chaos that He Who Remains promised.

Will Mobius Get to Ride His Jet Ski?

Marvel

Kang. Time. Existence. Multiversal War. Variants. The past, present, and future of the MCU. Not a single one those things matters as much as our favorite analyst finally—FINALLY—getting to ride his beloved jet ski once again. How sacred can any timeline be if that doesn’t happen?

The post All Our LOKI Season 2 Theories and Questions appeared first on Nerdist.

We didn’t need to see the TVA’s new statue in the last moment of Loki‘s season one finale to know something was wrong. After being pruned by Sylvie, a frantic God of Mischief finds Mobius and Hunter B-15 by the archives. The two had been celebrating the branching timeline mere moments before. Suddenly, they became flummoxed and worried. And when Loki tried to warn them “someone is coming,” they didn’t know what he meant. Worse, they didn’t seem to know who he was or where he came from. Their ignorance might mean only two leftover Loki Variants exist in this new terrifying timeline.

Marvel

He Who Remains told Sylvie what would happen if she killed him. It just didn’t end the way he thought it would. Sylvie’s dagger set off another Multiversal War. However, in this timeline, a different version of that 31st-century scientist won. If time had repeated itself, the TVA would have been exactly the same as before. He Who Remains would have won the war and the animatronic Time Keepers would become the face of the TVA. Unlike the Kang Variant we meet, the new Variant does not keep his identity hidden. The Time Keeper statues from the so-called “sacred” timeline are gone, and his likeness now adorns the Time Variance Authority’s interior.

Not everything about this new time loop is different though. Mobius and Hunter B-15 still work at the TVA. Their concern over the branching timeline showed these different versions—whether they know they are Variants or not—-also care about maintaining the Sacred Timeline. The triumph of the TVA’s new ruler, likely Kang the Conqueror, have changed some things at the agency, but not everything. And not in any significant ways we have seen yet.

Marvel

The TVA exists outside of time though. It’s not yet clear whether a new winner in the Multiversal War has also changed events within time. The past, present, and future of the MCU might be altered in this new timeline. Possibly in big ways. Possibly in small ways. Or not at all. However, even with the creation of a new, different timeline, it’s hard to imagine Marvel would decide everything that happened before no longer counts. Or that past events have fundamentally changed. It would completely wipe away 13 years of storytelling. At most, any alterations would likely be minor. Except for one that seems to have already happened. Mobius’s reaction in that final scene suggests Loki Variants are no longer a problem.

Owen Wilson’s Mobius still works as an analyst in the new timeline. Yet, he has no idea what a Loki is. Nor does he recognize the name or the face of Prime Loki. In the old timeline, the TVA dealt with countless Lokis all the time. Mobius studied them; he knew them intimately. It’s why he believed in Tom Hiddleston Loki 2.0. But the new Mobius confuses Loki for a fellow analyst from another division. The God of Mischief shouldn’t be worried his friend Mobius doesn’t recognize him personally. He should be worried Mobius doesn’t recognize any Loki.

Marvel

Does this mean Lokis never existed in this new timeline? Almost certainly not. That would mean the Avengers never formed. Loki’s invasion and the Battle of New York brought the team together. Of all the storylines Marvel wouldn’t change, that’s the biggest. But the God of Mischief still could have existed in this timeline without the TVA being aware of him. His Variants might have never caused nexus events. Without a nexus event the Sacred Timeline never branches. And they don’t need to be dealt with. (Or Kang, recognizing the threat Loki Variants posed to his rule, might have done Loki pruning himself.)

Meanwhile, Prime Loki’s story could have happened and ended where it was supposed to. At the hands of Thanos. That wouldn’t change anything about the MCU’s past while still changing its future.

Marvel

If Thanos killed Prime Loki, and none of his Variants ever lived past that moment, that means the universe has only two Lokis left. The duo He Who Remains wanted to hand his kingdom to. They’re also two of the only people in the entire universe who might even know about the old timeline at all.

Loki Variants always caused the TVA and the Sacred Timeline problems. Now, the last two Gods of Mischief might be the only hope of saving both.

Mikey Walsh is a staff writer at Nerdist. You can follow him on Twitter at @burgermike, and also anywhere someone is ranking the Targaryen kings.

The post Why Mobius’ Final Scene in LOKI Season 1 Changed Everything appeared first on Nerdist.

Well, everyone’s theories about Mephisto being the secret “Big Bad” in WandaVision might have been totally off. But if you guessed that Kang was the main baddie pulling the strings in Loki, then ding ding ding! You get the big… no prize, sorry. Of course, we’re talking about Jonathan Majors‘ reveal as He Who Remains. Even though he’s never officially name-dropped as Kang. But given that he’s confirmed to play Kang in Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, we know exactly who he is. Or do we? When it comes to Kang, it’s always complicated.

Marvel Comics

As He Who Remains says to Loki and Sylvie in the season finale, many iterations of himself exist across the Multiverse. And most of them are not as “nice” as he is. So if the Kang we met in Loki is the manipulative (but less evil) version, does that mean we might have just seen another hint of yet another member of the Young Avengers? Because our prevailing theory at the moment is that the Kang we met at the end of Loki is none other than the adult version of the Young Avenger known as Iron Lad.

He Who Remains = Immortus?

Marvel Comics

In the pages of Marvel Comics, there are many, many iterations of Kang. There is Rama-Tut, a version of Kang who traveled back in time to ancient Egypt to rule. Then there’s Mister Gryphon, a time duplicate stuck in the 21st century. Yet another alias is the Scarlet Centurion. But Kang’s most famous secondary incarnation is as the regal Immortus. That version of Kang is older and wears a long robe instead of a Doctor Doom-like mask. Tired of conquering timelines, he is far more interested in preserving them. And controlling them. Sounds like Loki’s Kang to us.

But whether He Who Remains is Immortus or not, he once had a youth. And the big tip that the Kang we meet at the end of Loki is a future version of Iron Lad is simply his insistence that he is far less bad than all the other variants of himself. Iron Lad was a hero, at least as a teenager. And he was a founding member of the Young Avengers and a catalyst for their formation.

The Comic Book History of Iron Lad

Marvel Comics

Like just about all other Kang variants, the version that became Iron Lad in the 21st century was born as Nathaniel Richards in the 31st century. Already a genius as a teenager, Nathaniel was still the target of bullies who envied him. While still a young teenager, a particularly nasty kid named Morgan bullied him. Morgan nearly cut his throat. But on the day of his brush with death, Kang the Conqueror arrived from the future and stopped the fight. He informed his younger, less powerful self of his glorious future destiny.

Kang then equipped his younger self in a special neurokinetic armor, all while showing young Nathaniel glimpses of his future as a despot who controls time, and as an eternal enemy of the Avengers. Kang hoped that his younger self would start on his road to multiversal domination at a younger age with this revelation. But the opposite happened. The young Nathanial felt completely horrified by what his future self would become. He vowed never to become that version of Kang. He used his newly acquired time-travel capabilities, installed in his armor, and fled thousands of years into the past—into the era of the Avengers.

