This story contains spoilers for Loki Season 1.
It feels like a lifetime has passed since we last saw everyone’s favorite God(s) of Mischief facing down against the Kang (Jonathan Majors) variant He Who Remains at the end of Loki Season 1. Since then the MCU has gone through a tumultuous period, with Phase 5 launching with more of a whimper than a bang, and its newer TV shows like Secret Invasion failing to garner the massive audiences and critical acclaim of the past.
Loki Season 2 could change all of that, although there is one problem. Post the release of Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, Jonathan Majors was charged with assault as well as facing multiple allegations of workplace misconduct and abuse, making the central role of Kang and his place in the MCU suddenly much more controversial and complex for Marvel Studios. The time-hopping trailer definitely hints that Kang is still very much at the center of Loki Season 2, but it also presents an interesting alternative that would lean into some of Marvel's most deep cut canon.
Before we dig into the comics of it all, let’s jump back in time and talk about where we left the crew at the end of Loki Season 1. After a world changing conversation with He Who Remains, Sylvie (Sophia Di Martino) blasted Loki (Tom Hiddleston) into a different timeline so she could kill He Who Remains, utilizing the time travelers' own TemPad, and leading to the timelines breaking free. As for the rest of the TVA, earlier in the season we learned that the organization had no real mission and the Time Keepers were nothing but robots. After a showdown with Mobius M Mobius (Owen Wilson), Judge Ravonna Renslayer (Gugu Mbatha-Raw) went in search of the true founder of the TVA, hoping that finding him would lead her to, as she put it, "free will" as she believes whoever is in charge of the TVA and the timelines is the only person with true control of their destiny. We ultimately left Loki in a new timeline where Kang is seemingly ruling the TVA — and maybe even the world — and Loki is without any allies as the version of Mobius M Mobius that he met there didn’t recognize him. Since that time we’ve only seen Loki and Mobius again once, in Ant-Man and the Wasp Quatumania's post-credits stinger.
Aside from Quantumania introducing Kang onto the big screen world of the MCU as the franchise's newest big bad, the film teased Loki Season 2 by showing Loki and Mobius at a unique carnival attraction. They were watching a Kang variant known as Victor Timely, a famed time traveler who claimed to be able to show his enraptured audiences the power of moving between timelines. While Mobius was entertained, Loki was terrified, claiming Kang was extremely dangerous, which — after watching the film — MCU audiences knew all too well.
But that Victor Timely post-credits scene raised a question that's still relevant as we watch the Loki Season 2 trailer…
How the heck does Mobius remember Loki?
When we last saw the unlikely friends in the timeline that Loki had been sent to by Sylvie, Mobius had no idea who Loki actually was. But in both Quantumania and the trailer for Season 2, the pair are clearly close friends again. Our first proper look at Season 2 shows the pair on multiple adventures, not only hunting down Kang, but also trying to help Loki solve his "Time-Slipping" problem. It's clear that they're close again as we see that it's Mobius who takes Loki to OB (Ke Huy Quan) to try and find a way to cure his new time-ailment.
This means one of two things: either Loki found his way back to Sacred Timeline, which he could have done offscreen between Season's 1 and 2; or he has befriended Mobius again and convinced him of their friendship in the core timeline. Either way, we can expect this to be a major part of the early episodes.
Perhaps we could even learn that Mobius was pretending not to know Loki at the end of Season 1 as he knew that revealing their friendship could get them both in deep trouble with Kang? Or, as we know Loki is "time-slipping," maybe he was able to show the new Mobius a world where the pair were friends, convincing him to be allies. It'll be interesting to see how they resolve this particular wrinkle as we head into the new season.
Is Ravonna the Key to the MCU's Kang Problem?
