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Even though only one episode of the Disney Plus series has been released, Loki season two has already fixed a recent major mistake in the MCU. The series sees Loki Laufeyson (Tom Hiddleston) directly where we left him at the end of last season. In the Time Variance Authority with nobody recognizing him, Loki realizes that he is time-slipping, that is, slipping between the past, the present, and the future of the TVA. While he is in the past, he realizes that the TVA was controlled by Kangs, or as Loki thinks, variants of He Who Remains (Jonathan Majors).
So, a large part of the first episode shows Loki convincing the rest of the TVA, including Mobius (Owen Wilson), that a dangerous and ruthless individual (Kang), is controlling everyone in the TVA. There hasn’t been a display of fear so honest in the Marvel Cinematic Universe since Thanos. So, Loki season two has seemingly fixed one of the biggest mistakes that occurred in Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, in which Kang wasn’t presented as too much of a threat. Kang the Conqueror needs to come off as a threat, which we’ve seen now in varying degrees in Loki and Quantumania.
Loki Understands That Kang Should Be a Major Threat
As Kang was the villain of Quantumania, we aren’t suggesting that he wasn’t a threat. But, remember Thanos’s introduction to the MCU. Aside from post-credits scenes, his first appearance was in Guardians of the Galaxy. While he spent the movie in his chair, it was clear that Gamora, Nebula, and Ronan, were all afraid of the Mad Titan. When he came back to the MCU as the main villain of Avengers: Infinity War, he began the movie by beating the Hulk to a pulp. It sets up exactly how powerful he is, especially as we know he is in possession of the Infinity Stones.
Majors’ performance as He Who Remains in the first season of Loki wasn’t menacing. But, he did cement his variants as major threats when he described what would happen if Sylvie killed him. In Quantumania, we meet Kang the Conqueror and for most of the film, he only threatens Ant-Man and the rest of the Ant-Man family. It isn’t until the end that we see how powerful he can get. Armed with powerful future technology, he manages to take out the Freedom Fighters with ease. But, he is defeated by Ant-Man, the Wasp, and a bunch of highly intelligent ants.
So, the problem is that Quantumania is like Kang’s Guardians of the Galaxy. But, the issue that Kang has is that he fought in Quantumania, whereas Thanos stayed in his seat in Guardians. Undercutting your main villain by allowing some lower-level heroes to defeat him isn’t a good idea. Thanos wasn’t beaten by the Guardians of the Galaxy, Gamora, or Loki. It took the entirety of the Avengers, and multiple sacrifices to bring him down. We need to know that Kang can’t be defeated as easily as he was in Quantumania.
Hopes for Kang in Loki Season 2
Even though Loki hasn’t even met the Kang we met in Quantumania, he is still terrified of him. So seeing characters fear Kang only amps up his eventual fight with the Avengers. These big villains can’t be introduced in one movie and defeated in the next because there needs to be some build-up. Characters like Thanos, Kang, or even Doctor Doom, need to be seen as an extremely serious threat. For example, if Ultron suddenly returned at the end of an MCU movie, he would be a threat because we already saw what he was capable of in Avengers: Age of Ultron.
Therefore, the first episode of Loki season two made the right move, fixing Quantumania‘s mistake by focusing on Loki’s fear. The series should explore Kang (or one of his variants) and his control of the TVA. It would be a mistake for the show to showcase any more of his powers, or to have him battle with anyone, even if it’s Loki. If anything, there should be a scene setting up how the Kang from Quantumania escaped, whether he turns out to be Victor Timely or not.
We’ll see how Loki season two treats Kang in the rest of the season, and hopefully, it doesn’t repeat Quantumania‘s mistake. All of this doesn’t even account for Jonathan Majors’s legal troubles. If Majors is recast, and another Kang variant becomes the one calling the shots, he could easily be seen as more threatening. Only time will tell, and for now, you can watch the second season of Loki on Disney Plus.