Founding the Young Avengers 

Marvel Comics

However, teenage Nathaniel’s calculations were slightly off. When he arrived in the past, the Avengers were no more. They had just disbanded, due to an attack by a mentally unstable Scarlet Witch in a storyline called Avengers Disassembled. Arriving at their ruined headquarters, he found the remains of the android Vision (left destroyed by his former wife, Wanda Maximoff). Using the tech inside of him, he activated a protocol in his programming meant to seek out a new generation of Avengers, should the old generation fall. It is here where Nathanial took on the name of Iron Lad, as a sort of teenage tribute to Tony Stark. He gathered the teen heroes who become the Young Avengers.

Marvel Comics

Eventually, after many adventures with his new friends the Young Avengers, Iron Lad revealed his true identity. He told his friends he never wants to become Kang as an adult and is doing good in the past to make up for the future Kang’s misdeeds. But the longer the young Nathaniel stayed in the 21st century, the more the timeline unraveled. Eventually, he discovered he must return to his time and fulfill his destiny and become Kang. No matter how much he doesn’t want to. Certain other tragedies in his future seemingly ensure his ultimately becoming the despotic time-conqueror. Although he promised to be “a better version.”

Why Loki’s Kang May Be an Older Iron Lad

Marvel Comics

For starters, we know the Young Avengers are coming. Most of the main characters have been introduced now or have been officially revealed as coming. WandaVision introduced Wiccan and Speed. The Falcon and The Winter Soldier introduced Eli Bradley, a.k.a. Patriot. The Ant-Man films have introduced Cassie Lang, the future Stature. Hawkeye will introduce the second bearer of that name, Kate Bishop. And Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness is introducing Miss America Chavez. Hulkling remains a no-show, but Secret Invasion could introduce him. So Marvel is setting up the teen team for sure in the MCU.

Since the version of Kang we meet in Loki describes himself as far less bad than his variants, this suggests he was once a far more idealistic young man. It seems his creation of the TVA was a last resort to bring order to chaos. So it tracks that his young self would be even more idealistic and try for a future where he never becomes the relentless Kang the Conqueror (or even Immortus) at all. A scenario exists where the teenage version of this Kang sets out into the past in the hopes of changing his destiny.

Marvel Comics

Imagine a scenario where a young Nathaniel Richards arrives in the 21st century. But he lands in the timeline post-Endgame, when the Avengers have disbanded. He could follow his comic book counterparts’ history almost verbatim from this point on. He would access the Vision’s protocols, during the time when S.W.O.R.D. kept his body. And he could gather the rest of the Young Avengers, just as in the comics.

Of course, the events of Loki ensure that he ultimately goes down the road of trying to conquer time. But the version we saw tried to do it in as bloodless a way as possible. Something, we will learn, the other Kangs won’t do. Only time will tell (no pun intended) if the man we met at the end of Loki season one is a hint of Iron Lad’s arrival. But we have a feeling this is indeed the timeline where it’s meant to happen.

The post Could LOKI’s Kang Reveal Hint at a Future Young Avenger? appeared first on Nerdist.

“Someone is coming. Countless different versions of a very dangerous person. And they’re all set on war. We need to prepare.”

Mobius and Hunter B-15 didn’t ignore that warning at the end of Loki‘s season one finale. They didn’t understand it. Neither of the TVA members knew Loki at all. Why didn’t the two, who moments earlier celebrated the fall of the Time Variance Authority, recognize him? And why was the TVA suddenly adorned with the face of He Who Remains? Because that very dangerous someone has already won the new Multiversal War Sylvie started. And they now control time and all reality.

Marvel

War and the Origins of the TVA

The head of the TVA, the person living in the Citadel beyond the end of time, was a man of flesh and blood from Earth. A scientist who first lived during the 31st century and discovered “universes stacked on top of his own,” an infinite number of them. Other versions of himself in those parallel universes also made the same discovery at the same time. They then began traveling to each other’s different dimensions. Their initial “narcissistic, self-congratulatory” peace led to the sharing of knowledge and technology between worlds and realities. But not every Variant of the scientist sought the same thing. To some, “new worlds meant only one thing: new lands to be conquered.”

Marvel

Eventually a Multiversal War broke out between the Variants. Each “fighting to preserve their universe and annihilate the others” no matter the cost. The cost was almost the end “of everything and everyone.” He Who Remains claims he alone avoided armageddon. As well as a much worse version of himself from seizing control over every universe.

He did that by using a monster the war itself created. The fighting between universes caused “tears” in reality. Those rips gave birth to the monster known as Alioth, the storm Loki and Sylvie enchanted in episode five. That tempest could “consume time and space.” The scientist harnessed the beast’s power and weaponized it to end the Multiversal War. Once he won he isolated his own timeline as the Sacred Timeline of all existence. He then had to “manage the flow of time and manage any prevent further branches.”

Marvel

A Variant in any parallel world who created a nexus event, no matter how small, threatened to start another war that could destroy existence. A single misplaced domino could result in all of time crashing in on itself. But with him in charge, no Variants, especially his own, could be that domino.

To protect time, He Who Remains created the TVA, which, like the Citadel, exists outside of time. He created holy, purely good Time Keepers to be the face of the agency. They hid the truth of the evil origins and villain holding the universe together. And he wiped the memories of the Variants he turned into judges, hunters, and analysts. It didn’t matter if they lived a lie. So long as they played their role in securing existence.

The Search For a New Leader

He Who Remains lived “a million lifetimes” from his perch past time, where age could not get him. He knew “it all” and he had “seen it all.” But after so long he grew tired. Protecting existence from his Variants and other troublesome beings was a “young” person’s game. And after going through “every scenario” for a way to escape his kingdom, he was confident the only option that protected the multiverse from tearing itself apart was the TVA. Because without him and the agency “everything burns.”

Marvel

After countless failed attempts to find a replacement, he finally realized he needed two people to do his job. He found them in Loki and Sylvie and created a path for them to find him. They were worthy successors. Like He Who Remains, both Loki and Sylvie are villains who have done horrible things. They are formidable foes who can triumph where their Variants have failed. Only now they had a chance to do evil things “for a good reason.”

He Who Remains gave Loki and Sylvie two choices. “You kill me and the Sacred Timeline is completely exposed, Multiversal War,” he said. “Or you take over and return to the TVA as its benevolent rulers. Tell the workforce who they are and why they do what they do.”

Marvel

Together they could take the throne over all of time and reality. And do so without maintaining the TVA’s many lies to the people who served it. Or they could start another war between realities. A battle that would be inevitable without the TVA pruning branches and Variants. Loki wanted to choose what he saw as the lesser of two evils. Quite literally. He Who Remains said, “If you think I’m evil, just wait till you meet my Variants.” Sylvie wanted her vengeance and to free the universe from the TVA’s control.

