The Loki Finale Just Introduced A Major Marvel Villain
Contains spoilers for "Loki" episode 6, "For All Time. Always."
The God of Mischief's (Tom Hiddleston) very own Disney+ show has reached the end of its first season, and it has been every bit the ride you'd expect from anything bearing the character's name. Over the course of its six episodes, "Loki" has shaken up the very concept of time in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and its season finale further raises the stakes by adding a very, very important new character in the mix.
The episode opens as Loki and Sylvie (Sophia Di Martino) reach the citadel at the end of time, and after a truly epic jump-scare courtesy of Miss Minutes (voiced by Tara Strong), the show finally shows us who's behind the Time Variance Authority and their antics with the Sacred Timeline. The mastermind turns out to be a pretty big name from the comics, and his arrival is likely to mean big things for the MCU at large. Let's take a look at the major Marvel villain the "Loki" finale just introduced.
Kang the Conqueror enters the Marvel Cinematic Universe ... after a fashion
"Loki" Episode 5 telegraphed pretty heavily that the time-traveling Marvel villain Kang the Conqueror (Jonathan Majors) might make an appearance in the season finale. However, "WandaVision" and its famous Evan Peters "Quicksilver" swerve have taught MCU fans well, and the presence of the dangerous Alioth entity and a number of other Kang-adjacent Easter eggs could just as easily be seen as early teases of the villain's eventual debut in "Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania." So, before Episode 6 actually aired, there was simply no way to tell what would happen.
The "Loki" finale didn't pull any punches, and indeed gave us a heaping helping of Majors — albeit in the guise of He Who Remains, a legitimate non-Kang character from the comics, and the big boss of the Time Variance Authority. However, the surprisingly affable villain clearly wears robes inspired by a comics incarnation of Kang called Immortus. He also keeps dropping more and more hints about his true nature, even outright admitting that he has been known as "The Conqueror." Most worryingly, he reveals that that there are countless other, more dangerous versions of him out there — and, as you see by the end of the episode, they're forever ready to step in if he stops watching the main MCU timeline.
A more comics-accurate Kang also makes an appearance
As oddly charming as this energetic trickster version of Majors' character is, the "Loki" season finale also makes clear that he's by no means the main Kang in the MCU. In fact, he doesn't even see the end of the episode, because he dies at the hands of Sylvie. His successor, on the other hand, may be a completely different matter.
He Who Remains warns Loki and Sylvie a great many times that alternate versions of him are very nasty, and will step in the second he's out of the picture. When this happens, Loki immediately ends up stranded in an unfamiliar version of reality where Mobius M. Mobius (Owen Wilson) doesn't recognize him. The true gravity of the situation is evident when the God of Mischief finds out that the Time Keeper statues in the TVA have been replaced by a large stone effigy of — you guesssed it — Kang the Conqueror, in a very comics-accurate costume.
As the show's production designer Kasra Farahani confirmed to Marvel.com, the statue is no swerve. This Kang is very much the real deal — or rather, due to the character's nature, one of the many real deals out there. Now that he's officially in the MCU, expect Kang to make things extremely interesting for everyone else ... and not necessarily in a pleasant way.