Who Is He Who Remains on ‘Loki’? It’s Jonathan Majors as Kang


Massive spoilers for the Loki Season 1 finale past this point! Seriously!

In the final episode of Loki Season 1 — and yes, if you stayed through the end credits, you were treated to the official news that “Loki will return in Season 2” — titled “For All Time. Always.” we meet a character who is only referred to as “He Who Remains.” The character is played by newly Emmy nominated actor Jonathan Majors, and he’s about to be the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s next big villain. Meet Kang The Conqueror, folks, and he’s here to wreck all your timelines.

Okay, actually, he’s not quite Kang the Conqueror, the blue-masked Avengers villain from Marvel Comics, at least not how we meet him on Loki. In the show, Majors is playing a variant of Kang, one who managed to win the multiversal war with all his other selves, from other timelines, and has been pulling the strings of the Time Variance Authority (TVA) in order to keep himself as the one variant in charge. In fact, at no point in the episode does anyone call him Kang, or any of the other names he uses in the Marvel Comics: Victor Timely, Pharaoh Rama-Tut, Scarlet Centurion, Immortus, or Nathaniel Richards (among many, many other names).

Instead, as Miss Minutes (Tara Strong), the animated clock who seems to be helping the TVA but is actually working for Kang, calls him, he’s “He Who Remains.” That’s an appropriate name for a being who has existed virtually as long as the current Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) timeline, someone who has worn out all use for names and, as we see by episode’s end, his own life. But the final moments of the Loki finale tease a very different variant of He Who Remains, and that’s most likely someone who will be referred to as Kang the Conqueror (Majors’ character even jokingly refers to himself, or notes that people have called him a “conqueror,” earlier in the episode). That’s what you’re seeing in that very final shot as Loki (Tom Hiddleston) discovers that not only does Mobius (Owen Wilson) no longer know who he is, but the statues of three very fake space lizards who were purported to be the Time Keepers in the TVA lobby no longer exist, and instead have been replaced by one statue: a statue of Kang.

Jonathan Majors as Kang aka He Who Remains on Loki
Photo: Disney+

As for Majors? In case you couldn’t quite place him, he’s best known for playing Atticus Freeman on HBO’s canceled Lovecraft Country, a role that nabbed him an Emmy Award nomination for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series just yesterday (July 13). Big week for Jonathan Majors! He’s also appeared on screen in The Last Black Man in San Francisco, Da 5 Bloods, and upcoming in The Harder They Fall, and most importantly our own Meghan O’Keefe is super horny for him. Big week for Meghan O’Keefe!

Clearly this isn’t the last time we’re going to see Majors as Kang (or He Who Remains, or any other names), and he’s being set up as a Thanos level villain for the MCU. We don’t yet know when Loki Season 2 will premiere, but we do know Majors’ next confirmed appearance as Kang: Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania. The third Ant-Man movie is currently filming in the UK, and is expected to be released as February 17, 2023. We don’t know many details about the plot, but considering the previous Ant-Man movies have teased the time-twisting Quantum Realm, and given the title, it’s fair to guess that Scott Lang (Paul Rudd) and company doing a little exploration of the timeline might pique the interest of a certain green capelet wearing villain (that would be Kang).

Another potential place for him to show up? The upcoming Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. Set to be released on March 25, 2022, given the title, and the multiverse going a little cuckoo at the end of Loki Season 1, as well as Tom Hiddleston’s rumored appearance in the movie, it’s possible we could see some sort of Kang tease or appearance in the sequel.

There’s also, and I’m just going to throw this out there, a very strong Marvel Comics connection between Kang and the Fantastic Four. You might have noticed the name “Nathaniel Richards” earlier on, and that’s because in some iterations — variants, if you will — of the character, he’s a distant, 31st Century descendant of Reed Richards, the stretchy, smart member of the Fantastic Four. Depending on which comics you read, though, he’s also a descendant of Fantastic Four arch-enemy Dr. Doom, and sometimes he’s a Pharaoh in Ancient Egypt. Look, comics have been running for a long time, and they’ve gotten pretty weird. Point being, with a new Fantastic Four movie on the docket (though currently undated), there’s every chance that Nathaniel Richards could show up, or be teased in that movie.

He could also — and I’ll shut up and stop speculating after this — show up in a potential Young Avengers movie or Disney+ series, since a younger, more hopeful version of Kang dresses up in Iron Man armor on that team in the comics, and calls himself Iron Lad.

But whatever you call him — Kang, He Who Remains, Immortus, Nathaniel Richards, or Iron Lad — welcome your new MCU Big Bad. There’s an infinite number of him, and most of them are very, very bad news.

Stream Loki on Disney+

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