A New War Begins and Ends

He Who Remains knew everything that would happen right up until the three people inside the Citadel crossed a threshold of time and existence. He had brought them to that point, when branches began forming on the Sacred Timeline. But what happened next was a mystery to him. It was up to Sylvie and Loki to decide what would happen next. However, while their choice remained a mystery to He Who Remains, what would follow either option was not.

Marvel

“You either take over and my life’s work continues,” said the TVA’s king. “Or you plunge a blade in my chest and an infinite amount of me start another Multiversal War. And I just end up right back here anyways. Reincarnation baby.” Sylvie chose the dagger. And with his final breath as this incarnation, He Who Remains told her he would see her “soon” with a wink. The ramifications of her decision began—and ended—almost immediately. Because while you are outside of time, everything inside of time happens at once. In an instant Mobius and Hunter B-15 went from watching the TVA burn to the ground to once again working there. The war happened. Only this time it had a different outcome.

As Loki ran to find Mobius to warn him about a “dangerous” person coming, Hunter B-15 asked Mobius, “Does he want us to just let them branch?” The ruler of the TVA in this new reality, where the Sacred Timeline was suddenly breaking into infinite variations, was not hidden behind three robots. The statues of the agency now bore the face of He Who Remains. One of his other Variants had won the war.

Marvel

A Variant that is the “something even worse” Loki feared. All of time, existence, and reality, might now fall under the domain of Kang the Conqueror. When He Who Remains told Loki and Sylvie he loved “all this honesty” because it felt “like a fresh start,” he was more right than he seemingly knew.  He did not end up back in charge of the TVA. If he had it would have been exactly the same as before. Statues of fake Time Keepers would have stood. Hunter B-15 would not have asked what a single person wanted them to do. The new Multiversal War, already waged and won inside the confines of time, did not form a perfect loop. It either broke the loop, or showed one never actually existed.

Strangely, that is a sign of hope for the universe. All of them.

The Future of Time and Its Only Hope

Marvel

The Multiversal War that began with Sylvie’s dagger changed everything inside the TVA instantly. Because inside the TVA all of time is simultaneous. But Loki remembered the past, even though Mobius and Hunter B-15 did not. That suggests only a few beings in all of existence know the truth about what happened. Sylvie, last seen in the Citadel past the end of time, is one. Judge Renslayer, on her quest to “find free will” after getting mystery files from He Who Remains, might be the other. Everyone else has seemingly already had their reality reset by the TVA’s new ruler. (If she still exists, Miss Minutes might also remember. With whom a lying anthropomorphic sentient hologram clock’s loyalties lie is anyone’s guess.)

What this means for the continuity of the MCU remains to be seen. It seems unlikely everything that has happened previously no longer counts, has been undone, or is different. Not everything about the TVA is different. The same people work there with the same purpose. Other small changes could have also happened in the new Sacred Timeline too though. Dead characters might now live. While other heroes are now dead or never took up the mantle at all. Or everything before the Multiversal War of the 31st century could all have happened exactly the same and only the future is different.

Marvel

What we do know for sure is that if Kang the Conqueror rules the TVA, he is much worse than his Variant who preceded him. But time is not a continuous loop destined to play on repeat. Things can change, for better and for worse. Even if a dangerous Variant can win this time, they don’t always have to.

At least a couple of people know that. And they know kang needs to be stopped. They just have to figure out how to do it. And hope they can do it in time.

The post The End of LOKI’s Season 1 Finale Explained appeared first on Nerdist.

The Marvel Cinematic Universe, for the most part, loves to build on itself. Even if it takes years, they make sure every single entry in the official canon matters in some way. Hell, people generally wrote off Thor: The Dark World, but it ended up playing a pivotal part in both Avengers: Endgame and Loki. But the final episode of Loki now leaves us in a place where everything may be different. And another show that seemed like a fun diversion could be where Marvel explores the most interesting possibilities.

Yes, I’m speaking vaguely! It’s spoiler time! If you haven’t seen the finale of Loki, please halt until you watch.

And here we go!

The climactic moment of Loki‘s finale finds Sylvie tossing Loki through a Tempad door and stabbing He Who Remains with her sword, killing him and bringing about multiversageddon. Timelines keep branching endlessly; realities spike. The evil (or more evil) versions of HWR have taken over, and Loki finds himself in an alternate version of the TVA where Mobius doesn’t know him. (Hold for sobbing.)

Marvel

While this will obviously make for some awesome season two action for Loki, the implications going forward are enormous. We know one of the variants of HWR is Kang the Conqueror, because Marvel had already announced that Jonathan Majors would play Kang in Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania due out in 2023. But what else has changed? What other fractured versions of reality will we see in the movies and TV shows in the MCU?

Marvel

Well, not for nothing, but the little animated series coming our way might be our first taste. What If…? will find Jeffrey Wright’s Uatu the Watcher walking us through fun mix-’em-ups of our favorite MCU stories. What if Peggy Carter was a supersoldier? What if T’Challa became Star-Lord instead of Black Panther? What if Bucky Barnes had to fight…zombies, I guess? Just like the comic book series from which the series derives, these are clearly alternative history versions of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

Marvel

But what if What If…? isn’t merely showing us fun musings? What if What If…? will show us now-canonical versions of events that exist because of Sylvie killing He Who Until Recently Remained? Obviously none of these will rewrite the entire MCU as we’ve seen thus far, but with so many branching timelines—the Sacred of which now destroyed—there is a whole host of bizarre and outlandish remixes to see. It’s not as crazy as it might sound; Tom Hiddleston himself even said as much, as ScreenRant reports.

You might even say there’s…a Multiverse of Madness, eh? Which brings us to perhaps the more pressing point: what impact will these branched timelines have on the movies? Well, obviously they aren’t going to unwrite everything we’ve seen before. Endgame already established things that have happened always happened. But what we might get now are movies that tweak existing canon in various ways. I do still think we’re going to see the main MCU movies within the Prime timeline we’ve come to know and love, but things can be a bit different.

Marvel

For instance, Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings sure looks like it’s going to change the Mandarin as we’ve seen him in Iron Man 3. Granted, they’d teased a greater, “true” Mandarin, but now is a good time to give us a clean break from the Trevor Slattery of it all.

Eternals will be interesting because, as we’ve already seen in the trailer, they will comment on the events of the MCU’s first 22 movies, having observed from afar. It’s possible they could talk about these moments slightly differently than we’ve seen them, alluding to the shift in realities.

But while those two movies could include these variations, what really has us excited is the following set of movies. The speculation surrounding Spider-Man: No Way Home and possible Spider-Verse-crossing variants of Spidey has brewed for a very long time. The Loki finale all but solidifies that we’ll see Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield, along with Alfred Molina’s Doc Ock.

Marvel

Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness is what’s really going to make our heads explode. With Sam Raimi directing, Elizabeth Olsen’s Wanda Maximoff playing with dark Chaos magic, and Stephen Strange himself back in the saddle as Sorcerer Supreme, it’s going to be a scary and potentially universe-realigning movie.

