In the season finale of Marvel’s Loki, we learn who’s actually running the Time Variance Authority. In a recent interview with Marvel, the creative team behind the series talk about aspects of the villain and his big reveal. If you haven’t watched Loki episode 6, “For All Time. Always,” you might not want to read further.
Jonathan Majors showed up in the episode and referred to himself as “He Who Remains,” and while the name Kang The Conquerer is never spoken in the episode, make no mistake, this is Kang… one of many variants of Kang, and the writer confirmed that he is being set up as the next big MCU villain.
A lot of fans knew that Majors was going to show up as Kang; after all, the character is going to play a big part in the upcoming third Ant-Man film, and this is the big set-up. I’m sure that he’ll show up in some of the other movies as well.
Creator and writer Michael Waldron talked about the new Kang’s backstory and his place in the greater MCU. It’s also here that he confirmed Kang was going to end up being the big bad:
“We knew that we wanted this show to be huge, and we wanted it to really end with a bang and have a huge impact on the MCU moving forward. Knowing that Kang was probably going to be the next big cross-movie villain, and because he is a time-traveling, multiversal adversary, it just always made so much sense. I came up with that big multiversal war mythology and pitched it out in the room one day to our producers. And they said, yeah, let’s go for it. We knew we were going to end up meeting the man behind the curtain. And then it was just on us to make sure that that meeting really delivered.
“You had to leave a lot of meat on the bone in terms of how evil he could be, because that’s He Who Remains’ whole thing, that it’s not me who you should be afraid of. ‘It’s the other versions of me that are going to come.’ It was trying to really hint at that terrifying evil within without going all the way there.”
Waldon says he was just trying to write him as a “very charismatic sociopath.” When talking about Majors playing the role, the writer went on to say:
“So exciting and humbling. You have such an astounding actor who is that much more of a cool thing. You had to write him in a way that he felt worthy of being the villain at the end of our show. I knew I could always breathe a sigh of relief knowing we had Majors in that finale. We hung a lot of our hopes on [the character]. This guy is laying out, ‘Here’s the deal,’ and it’s one final test between our two Lokis.”
While Major is a good actor, I was hoping for something more dark and menacing. Those versions of the character will come, though. Director Kate Herron went on to discuss the character, saying:
“I was quite excited that we got to show him because he is the one that brings it all [together]. [He’s] the theme of our show. No one is completely good or completely bad, and people do fall into that gray area. I thought his reasoning with [Loki and Sylvie] that you can take me out, but I’ll be back here anyway…you’re going to awaken all these versions of me. And they are much scarier than me. I really believe him when he says that.”
The creative team behind the series went on to praise Majors for how he brought Kang to life with Tom Hiddleston saying:
“I just want to salute Jonathan Majors. He came in the last lap of this series and made an extraordinary impact. And it’s quite something to do that for a story, to get to its final chapter and to introduce the character of such breadth, and depth, and charisma, and intelligence. He was dazzling. It was our final week of filming, literally. He came in and blew us all away.
“It was so exciting for me to watch because I knew that for Jonathan, as an actor, it’s his entry point into the MCU. To watch him come in and be so ready, and so agile, and so prepared, and so surprising. Sophia and I sat and watched him deliver this extraordinary performance of such wit and with such intelligence. It was a real thrill to watch him do that.
Sophia Di Martino added, “He was so much fun and he absolutely blew it out of the park. As soon as he was on set, he was phenomenal. Like, no one could take their eyes off him. You knew something magical was happening and it was like, ‘Oh my god, are you watching this? This is going to be amazing.’”
Waldron went on to say, “I remember being there [while he was filming]. He’s an amazing actor, and as amazing actors do, they make it their own. Jonathan could perform the phone book and it would be incredible.”
I’m excited to see how this villain’s story arc plays out in the MCU. His comic book background is pretty insane, and it’s going to be interesting to see what elements from the comic they pull into the MCU.
What did you all think of the way the character was presented in Loki?