Lokiseason 2 just started playing on Disney+. Many people are saying that the first episode has done a better job of setting up Kang thanAnt-Man and the Wasp: Quantumaniaever did.
Season 1 ofLokidid an excellent job of introducing us to Kang the Conqueror, though, at the time, we didn’t know who he was. Kevin Feige andthe rest of Marvelmay not have even planned to have the time-traveling supervillain lead their larger narrative. Back then, Jonathan Majors was only playing a character called “He Who Remains.” Even now, inLokiseason 2, Loki doesn’t know quite who he is. Perhaps that’s best since many Marvel viewers are still confused about the true nature of Kang the Conqueror.
Lokiseason 2 introduces Kang in a much better way thanQuantumania. Inthis Disney+ series, nobody is quite sure who “He Who Remains” actually is. InQuantumania, Janet Van Dyne already knew exactly who he was and did a poor job of explaining it to the rest of the characters. Here, we will have the chance to discover Kang through his actions and not through some 9-minute-long monologue of exposition. Here’s howLokiseason 2is doing whatQuantumaniacouldn’t.
Kang Is Surrounded in Myth
InLoki, Kang is shrouded in mystery. Before we even knew he existed, the audience thought the TVA and the whole system Loki was working for were controlled by some strange robots or beings called the Time Keepers. But really, these were just a smokescreen to keep people from knowing the truth of Kang. We were slowly adjusted to this concept of time travel and the physics of how it worked before we even knew there was an evil mastermind controlling everything from behind the scenes.
Quantumaniawas very straightforward in that our heroes went into the Quantum Realm and had to confront a villain in order to escape. Kang was in charge of this strange land, and although he was feared, it was very simple to see that he was in control and had dubious plans to defeat the heroes and escape his prison.
Perhaps a small amount of lore surrounding Kang was revealed. We saw him manipulating probability through the use of some Sci-Fi machine. We also saw all the different versions of Kang inQuantumania’s mid-credits scene. But even the movie’s post-credits scene pointed back toLoki.
Lokihas this mysterious villainwho is so powerful that our heroes are like ants to him. Kang doesn’t care about what Loki and Mobius are doing; he’s too concerned with manipulating the universe. It almost works likeJaws, where we’re more frightened by the monster because we almost never get to see them. There is so much that we don’t know about Kang that we get to go on the same journey as Loki so that he can learn about him.
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Loki Is Kang’s Origin Story
The biggest advantageLokihas to explaining Kang is that it was where he was introduced to the MCU. Of course, that doesn’t necessarily mean thatLokiis going to tell Kang’s origin story in the same way we’re used to understanding it. But the very first time we saw the character on screen was inLoki. And ifQuantumania’s post-credits scene has anything to say about it, we’ll end up seeing him again in his “prime” incarnation.
The post-credits sceneinQuantumaniashowed us Loki and Mobius sitting in a crowd, waiting for Victor Timely, a turn-of-the-century variant of Kang that supposedly first invented time travel. If this is the case, andLokiseason 2 will take us to this version of Kang, then we can expect Loki and Mobius to search for the very beginning of Kang, probably in an attempt to try and kill him before he becomes the huge multiversal threat we currently see him as.
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Right now, the only thingLoki knows about Kang, or He Who Remains, is that Sylvie killed him, and there are thousands more Kangs on the way, ready to fight for control over the infinite number of timelines. He’s trying to stop some kind of terrible war. But right now, he hardly knows anything about the villain he’s facing. He’ll have to discover everything about Kang the same way that we’ll have to as the series progresses.
Quantumaniadid an excellent job of showing us Scott Lang’s relationship with his daughter and maybe introducing her as the superhero Stature, but aside from those two plot points, we didn’t learn too much about Kang. Almost the entire purpose ofLokiis to take us through this discovery of a terrifying villain. It will have to frighten us with possibilities every step of the way in order to keep us entertained. It’s almost a guarantee that Kang will have a better introduction throughLokithan he did throughQuantumania.