Which brings us to Thor: Love and Thunder, which we think could have some interesting connotations. Obviously, Thor’s brother is the reason for the everything. But in the comics, Thor and Jane Foster have a history with He Who Remains and messing with timelines. And even Black Panther: Wakanda Forever could easily use the multiversal shift to explain why T’Challa isn’t Black Panther without having to do the rough work of explaining Chadwick Boseman’s tragic death.

Marvel

The TV universe will be interesting too, with Ms. Marvel and Hawkeye both scheduled to debut sometime later this year. It’s all up the air, and all to play for now. This whole Loki thing has blown the MCU wide open!

But it all starts with What If…? which will premiere on Disney+ August 11, 2021.

Kyle Anderson is the Senior Editor for Nerdist. You can find his film and TV reviews here. Follow him on Twitter!

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The great and powerful wizard of the Time Variance Authority isn’t hiding behind a curtain. That mysterious figure is hiding behind a gigantic cloud monster. But what exactly is Loki‘s Alioth? It’s a deadly creature whose comic book history is far more terrifying than that of the universe’s biggest guard dog. And it’s future in the MCU could live up to the past.

Alioth and The Void

Marvel Studios

Variants can’t just be erased. They need to be sent somewhere they can’t create any branches to the Sacred Timeline. In Loki, that place is the Void, “where the TVA dumps its rubbish, everything they prune.” The Void exists at the end of time itself. Any nexus event that might happen there is inconsequential. It’s the ultimate apocalypse event, the type of situation that kept Sylvie hidden for years. But Variants could escape the Void, if not for the seemingly indestructible force that protects the true ruler of the TVA, a being who lives in a castle past the end of time.

That force is Alioth, “a living tempest, that consumes matter and energy.” It can devour entire branched realities “in an instant.” It’s job is to ensure no Variants ever return to the TVA or the timelines they came from. Or to the place beyond the end of time. Until Sylvie and Loki arrived, approaching Alioth was a “death sentence.” The only option was to hide from it. But even though Alioth is a storm serving the TVA true ruler, it’s still a living thing with a mind susceptible to enchantment. Loki and Sylvie combined their powers to subdue the monster and leave the Void. A fate far better than they might have had if they encountered the Alioth found in Marvel’s comics.

A Force Free From Time

Marvel Comics

Alioth made his debut in Avengers: The Terminatrix Objective #1, released in July 1993. Like on Loki, the comic version’s manifests as a giant cloud who destroys anything it touches. But the “trans-temporal entity” was not a security guard. Instead, Alioth was the first creature to escape the constraints of time itself. Also known as “The Supreme Time Being,” it ruled its own temporal kingdom stretching billions of years. Alioth’s domain was massive, much bigger than Kang the Conqueror’s own realm over time. Kang had to build a temporal barrier to keep Alioth out of his own kingdom of Chronopolis.

But when Ravonna Renslayer took over Kang’s realm when he went into a coma, she accidentally unleashed Alioth when she destroyed the barrier that kept the tempest locked away behind the year 2,000 BCE. Renslayer, also known as the Terminatrix, revived Kang to stop Alioth’s destruction of the Chronopolis. With the help of the Avengers, the cloud monster was safely put behind a time barrier again. Kang later claimed he orchestrated the whole thing for his own personal gain. And he later helped Alioth escape so it could cause mayhem at the TVA. Alioth wasn’t a guard dog, but despite being a dangerous threat, he was Kang’s powerful patsy.

Alioth’s Future in the MCU

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Kang the Conqueror is coming to the MCU. Whether we see him before Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania remains unknown. Kang, “a menace throughout time, on a journey to become the ruler of the universe” could be the one living in that castle beyond the Void. The possible secret ruler of the TVA may have used Alioth for his own means, just in a different way than he did in the comics. The MCU often reshapes comic book plots for its own purposes. If Kang manipulated Alioth on the page, he’s certainly capable of doing so on screen.

But even if Kang is not ruling the Time Variance Authority, he may still have to deal with Alioth. Sylvie and Loki didn’t kill the monster; they merely enchanted it. It might just be the most dangerous thing they could have done. Alioth served as the guard dog for the TVA, an agency secretly controlling all of its agents and hunters. Sylvie freed those Variants from their mental prisons when she enchanted them. If she did the same to Alioth, she might have destroyed the barrier keeping him safely behind a barrier, just as Renslayer did in the comics. The Void didn’t just keep Variant there, it also kept a beast at bay.

A mindless Alioth was terrifying. One capable of thinking for itself could be a storm that rages throughout all of time.

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Ever since Loki first teased the appearance of the Time Variance Authority, we’ve been intrigued. The bureaucratic time controllers play a massive part in the new Disney+ series. Aside from capturing the Variant 2012 Loki, we also learn they protect the so-called “Sacred Timeline.” Basically, the TVA appear to be the most powerful people in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Or, at least, the yet-to-be seen Time-Keepers who founded the organization.

Theory Time!

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As always, we have a theory coming out of episode two. Isn’t the absence of the Time-Keepers a little suspicious? Why is Ravonna the only one who gets to speak to them? Well, we’ve got a huge theory that would upend our expectations of Loki and tie into the already established future of the MCU very nicely. So strap in cos this one is wild.

Watching Loki, you might have noticed a recurring theme. No one but Ravonna Renslayer has seen or spoken to the Time-Keepers. That even excludes a high-ranking manager like Mobius M Mobius, who’s been charged with protecting and pruning the Sacred Timeline. It’s all very Wizard of Oz. And it got us thinking: why would the Time-Keepers set up the TVA yet never actually appear to the workers they created?

We’ve yet to see any proof that the Time-Keepers exist at all. We only know what the TVA tells us about them through Miss Minutes’ videos and agents like Mobius and Ravonna. And before Loki, they’d never intervened during any of the MCU’s major time travel shenanigans.

So let’s ask the big question… Do the Time-Keepers exist?

So What’s Up With the TVA?

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If we go with our gut and the evidence, then the answer is no. Or, at least, not in the way the show presents them. In the comics, the Time-Keepers are definitely real, but here we’re not so sure. While the TVA looks very impressive, we have no idea if it’s actually real. We’ve never ventured into that massive futuristic city we see out of the windows. There’s even a chance they’re not windows at all and are just monitors.

Mobius M Mobius said that “time works differently in the TVA.” Could that mean that the TVA has actually not been around very long at all? Maybe it was set up in the late ’80s or early ’90s? That would certainly explain the aesthetic and Mobius’ love of all things ’90s. So if that were the case, then why would the TVA have been set up at all? Well, there are a few potential options and all of them are really, really fun.

Ravonna Renslayer… AKA Terminatrix

Marvel Comics

The first is that Ravonna—just like the comics—is in cahoots with Kang and the pair have set up the TVA as a front for their time-jumping shenanigans. This would make a lot of sense if Lady Loki is going through time trying to stop Kang throughout history. If that’s the case then Kang and Ravonna setting up a fake time authority to stop them wouldn’t be out of character at all. In fact, it would fit in with Kang’s comic book canon of retrofitting history to fit his needs and wants, and it would explain why Ravonna is the face of the TVA.

