‘Loki’ Season 2: Who Was the He Who Remains Variant Who Caused Chaos on 616?

‘Loki’ season 2 ended with one of the greatest finales any series could ever get when Loki himself made a sacrifice play that allowed both the TVA and the multiverse to exist without risking the return of He Who Remains. Of course, this also means that the other variants of He Who Remains were allowed to exist as well, given that countless timelines now exist. Mobius himself mentioned something about a variant which actually caused trouble over in one of Earth-616’s adjacent realms. So, who was the He Who Remains variant who caused trouble on 616?

The birth of the Kang variants

One of the things that we learned in the season 2 finale of ‘Loki’ was that it seemed like He Who Remains had a backup for everything and that Loki and his friends were always destined to lose. This became apparent when Loki used his time-slipping powers to return to different timelines over and over again to try to save the TVA from the meltdown of the Temporal Loom, only for him to learn that the Loom couldn’t handle all of the different timelines together.

Then, when he returned to the end of time to have a discussion with He Who Remains (HWR), Loki learned that HWR was the one who gave him the ability to time slip and that he also designed the Temporal Loom as a failsafe instead of as a device that managed the timelines. HWR mentioned that the Loom was never meant to contain multiple timelines and that it was supposed to overload and destroy everything but the Sacred Timeline.

So, if the Loom were to destroy everything but the Sacred Timeline, this means that only the Sacred Timeline would exist and that HWR would once again rise to power at some point in the future. As such, HWR made sure that reincarnation would always be in the books for him, even if someone were to kill him at the end of time.

However, Loki made a sacrifice play by replacing the Temporal Loom after destroying it. He essentially plays the part of both the Loom and He Who Remains to make sure that the TVA is safe and that HWR never returns to power. Doing so also allowed Loki to have the glorious purpose he was always talking about, as he is now the god who is overlooking the timelines.

But allowing the other timelines to exist also means that the variants of He Who Remains could freely exist in the other universes all over the vast multiverse. This means that Loki and the TVA also ran the risk of allowing the multiversal war to happen. But the fact that the TVA exists is one of the reasons why Loki can feel confident that He Who Remains would never come out as the winner of the multiversal war between the variants.

He understands that the TVA would be there to find a way to monitor the timelines in case HWR’s variants would mess things up.

Mobius was monitoring Kang the Conqueror

After Loki became the one who is now monitoring and regulating the different timelines all over the vast multiverse, the TVA continued to do its part by watching over the timelines. In fact, near the end of the episode, Mobius and B-15 talked about how the variants of HWR were yet to discover the existence of the TVA. But Mobius also said something interesting about the fact that there was a variant of HWR that appeared in an adjacent dimension in Earth-616.

He was obviously talking about Kang the Conqueror. This HWR variant appeared in the Quantum Realm during the events of ‘Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania.’ The reason he was there was the fact that the other variants betrayed and sent him there as a result of his destructive behavior. Kang the Conqueror used his power to conquer and destroy entire universes, leading the other variants to betray and send him stranded in the Quantum Realm.

Of course, Mobius also said that the problem had been dealt with. He was talking about how Ant-Man and the rest of the Ant-Family defeated Kang the Conqueror in the Quantum Realm. Mobius wasn’t even too worried about Kang, as it was clear that he wasn’t a big problem that required the TVA to take action.

But it is important to take note that the mid-credit scene of ‘Quantumania’ allowed us to see the different variants of Kang/HWR convene in a different dimension as they all realized that more and more people were now starting to learn of the existence of the multiverse. As such, we are now in the early stages of the dreaded ‘Kang Dynasty’ storyline that the MCU will cover at one point in the future.

We know that the TVA is monitoring the movements and actions of the Kang/HWR variants all over the multiverse to prevent them from waging a huge multiversal war that could possibly bring about the rise of He Who Remains once more. As such, there’s a good chance that the TVA will be back in action at one point in the future, especially near the events of the upcoming ‘Kang Dynasty’ Avengers movie.

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