Speaking of wrinkles, after the slightly underwhelming impact of Quantumania, the MCU needs to convince people that Kang is a villain worthy of the MCU's greatest heroes. The trailer hints at Loki's fear of the powerful time traveling villain and even shows his face a couple of times, but while his shadow looms large over the trailer, Majors is surprisingly absent. With Marvel Studios likely considering how central it wants Majors to be due to his ongoing legal struggles, this is no surprise. Thanks to the decades of sprawling comic book history, there's an unexpected but easy fix for both issues and that comes in the form of Ravonna Renslayer.
The deep cut Marvel character first debuted in 1965 in the pages of Avengers #23. Created by Marvel legends Jack Kirby and Stan Lee, she began her life as a love interest for Kang the Conqueror, but over the years would have cosmic adventures of her own and even end up taking the Kang mantle for herself. So could Loki Season 2 take from the comics that saw Ravonna become Kang? If Season 1 of Loki and Quantumania are anything to go by then the MCU already sees the Avengers: Terminatrix Objective arc as a huge influence and it wouldn't be hard for them to expand on that and reimagine Ravonna as the MCU's Kang the Conqueror.
In Mark Gruenwald and Mike Gustovich's Avengers miniseries, Terminatrix Objective readers learn that Ravonna has a suit which enables her to transform herself into Kang. It's revealed that she has been ruling Chronopolis in Kang's stead after the apparent death of Kang at the hands — and hammer — of Thunderstrike. Soon, though, the extremely '90s Avengers team learns that Kang is in stasis and Ravonna has taken his place. While this might sound pretty out there, the first Season of Loki actually took a lot of influence from the Terminatrix Objective. The first issue sees Ravonna facing down against Alioth, the giant cloud monster who you may remember from the final episodes of Loki Season 1. There's also the fact that Quantumania's post-credits sequence with the Council of Kangs is pulled directly from the pages of the Terminatrix Objective. So it's clear that the MCU is already looking to these issues for influences, so why not take it one step further and have Ravonna take on the mantle of Kang permanently?
How Loki Season 1 Set Up Ravonna Usurping Kang
Loki’s Season 1 finale saw Ravonna heading out on her own to search out He Who Remains and gain the power of running the TVA that she believed would grant her true free will. In the trailer, we see Ravonna in the same era as Victor Timely, so it's clear that she's caught up with Kang thanks to her TemPad and TVA smarts. The big question is where that connection will go. In the comics Ravonna and Kang have had a long running on again/off again relationship which it feels like the series was always going to cover at some point. But with the way the MCU is changing and as the fallout from Majors' off-screen issues continue, that could mean that instead of seeing Kang and Ravonna become lovers and allies — creating an MCU power couple for the ages — we could instead see Ravonna usurp Kang.
Ravonna already understands that to control the timelines is to have ultimate power, so perhaps she could take on Kang's mission of killing all the Kang variants so that she can become the one and only ruler of time. It would align with what we learned of Ravonna in the first season of Loki, and it would play into Ravonna's comic book past. Plus, depending on the canon that we look at, there are times when Kang has been more of a mantle than a singular man, meaning that Ravonna taking on the name and perhaps look of Kang would be in line with the comics too. As we know from Kang's extensive back-stabbing past there have always been new versions of the villain and they often attempt to usurp their other versions. So Ravonna would just be continuing a classic Kang tradition, though whether or not the MCU will commit to this and how it would come to life is yet to be seen. Would Ravonna simply wear her Terminatrix armor but take on the name Kang? Would she wear her Kang suit as seen in the Avengers comics? Perhaps she will team up with Immortus, her sometime lover, to take down the Victor Timely variant of Kang?
If this ends up being the case we could potentially see the MCU go forward with their Kang plans, but with Gugu Mbatha-Raw as the signature villain. Avengers: The Kang Dynasty has a tentative date of May 1st 2026, so beginning Ravonna's rise to power now could mean that the MCU gets to have its Kang Dynasty after all, just in a different guise than we were all expecting.
Rosie Knight is a contributing freelancer for IGN covering everything from anime to comic books to kaiju to kids movies to horror flicks. She has over half a decade of experience in entertainment journalism with bylines at Nerdist, Den of Geek, Polygon, and more.