But there’s another option too, which seems even more likely. While we’d love to see Kang before Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, the MCU might be saving him. In that case, it could be that Ravonna is a time lord in her own right. In the comics, she took on the mantle of Terminatrix and was a time traveler and space princess. She also ruled over a very TVA looking world known as Chronopolis. If she was worried about her time meddling being tracked, she could have set up the TVA as a way to halt whoever’s trying to stop her fun. Or she could have established it as a way to find and stop other potential time lords, which could be a fun way to eventually introduce her to Kang.

Kang is That You? 

Marvel Comics

There’s also the potential that an alternate version of Kang, like Immortus or Rama-Tut, established the TVA and the Time-Keepers millennia ago. If that’s the case then the TVA is more like what we’ve already seen, but with a different mission. This would fit with the fact that the Time-Keepers all look like Kang. And it would set him up as a truly powerful antagonist because he has an entire army of time police to control the timelines to his every whim. Seeing as he is the Marvel Universe’s most famous time traveler, this is pretty likely.

The Council of Kangs?!?!?!

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Akin to that last theory, there’s a chance that the Time-Keepers are the remaining members of the Council of Kangs. This collection of supreme time lords unites versions of Nathaniel Richards from across all dimensions. In the comics, this coalition ended with a lone remaining Kang attempting to consolidate power by killing the rest of, well, himselves. We could, in the case of Loki, be witnessing three Kangs who united in similar fashion to grab power.

However, taking this even one step further, we could be seeing the lone three remaining members of the Council of Cross-Time Kangs. This group of “Kangs” succeeded the original council and was composed of humanoids and creatures who were not Nathaniel Richards but had taken on the Kang mantle in their realities. During Ravonna’s tenure as the Terminatrix, she interacted with this eclectic Council. This would also explain the diverging appearances of the three Time-Keepers.

What Does It All Mean?

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Any of these theories would explain why the TVA has never shown up before. If they were really protecting the “Sacred Timeline,” wouldn’t they have had issues with the Avengers? And seeing as everyone who works there was “created by the Time-Keepers,” we could be seeing a WandaVision style situation where the workers only remember their time in the TVA.

And if you’re wondering how Kang, Ravonna, or the two of them would have the ability to travel through time? Well, just look at any of their comics. In fact, the pair setting up the TVA makes more sense than anything else, especially if the MCU wants to establish a trans-dimensional power couple to face off against Scott Lang and Hope van Dyne…

New episodes of Loki hit Disney+ every Wednesday.

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Ever since Jonathan Majors was cast as Kang the Conqueror in Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, we’ve been chomping at the bit to see him on screen. Thanks to Loki and the addition of Gugu Mbatha-Raw as Judge Renslayer, that seemed to be getting ever closer. Now that we’ve watched the first episode, it seems ever more likely Kang may show up.

Why do we say that? Well, it involves that mysterious glowing red artifact that we see the TVA discover while on the hunt for the Variant Loki in the final moments of the episode.

THE YEAR 3000????

Marvel Comics

Throughout the 54-minute surreal sci-fi romp, we visit several different periods in time. The last one is Salina, Oklahoma. The TVA agents find what they call an anachronism. In case you’re unaware, an anachronism is something from a different time that doesn’t belong.

And that’s when our Kang senses started tingling. Although there are many famous Marvel time travelers, Kang is the only one we know who is showing up for sure in the MCU. So when the time-jumping TVA agents said that the anachronistic weapon they found was from the early third millennium, we couldn’t help but think of Kang the Conqueror.

In the comics, Kang hails from the 31st century, which places him at the same timeline as where the weapon hails from. While the strange cosmic shovel didn’t immediately ring any bells, it does sort of fit with Kang. Nathaniel Richards, the man who would become Kang, has had many iterations.

The first was Rama-Tut, a pharaoh persona that Richards created after traveling back to ancient Egypt from the 31st century. In that timeline, he also takes on a sort of archaeologist persona which could explain the sci-fi shovel they found. But whatever its connection to Kang, the year 3000 is specifically worth noting. While you might think a simple date is a bit of a reach, there’s another key Kang connection in Loki episode one.

Hello Judge Renslayer!

Marvel Comics

We’ve already covered the deep dive history of Ravonna Renslayer. But that was before we’d seen her on screen. Ever since she was cast, fans have been eager to know more about Gugu Mbatha-Raw’s TVA judge. And now that she’s here, there are some things that are clear. Judge Renslayer, as she’s called in the show, is clearly high ranking in the TVA.

Not only does she seem to be a direct connection to the mysterious Time-Keepers but she appears to be the closest thing to a boss that the TVA has. So why does this matter? In the comics, Ravonna Renslayer is Kang’s on-again-off-again lover, as well as a timelord in her own right. So the year 3000 alongside her presence, means Kang can’t be too far away. The big question is whether this will be a WandaVision-style tease or a potential appearance/cameo that leads into Quantumania.

Marvel Comics

Seeing as the TVA and the Time-Keepers are regular foes of Kang, it really isn’t that wild to assume he might pop up. That’s especially true after watching the first episode and seeing all the timelines, time jumps, and ease at which the TVA traverses them. Whether or not this third-millennium mention was a red herring is yet to be seen.

But with any age available to both the TVA and Loki at the press of a button, this would be a very easy and logical way to introduce Nathaniel Richards before the events of Ant-Man and the Wasp Quantumania. It would also be really, really cool!

So keep your eyes peeled for any strange blue-faced helmet wearers… or handsome men named Nathaniel.

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Deep cut characters everywhere but not a clue who they are? Well, if this is you then you’re in the right place. The newest Loki trailer is filled with exciting action, cool comics nods, and deep cut Marvel characters. While we all know the God of Mischief here, we also meet the proper leader of the Time Variance Authority, Mobius M. Mobius. But this piece is not about him. Nope, as much as we’re looking forward to seeing Owen Wilson and Loki banter each other to within an inch of their lives, this story is about Gugu Mbatha-Raw.

Thanks to some press images we know she’ll be playing a character called Judge Renslayer. And while it’s unclear if it’s a simple nod, a character announcement, or something more complex, we’re here to explain why that name could have big implications for the Marvel Universe.

Who is Ravonna Renslayer?

Marvel Comics

The futuristic Princess made her debut in 1965’s Avengers #23. Created by Jack Kirby and Stan Lee, she was the daughter of one of Kang the Conqueror’s minions, King Carelius. Her wild comic book history saw her as both an unrequited and requited love interest of the time-travelling despot Kang. But she was also a shape-shifting, armor-wearing sci-fi heroine in her right.

