Last night's episode of Loki introduced the MCU's take on Zaniac, though he wasn't exactly the Brad Wolfe many of you will remember from the comic books.
On the page, he was an actor who suffered from a traumatic childhood before landing the role of a lifetime as a serial killer named Zaniac. One night on set, Wolfe was caught up in an explosion which exposed him to radiation (of course) and, by some bizarre fluke, a demonic entity happened to possess and drive him made at the same time.
With that, he became a monstrous killer, though Loki only borrowed a few elements from that backstory. Its version of Brad was TVA agent Hunter X-5 who, after abandoning Agent Dox's mission to save the Sacred Timeline, chose to become a famous actor instead.
Talking to Games Radar, Loki director Dan Deleeuw explained Marvel Studios' approach to bringing Zaniac to screen.
"I think, within the multiverse, in terms of him being Brad Wolfe, he's on a timeline that's not really gone to the evil version of that," the filmmaker laughs. "Go a few timelines over and you'll probably find someone who's more like the villain character."
"We wanted to play around with that Easter egg and introduce a character that was fairly obscure in the comics. But also, we couldn't resist the idea of exploring someone that wasn't really believing in the reality of the TVA, and the artifice of the Timekeepers and all that, being an actor. Now he's someone that, you know, puts on a perception of reality for a living. So, it kind of worked for both sides of that."
In the same interview, Deleeuw was also asked to elaborate on what Sylvie was holding in the latest episode's final scene. We saw the Loki Variant back in her branched timeline mulling over her future and, as suspected, that is indeed He Who Remains' incredibly powerful Tempad.
"She's still a Loki. If she's got the keys to the universe, the keys to the multiverse, she's not gonna give that up," Deleeuw teases. "I think she truly was happy on the timeline; I don't know how much manipulation has been going on behind the scenes..."
"I think she always suspected this might come back, and I think that ties in with a lot of the reaction to Loki in the McDonald's as well," he says of their reunion. "She knew she was on borrowed time, I think, and kept it because she knew, eventually, Loki would show or some other Loki would show up, some other variant of He Who Remains or something like that, that she'd have to ultimately deal with."
We're sure that won't be the final time we see Sylvie in Loki, but the extent of what she can do with that Tempad remains to be seen. It may, however, be key when the God of Mischief and Mobius need to search the Multiverse for a Kang Variant who can help them access the Time Loom!
The first two episodes of Loki are now streaming on Disney+.