Newest Loki Episode Lowkey Paves Way to Recast Jonathan Majors

The just-released third episode of the second season of the Loki TV series finally returns the focus to Kang the Conqueror, portrayed by Jonathan Majors, and many of his variants.

But the story of Victor Timely, one of said variants, seems to completely change Kang's origin from the Marvel comics and, most importantly, it seems that the show's creators are beginning to implement a "backup plan" to possibly recast the actor.

Time Travel Shenanigans

Up until this point, the MCU projects in which Kang and his variants appeared have not given a definitive answer as to where he actually came from, so most fans have rightly assumed that his backstory is more or less the same as his comic book counterpart.

In the comics, Kang the Conqueror, also known as Nathaniel Richards, is from the 30th century and is even a distant relative of Reed Richards, aka Mister Fantastic, from the Fantastic Four.

After discovering time traveling technology and jumping from one era to another, the former scholar becomes a ruthless warrior bent on conquering other time periods.

This story was also vaguely mentioned in season 1 of the series, when He Who Remains talked about a variant who started it all, but it wasn't really him.

However, episode 3 shows us how Ravonna Renslayer and Miss Minutes created the aforementioned variant named Victor Timely, following the plan that He Who Remains developed in case he was killed, which happened in the season 1 finale.

To do this, they travel to 1868 Chicago, Illinois, where they find young Victor and secretly give him the TVA manual, effectively setting him on the path to becoming Victor Timely.

Most importantly, the show explicitly states that they arrived in 1868 on the "Sacred Timeline," which is the main timeline of the entire MCU.

This implies that the duo actually visited the childhood of the "main" Kang, the one who eventually became known as He Who Remains, and created a separate branch to ensure that this variant would become his successor.

This could mean that instead of being from the 30th century like his comic book counterpart, the MCU version of Kang the Conqueror is actually from 19th century Chicago, drastically changing the character's backstory.

A Secret Variant

The surprising twists don't end there, though, as the episode's finale finds Renslayer and Minutes seemingly trapped by Sylvie in the Citadel at the End of Time.

Minutes is clearly angry at Victor for refusing to work with them and escaping with Loki and Mobius, saying that he should have made an enemy of the one who knows all his secrets.

She then turns to Ravonna and says that she also knows a particularly huge one about her, but it would make her really mad.

Considering that Ravonna already knows that all the TVA "employees" were actually kidnapped from their own timelines, this could only mean one thing: she may be a variant of Kang herself.

Of course, she wasn't like that in the comics, but the show has already completely changed her origin, as in the MCU she wasn't a royalty from the 40th century, but a simple school vice-principal.

In addition, considering the not-so-distant controversy surrounding Jonathan Majors, which has left many fans wondering if he will be recast, this presents a perfect opportunity for the creators.

If Majors' firing is inevitable for one reason or another, they can easily replace him with Gugu Mbatha-Raw, who plays Ravonna, making her Kang the Conqueror.

Of course, this is all speculation for now, as we won't know the answer until the next episode.

Loki season 2 episode 4 will be released on October 26, 2023.