Her powers are vague—superhuman durability, anyone?—but she is a weapons expert and utilizes a selection of impressive futuristic tech when she’s battling. Her relationship with Kang has been fraught. He’s imprisoned her and put her in stasis. She’s sacrificed herself for him. They’ve regularly been lovers throughout multiple eras. One thing is key, though. Wherever Ravonna is, Kang usually follows. That links the upcoming Loki series to Ant-Man: Quantumania, in which Kang will play the villain.

When it comes to Kang, Ravonna can be both friend and antagonist; she has even fought him under a superheroic guise. During the Terminatrix Objective, she took on the titular mantle and fought other time conquerors herself. She did this alongside U.S. Agent and War Machine. In an echo of the MCU’s Loki, she has even run Kang’s Kingdom before growing tired and reviving him. Basically, Ravonna is one of the Marvel Universe’s weirdest and most fun anti-heroes. So it’s all the more exciting to see her at least referenced in the name of a character played by one of our favorite actors. But what does it all mean?

How might she come into play in the MCU?

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In the comics, Ravonna and Loki are not closely connected. The big thing here is Kang. We know that Jonathon Majors has been cast as the iconic Fantastic Four villain—and extended family member—for the Ant-Man sequel. So the fact that Mbatha-Raw has been given this name seems unlikely to be a coincidence.

That said, we don’t know if she is playing Ravonna or perhaps is just named after a known character—like the The Falcon and the Winter Soldier character Selby. In the comics, Ravonna has never worked for the Time Variance Authority. In fact, those multiversal masters are not fans of Kang and have often tried to stop his time-traveling shenanigans. That adds an interesting potential for conflict, or a new way for Ravonna and Kang to cross paths in the MCU.

Including a character called Renslayer in the Time Variance Authority is an interesting choice. It becomes even more so when we look at the history of the Judges. They’re violent, aggressive, and over-the-top lawmakers riffing on Judge Dredd. It’s a far cry from Ravonna’s royal origins, but does immediately put her on a collision course with Kang; it’s a direct gateway to the multiverse and different eras of history.

If you know the history of Kang, you know he’s a prolific time-meddler. He will likely take advantage of the chaos kicked off by Loki and the Avengers in Endgame. Perhaps, just like in the comics, Ravonna will be in cahoots with Kang. But we’ll have to wait until the show hits in June to know for sure.

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While we may still be picking apart the mysteries of The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, Disney treated us to a look at their next big Marvel series. The new trailer for Loki is filled with fun tidbits. But there’s one question many fans have begun asking: What’s the Time Variance Authority? The surreal Owen Wilson-led organization seems to play a big part in the new series, and has an interesting comic book history. Plus, they’re closely tied to characters key to the MCU’s past and future. So we’re here to answer all your big TVA questions and theorize on their impact going forward!

What is the Time Variance Authority?

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The organization was first introduced in Thor #371 by Walt Simonson and Sal Buscema. If you’re a fan of those storytellers, you’ll know they’re two of the most inventive and imaginative in the Big Two business. That’s why it shouldn’t surprise you that the TVA is weird as hell and often features in wildly ambitious tales. The agency’s first appearance was a riff on the iconic British comics series 2000 AD. A heavily armed character named Justice Peace causes chaos on Earth as he flies through the skies, implanting jaywalkers with control chips. It’s a silly take on Judge Dredd, but it’s also a key part of TVA history. Justice Peace is the first member of the intergalactic time police that we ever meet.

Since its proper debut in the next issue, the TVA has been embroiled in the Marvel Universe and its flow of time. The group acts as an independent force for making sure no one messes up the timelines. But as you can imagine, their mission puts them on a collision course with heroes and villains alike. Speaking of heroes, the TVA has big connections to the Fantastic Four. On the more villainous side is Kang the Conqueror. We know that he’ll appear in the upcoming Ant-Man sequel Quantumania, so don’t be too surprised if Loki alludes to the character. The odds are likely considering a TVA member shares a name with a key character from Kang’s lore. (Judge Renslayer, that is.)

Masters of the Multiverse

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Interestingly, in the comics the TVA also keeps track of the multiverse. They have the ability to destroy or change timelines if they deem them unsafe. This could definitely be the group’s purpose in the MCU too, given the countless timelines we saw in the Loki trailer and upcoming Multiverse of Madness. Significantly, it may have been Loki and the Avengers’ actions in Endgame that sparked multiple new timelines and  timeflow chaos. (Rather than—as many expected—Wanda’s shenanigans in her recent TV debut.) Either way, it looks like we’ll get some answers in Loki.

What do they want with Loki?

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In the context of the MCU, this one actually has a pretty simple answer. During the events of Endgame, Loki from 2012 (The Avengers) stole the Tesseract, jumping back into time with it. As we know, the entirety of the universe relied on one thing in that movie. The Avengers had to return each Infinity Stone to the time and place whence it was taken. Of course, when Loki stole the Tesseract—which included the Space Stone—that did not occur. So Owen Wilson and the TVA have now enlisted him to help fix the time troubles he has created. But Loki isn’t so easily manipulated and will likely try to use the TVA as much as they use him.

How could they introduce the Fantastic Four?

Marvel Comics

While we’re going to talk about the more general future of the MCU next, this question does deserve its own tangent. As we know, the Fantastic Four are coming, and the TVA is so closely connected to them. Walt Simonson brought the time monitors over from Thor into his subsequent run on the Fantastic Four in 1990. Some escapades in prehistory put the foursome on the TVA’s radar in Fantastic Four #346. A few issues later in #352, a null time battle between Reed Richards and Doctor Doom leads to more temporal misconduct. The TVA intervenes, bringing the heroes before the Sub-Committee of Time Lapses and Synchronicity in #353.

It’s possible tat we could catch a mention or glimpse of the legendary Marvel team while Loki tangles with the TVA. With Loki supposedly restoring timelines, he could even get involved in one of the FF’s time-centric adventures. More likely, however, is that this opportunity simply presents another chance for Feige to troll us. Remember the much-anticipated aerospace engineer from WandaVision?

What does the TVA mean for the series and the MCU going forward?

Marvel Comics

Aside from the obvious Fantastic Four connections, the TVA represents something equally exciting. The MCU has long been steeped in military-heavy realism. But the inclusion of this strange new authoritative body moves us slightly more towards the weirdness of comics. While we know S.W.O.R.D. will play a part going forward, the idea of having the TVA as a key player in future movies means that we could have multiversal adventures as well as grounded military action. And then there are their connections to all those major Marvel players. Quantumania will likely see the Quantum Realm finally recognized as the alt-universe it is in the comics. Maybe the TVA isn’t too happy with Scott Lang about that?

We know from the trailer that they class extraneous versions of heroes as variants. Could this be how we see the return of Iron Man and Captain America? Different “variant” versions from other timelines? In the comics, the TVA regularly captured time travelers and those who messed with time; meaning, we could also meet new foes they’ve captured along the way. Plus, one of the most interesting things for comics fans is potentially learning their origin. In the comics, the true origin of the group has never been revealed. Maybe that could change in the MCU? Whatever happens, this is an exciting new frontier for the Marvel world. And, of course, it means that we’ll likely see a Thor/Loki reunion at some point in the future… awww.

