‘Loki’ Season 2: Here’s How Brad Wolfe and Zaniac Are Connected

If there was a character who stole the show in episode 2 of ‘Loki’ season 2, it was Brad Wolfe. Of course, the episode allowed us to see how Brad Wolfe was important to the story as he was the one whom Loki and Mobius needed to interrogate so that they would be able to find where Sylvie was hiding. Of course, Brad Wolfe is a very familiar character to comics fans as he is related to the obscure Zaniac character. So, who is Brad Wolfe, and how is he connected to Zaniac?

Who is Brad Wolfe?

One of the things that allowed us to enjoy episode 2 of ‘Loki’ season 2 was the introduction of a character named Brad Wolfe. This character was integral to the episode because he was the one whom Loki and Mobius thought was their best lead regarding Sylvie’s location. And there’s a very good reason for that.

During the episode’s opening scenes, we saw that Loki and Mobius traveled to 1970s London because they could track down Hunter X-5’s location. In episode 1, General Dox and her loyalists raided the TVA armory and entered different timedoors in the multiverse for reasons that no one knew. But because she previously told X-5 to go looking for Sylvie, everyone in the TVA thought that these Hunters were meant to find Sylvie in the different timelines of the multiverse.

So, when Loki and Mobius went to London, they were following X-5’s signal as he was the one who was previously given the task of looking for Sylvie. But they were surprised to see that X-5 had adopted an entirely new persona on the Sacred Timeline. That’s because he was now known as Brad Wolfe, a famous movie actor. He was attending the premiere of his movie Zaniac when Loki and Mobius came looking for him.

Loki and Mobius were successful at capturing X-5, but the only thing the former Hunter wanted to do was to return to the Sacred Timeline to continue living his life as Brad Wolfe. That was because he thought he deserved to live a life of his own after discovering that the TVA kidnapped variants from different timelines long ago and gave them different identities while they were working in the TVA.

In that regard, X-5 now insisted on being called Brad Wolfe because this was his identity and life after discovering that he was free to choose his own life. He made it big in the Sacred Timeline by working his way up the Hollywood ladder to become the star of his movie, Zaniac. 

How is Zaniac connected to Brad Wolfe?

As mentioned, the movie starring Brad Wolfe in The Sacred Timeline is called Zaniac. According to him, this is a slasher-thriller film instead of a horror movie. Fans of the comics would be able to recognize who or what Zaniac is and how it is connected to Brad Wolfe.

In the comics, Brad Wolfe was a man neglected and abused by his mother when he was young. By the time he worked his way to become an actor, he could relate to the role of Zaniac, a misogynistic serial killer in a slasher film. As such, Brad accepted the character’s role as he could relate to Zaniac’s story as an abused person who turned into a serial killer. 

While Wolfe was in his full Zaniac costume near the University of Chicago, a cigarette blunt caused an explosion that released radiation from the Manhattan Project. Brad was exposed to the radiation and mutated as a result of this. He obtained superhuman strength and the ability to create knives from his hands. And a demonic entity eventually possessed him and drove him mad.

Brad Wolfe ultimately adopted the Zaniac persona after he had become a mutated being, as he was no longer himself from a mental standpoint. He truly believed that he was the Zaniac in the movie he was filming, and that was how he became a deranged serial killer who came into contact with Thor. The god of thunder eventually defeated and killed Zaniac in the comics.

We aren’t sure if Brad Wolfe in the MCU will take the same route of becoming a serial killer called Zaniac. But we do know that he embraced his movie role and loved that he was getting a lot of attention in this new film. Like the comic version of Brad Wolfe, the MCU version was likely going to use the Zaniac role as a stepping stone to a bigger role in the future, and that was why he wanted to return to his life on the Sacred Timeline instead of staying in the TVA to live a life that he never chose.

There’s still a possibility that the MCU version of Wolfe would become Zaniac at one point in the future, especially because it was teased early in the episode that there could be a Zaniac 2. If that happens, his transformation into Zaniac could happen while filming the movie’s second installment.

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