We're now two episodes into Loki's second season and all eyes are on the series to see how it will set the stage for what's to come in the Multiverse Saga.
The expectation is that a new Kang Variant, Victor Timely, will take centre stage this Thursday so we should at least get to learn more about what it means for countless Variants of Kang to be unleashed across every reality. However, there was a time when season 2 featured the Multiversal War itself.
"We were with Tom on the backlot kicking around how to continue the story for season two," executive producer Kevin Wright tells Den of Geek. "In one version, we go full-on multiversal war, but even as we were saying that, it felt completely wrong, jumping to something we haven’t earned yet."
We're guessing that will be saved for Avengers: The Kang Dynasty, but Wright would go on to say that, "When we developed Loki, we were trying to be as insular as possible. We, Mike [Waldron] and Kate [Herron], and everyone involved in season one wanted to build our own little corner of the MCU. If it was cool and exciting, we figured the rest of the MCU would come to us."
It's starting to look like that's exactly what's happening between Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania and the upcoming Deadpool 3. The latter is expected to feature the TVA, with the stage finally set for those next two Avengers movies.
We're also expecting Loki to be a major player in The Kang Dynasty and Avengers: Secret Wars, with many fans speculating the God of Mischief will eventually play a similar role to Molecule Man in Jonathan Hickman and Esad Ribic's Secret Wars.
Interestingly, there was actually a time when Loki would have been the one waiting for his two Variants in the Citadel at the End of Time.
"In development, it was always the idea of He Who Remains, who is not Kang in the comics, but for us, it was always going to be a version of him," Wright says. "We just thought [He Who Remains] would be a great title for the last man standing in the multiversal war."
"In the writers’ room, all ideas are on the table, and there were conversations about what if Loki was He Who Remains. Those conversations didn’t get very far; I don’t think it even got to Tom [Hiddleston] because while there is something fun about that, and there are compelling aspects to it, it makes the universe feel small. So, it was always going to be He Who Remains, always a version of Kang."
The third episode of Loki premieres on Disney+ this Thursday.