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The latest episode of WandaVision pulled back the curtain. The woman we all knew as Agnes is actually Marvel’s powerful witch Agatha Harkness. And that’s got us thinking: she’s likely not alone. So who could be joining her in the MCU? Well, we’ve already covered the usual magical suspects. But in an older arc of Avengers West Coast, she gets entangled with a massive cosmic Fantastic Four villain who is already confirmed in the MCU.

Kang the Conqueror a.k.a. Immortus

Marvel Comics

Kang the Conqueror has long been a dream addition to the Marvel movies. And we’ll soon see him come to screen, brought to life by Lovecraft Country‘s Jonathan Majors. It’s a perfect choice and we can’t wait to see it. But what if we don’t have to? What if instead of debuting in Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, Kang actually shows up in WandaVision? It might sound a little out there, but not when we put it in the context of Agatha.

Like pretty much every major Agatha story, it all begins with Wanda. During Avengers West Coast #60 by Roy and Dann Thomas, Paul Ryan, Danny Bulanadi, Bill Oakley, and Bob Sharen, Kang appears (using his future alter ego Immortus) and decides he’s going to marry Wanda. So he puts her in a trance to make her his queen. What a creep! While we definitely do not want to see Kang forcing anyone into marriage, it is likely that Wanda could attract another powerful being like Kang to Westview. And that’s before we get to his strange relationship with Agatha. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves.

Avengers West Coast could shape the future of the MCU

Marvel Comics

There are plenty of other clues that Avengers West Coast could influence Phase Four. Hawkeye, U.S. Agent, Pietro, Ant-Man, and the Wasp are all involved; in other words, all key characters that we know will play a part in the MCU going forward. They’re also joined by Simon Williams/Wonder Man, who’s been a recurring theory fave throughout our WandaVision coverage. And if you’re looking for a Thanos-level villain for the next phase, Kang fits the bill. As he says during this issue, he’s the Master of All Time. And there’s the fact that he’s the lord of his own realm, which in the multiverse is a big deal.

After the Avengers try to stop Immortus, he teleports them to Limbo. There, the team faces off against an evil crew of alt-universe heroes and villains like Arno Stark, the Grim Reaper—read more about him here—and the upcoming Hawkeye villain, the Swordsman. (You should read this issue! It’s great!) It’s not until around halfway through that things begin to come together. When Agatha reveals her hand, she also sets up a means to introduce Kang into WandaVision and the MCU. One which could also establish an Agatha who’s as complex and duplicitous as in the comics.

Agatha’s true motivation revealed?

Marvel Comics

With the Avengers trapped in Limbo, Agatha calls on Immortus. Turns out she knew he was coming and concealed herself. So what drew Kang to Earth? Well, that would be Wanda. As Agatha puts it, “I half-sensed you behind Wanda’s misfortunes… Her increased powers… her growing alienation from humanity… even her objectively non-existent children.” So, basically, exactly the Wanda that we’ve seen in WandaVision. If the show wanted to, they could introduce Kang as the big bad who has been pulling the strings. But what would that mean for Agatha? Didn’t she just reveal she was behind it all? Well, at least the problems inside of the Hex. But we don’t know that she created it; going by the comics, she could have a surprisingly philanthropic reason for her nefarious behaviors!

While she’s interrogating Kang’s shadow—ah, comics—Agatha reveals the reason she welcomes him is because Earth’s timelines are beginning to unravel and someone needs to fix them to save the world. So she wants to see if Kang is the one to reset the universe. Luckily, she’s got him under her control, and ultimately gets to the truth. Kang wants the Scarlet Witch because she’s a “Nexus Being.”

Why does Kang want a Nexus being?

Marvel Comics

You likely remember the term “Nexus” from the episode seven commercial—which we break down here—so once again, things are lining up to make Kang a likely cameo. Kang explains that Wanda “belongs equally to all possible timelines, all realities and divergences.” He wishes to control her so he can truly become the master of all time… which sounds like a legitimate multiverse-driven motivation. Kang also reveals he has been behind every bad event in Wanda’s life. It was he who deceived the Vision of his android origins, who encouraged them to marry. He manipulated her into giving birth to her imaginary sons. This huge reveal would immediately set up Kang as a truly powerful and maniacal antagonist for the next phase of the MCU.

So what of Agnes? Well, despite her original plan to possibly let Kang fix the timelines, Agnes decides to help Wanda when she realizes that Wanda has been a pawn of Kang for years. Auntie Agatha finds Wanda in Limbo and encourages her to give up her powers in order to stop Kang. Wanda eventually explodes with power. It drains her superpowers and, as Immortus puts it, it’s an act that has “doomed the entire multiverse!” That certainly sounds like a great way to set up the Multiverse of Madness and the post-WandaVision MCU.

What happens next?

As the issue ends, we leave Immortus trapped as a vessel for Wanda’s powers by the mythical Time-Keepers. That probably won’t happen but there are some statues in the Loki trailer which look an awful lot like the alien beings. So maybe the Time-Keepers and Kang are headed to Disney+ after all. Either way, this storyline feels like a very fitting way to end WandaVision and to introduce the world of the Fantastic Four. Many fans have been asking which villain could follow Thanos, but in Immortus and Kang, WandaVision might have just found him…

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You don’t need to have the mental powers of Professor X to see the future the MCU is headed in: Marvel Comics’ Young Avengers are on the way to live-action sooner rather than later. The clues are all there already. The most prominent members of the original roster—Wiccan, Hulkling, Patriot, Iron Lad, Hawkeye, Speed, and Stature—have already been introduced, announced, or broadly indicated.

Marvel Comics

Cassie Lang, a.k.a. Stature, has already been introduced in the Ant-Man films. And post Endgame, she is also now conveniently a teenager. WandaVision teasers have already hinted at the Scarlet Witch and Vision’s twins, Wiccan and Speed. And the Kate Bishop character has already been announced as being the co-lead of the Disney+ series Hawkeye. That’s four down.

As for the rest of the original members of the team, we only have conjecture to work with. But the possibilities are looking good. Hulkling is the half Kree/half Skrull child of Mar-Vell and a Skrull Princess. Mar-Vell made a splash in Captain America, played by Anette Bening, meaning we’ve already met one of Hulkling’s parents. While the film made no reference to her having offspring, who’s to say she didn’t have a secret child?

Marvel Comics

It’s also been rumored that the African-American Captain America from the ‘40s, Isaiah Bradley, will appear in Falcon and the Winter Soldier. His grandson in the comics is founding Young Avenger named Patriot, who was almost in Black Panther. And finally, current rumors suggest that the “big bad” in Loki is none other than Kang the Conqueror. If that’s the case, we’re likely also being primed to meet his younger self, Iron Lad.

