Is Victor Timely He Who Remains in ‘Loki’? Explained

You’ve probably noticed that in recent times, there’s plenty of talk regarding variants in the MCU. This is all due to the Multiverse Saga, which deals with the complicated concepts of time travel, alternate universes, timelines, etc. And, having alternate universes and timelines means that across that vast, seemingly infinite potential, there is bound for a variant of a certain character to appear. Much focus on timelines has been put during the ‘Loki’ Disney+ show, which showed us the true meaning of Sacred Timelines and what happens when someone meddles with several timelines and causes them to be destroyed. We know that He Who Remains was seemingly behind everything that went down, but there is yet another connected character that resurfaced during the post-credits scenes of ‘Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania’ under the name Victor Timely. Let’s see is Victor Timely He Who Remains and how are both of them connected.

Victor Timely is not He Who Remains, he is a variant of He Who Remains. Both Victor Timely and He Who Remains stem from Nathaniel Richards, a scientist from the 31st century who discovered the Multiverse and came into contact with his alternate variants. This eventually led to the Multiversal War that He Who Remains won. Following He Who Remains’ death at the hands of Sylvie Laufeydottir, the variants of Nathaniel Richards or, in this case, He Who Remains, were free to roam Multiverse once again since He Who Remains was no longer in charge of organizing the timelines and making sure that no evil variants of his resurfaced.

I know, i know, if you weren’t up to speed about this whole multiversal mess in the first place, this short summary didn’t help you out all that much. Luckily, we have plenty more to say about it, so if you’re interested, stay with us and keep reading!

Who is Nathaniel Richards?

When we have multiple timelines in question and multiple versions of a specific character across several different universes and timelines, it’s difficult to pinpoint where exactly to start investigating which variant is the original one or, in this case, the first one.

We know that in the comics, Nathaniel Richards has at least 38 known powerful variants, and luckily, MCU didn’t have the time to introduce as many of them, but Council of Kangs, as well as several other variants, have already been introduced, especially in the post-credits scenes of ‘Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania.’ So, let’s start from the beginning.

Nathaniel Richards was a brilliant scientist hailing from the 31st century. He was always fascinated with time and all processes related to it, and due to his diligent work, he discovered time travel, traveling through various timelines, etc., everything related to it.

He soon discovered his alternate variants (although I’m sure those alternate variants considered him an alternate variant). Some alternate variants were almost identical to him, some were starkly different, and some weren’t even human, but all of them had one thing in question: they were all tied to that one single persona that remains constant across all timelines and universes. The concept of Nathaniel Richards.

Nathaniel soon realized that not all of his variants were benevolent; some were hellbent on creating chaos and conquering time, which gave rise to the Multiversal War. One especially evil and brutal variant of Nathaniel we’ve already met, Kang the Conqueror, was such a threat to the stability of the Multiverse that he had to be banished to the Quantum Realm.

Eventually, as the Multiversal War raged on, one variant came out as victorious, aptly named He Who Remains. He was the only variant that remained after the slaughter, and he founded the TVA, the principles of the Sacred Timeline, and his job included “pruning” the timelines deemed “dangerous.” Any timeline that didn’t leave He Who Remains as the only Nathaniel Variant was dangerous since that timeline could give rise to other evil variants and start another multiversal war.

Following the death of He Who Remains, several variants resurfaced

Before Sylvie killed He Who Remains he warned both Loki and Sylvie what kind of consequences that could leave. Almost immediately after He Who Remains was killed, the TVA was in shambles, and another multiversal control resurfaced, as well as several other variants of Nathaniel Richards, who can be considered evil.

The Ant family fought Kang the Conqueror in the Quantum Realm. He tried his damnest to return to the Multiverse in order to dethrone the Council of Kangs, who he considered even more dangerous than himself, as they were the ones who banished him to the Quantum Realm in the first place.

During the mid-credits scenes of ‘Quantumania,’ we saw the Council of Kangs in question. We saw several malevolent Nathaniel Richards variants who go by the names Rama-Tut, Immortus, and Centurion. During the post-credits scene of the same movie, we met Victor Timely, so who exactly is he?

Victor Timely is yet another variant of Nathaniel Richards, aka He Who Remains

After what went down with He Who Remains, Loki has taken it upon himself to track down He Who Remains as a TVA agent and try to put the Sacred Timeline into its correct place. He and Mobius found themselves in the 19th century when they discovered one variant of He Who Remains that went under the name Victor Timely.

Victor Timely developed the technology that would help the people of the past understand the concept of time and how it could be manipulated, and it was during one such presentation that Loki and Mobius found him.

Loki was aware right away of how terrifying this variant was. We don’t know much about Victor Timely as of now. Even though he is a variant from the comics, his journey is bound to be significantly different. We know that Timely will play a huge role in the upcoming season 2 of ‘Loki.’ The most conclusive answer, for now, is that He Who Remains are connected, but they are not one and the same, and we can’t claim whether Timely is evil or not, as we haven’t seen him in a major role in the MCU.

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