So given all that, it’s safe to say that we are likely going to see the team take shape in some form soon. What stories might we see them adapt? Although the team has only been around in comics for about fifteen years and a couple of series—a drop in the bucket when it comes to comic book legacy—there is still plenty to draw inspiration from. Here are some Young Avengers stories that we’d love to see adapted, either on the big screen or as a Disney+ series.

Young Avengers: Sidekicks (2005-2007)

Marvel Comics

The first volume of Allan Heinberg’s series introduced a team of heroes who looked like teen versions of the original Avengers. And they arrived just in the nick of time, as the original Avengers had disbanded after the events of Avengers: Disassembled. But as far the world knew, Captain America, Thor, Iron Man, and the Hulk never had teenage sidekicks. So who the heck were these kids? Their first adventure revealed who these new teen heroes were, and it turns out they weren’t exactly related to the Avengers we thought they were.

As it turns out, Patriot was the grandson of the first African-American Captain America, and not related to Steve Rogers. Asgardian wasn’t from Asgard or related to Thor at all. But rather the long lost son of the Scarlet Witch (he’d later change his name to Wiccan). Hulking wasn’t related to the gamma-irradiated Bruce Banner, but was the half-Skrull son of the original Captain Marvel. And Iron Lad wasn’t the secret protégé of Tony Stark, but was the heroic younger self of one of the Avenger’s greatest foes, Kang the Conqueror. And speaking of Kang, the team’s first big obstacle was defeating the lord of time himself. This original run of the comic would be the perfect template for any future film or first season of a series.

Young Avengers: The Children’s Crusade (2010-2012)

Marvel Comics

After a long hiatus, the Young Avengers returned to comics with this mini-series, which chronicled  Wiccan and Speed’s quest to find their long lost mother, the Scarlet Witch. At this point in the Marvel Universe timeline, the Scarlet Witch was hated by just about everyone. She had used her powers to decimate the original Avengers team, causing them to disband. And in the series House of M, she had used her incredible reality altering abilities to take away the powers of 99% of the world’s mutant population as well. But Wiccan believed his mother was still a hero, and along with his teammates, discovers the truth about Wanda Maximoff’s supposed turn to the dark side. This series heavily involves mutants, so Marvel Studios couldn’t have adapted it properly before. But now? All bets are off.

Young Avengers Vol. 2 (2013-2014)

Marvel Comics

After some time without their own series, Marvel Comics brought back the ongoing Young Avengers comic book, for the first time without their creators Allan Heinberg and Jim Cheung. This new series from writer Kieron Gillen and artist Jamie McKelvie saw the teenage heroes reform under the guidance of Wiccan, his boyfriend Hulkling, and the Kate Bishop Hawkeye. They added new recruits like Miss America Chavez, Prodigy,  Marvel Boy, and the so-called “Kid Loki.”

This series focuses heavily on Wiccan discovering he potentially has a dark future ahead of him as the Demiurge, a threat as powerful as his mother once was. Wiccan’s power upgrade and possible slide to the dark side could be the perfect story fuel for a season of television. And adding diverse characters like Miss America would also only benefit the MCU.

Whatever ends up happening, Marvel’s new generation of heroes are clearly on their way. Here’s hoping the brain trust at Marvel Studios uses these great comics as proper inspiration when the time comes.

Featured Image: Marvel Comics

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Remember Harley Keener, a.k.a. the kid from Iron Man 3 who also made an appearance in Avengers: Endgame? Well, he isn’t just Tony Stark’s one-time sidekick. He might just be one of the MCU’s newest heroes…and greatest villains. At least, according to a new fan theory. Join Dan Casey on Explainiac as he breaks down what you need to know about Iron Lad, Kang the Conqueror, and how this could all play out in the MCU.

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Although Thanos, Loki, and Ultron are among the Avengers’ greatest enemies in the films so far, arguably their greatest adversary in the books in the time-traveling despot known as Kang. Since the character made his debut in the pages of Fantastic Four in the early ’60s, he’s up until now been off limits for the MCU due to the rights belonging to 20th Century Fox. But that is no longer an issue, and Kang can finally appear to make life very difficult for the Avengers…whoever that team line-up may be in the future.

Who is Kang?

Born in the 30th Century, Kang’s true name is Nathaniel Richards, and he believes himself to be a descendant of the Fantastic Four’s Reed Richards. It’s also been suggested that he is a descendant of Tony Stark, or possibly Dr. Doom. Regardless of his bloodline, Richards is obsessed with the past, and in particular the “heroic age” of heroes like the Fantastic Four and the Avengers. Having already conquered the future, he seeks dominion over the past, and inserts himself in various points in history. Throughout his time in the comics, the character goes by many names, including Rama-Tut, The Scarlet Centurion, and Immortus. But as an enemy of the Avengers, he’s primarily known as Kang the Conqueror.

What Are Kang’s Ultimate Goals?

Kang is the primary antagonist in many of the Avengers’ greatest comic book stories, including “The Celestial Madonna Saga,” 2001’s “The Kang Dynasty,” Avengers Forever, and the recent “Kang War One.” And those are just the tip of the iceberg. The obsessed Kang is convinced that as long as one timeline exists in a state of chaos, reality can’t be at peace. So he seeks to conquer every timeline and bring them under his iron hand as a way of creating “order.” It’s ultimately a defeatist way of thinking, because there are endless timelines. But then that’s why Kang goes pretty much stark raving mad.

Why Would Kang Enter the MCU Now?

Although the Avengers seem victorious at the finale of Endgame with Thanos defeated and those snapped away having returned, perhaps not all is as it seems. By mucking with the past in their “time heist,” the Avengers create at least one alternate timeline. Even after Cap puts away the Infinity Stones right where he found them, one loose end remains: there is now a timeline in which Loki gets away with the Tesseract in 2012. And nothing good can come from that.

What if Loki does indeed hand over the Space Stone to Thanos in 2012, accelerating his plans for the snap? That means there is a version of Earth that was ultimately conquered. Maybe one where Thanos hands over Earth to Loki in exchange for the Tesseract, as he promised. For whatever good they did for their reality, the Avengers may have totally screwed up another. And where there’s a timeline in chaos, there’s Kang seeking to control it.

How Endgame Sets Up Kang

If “The Man Who Would Be Kang” grows up in this ugly reality—or any reality created by the Avengers’ time shenanigans—there could be blame to go around for Earth’s Mightiest Heroes. Imagine if Kang finds out that all this chaos was thanks to the Avengers from the future messing with the past to save their own world. He might grow up very resentful of anyone who calls themselves an Avenger.

Kang might seek to undo their damage to the timeline, simply by taking control of every known timeline himself. The possibilities are literally endless, as we are essentially talking about the multiverse here. Even more fun to think about is who could play Kang in a potential movie. If he is a descendant of Stark, for example, maybe we see Robert Downey Jr. return in a villainous role? How crazy a reveal would that be? Regardless of who he is under the mask, or which actor plays him, we think it’s only a matter of time before Kang shows up. Pun fully intended.

Images: Marvel Comics

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