Best of «Loki», Episode 5: Journey into Mystery

First off: this discussion of the series includes spoilers! So watch the fifth episode of «Loki» before you read on.

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Agent Mobius? Dead. The Time-Keepers. Dead. Loki? Dead. And Ravonna Renslayer? An agent of evil, apparently... In true «Game of Thrones» style, Episode 4 didn’t hold back on any twists.

Most importantly: the Time Keepers (the three mythical cosmic entities spinning the threads of fate) are – or were – mere puppets for a much higher power. At least that’s how it seems. I wonder if it really is like in the comics, where He Who Remains is behind all of it.

Alioth – ruler of the Void

Let’s start with Loki. He seems to have survived his apparent erasure from the space-time continuum. Another, older Loki in a silly costume immediately pipes up: «This is the place where the TVA dumps its rubbish, everything they prune. And Alioth, he ensures none of it ever returns.»

Oh my.

In the comics, Loki has already died on more than one occasion. But he has never been in the Void. Someone else has, though: Renslayer. Let’s dive into it. Remember my theory that Kang the Conqueror could be behind all this?

In a nutshell: In the comics, Kang is born in the 31st century as Nathaniel Richards, who’s possibly a descendant of Fantastic Four leader Reed Richards. And, just like his ancestors, he’s smart, eventually becoming a scholar. Until one day, he discovers Fantastic Four villain Victor Von Doom’s time travel technology.

Nathaniel uses it to acquire power and knowledge. But above all, to travel across space, time and multiverses, where he conquers one world after another. From then on, he calls himself Kang, the Conqueror.

But there is one being that even the almighty Kang fears: Alioth – the first transtemporal entity to have freed itself from the constraints of time. And just like in «Loki», Alioth appears as a giant cloud that destroys, sucks in and absorbs everything it touches. He brings down entire dimensions. Devours entire realities. Absorbs entire multiverses.

It’s how Alioth grows his empire. Eventually, it stretches billions of years into the past and is three times the size of Kang’s empire.

In fact, Alioth is the reason why Kang doesn’t expand his own empire into timelines predating the year 2000 BC. To prevent Alioth’s expansion into the present, Kang had to create a temporal barrier to keep him out.

Something tells me Kang does still have a role to play in this story.

Because Alioth is not the sole connection to Kang. There’s also Renslayer. In one of Kang’s multiverses, Ravonna Renslayer is not a TVA judge, but Princess Ravonna, daughter of King Carelius. He falls in love with her. Alas, it’s unrequited love.

Unwavering, Kang conquers Ravonna’s world. But when he refuses to kill her, Kang’s officers, led by General Baltag, rebel. Using his time travel technology, Kang brings in the Avengers. They help him defeat Baltag and the rest of his officers. But Ravonna intercepts a deadly blow aimed at Kang and dies. She had, in fact, apparently loved him.

What follows is incredibly complicated and chaotic: multiple versions of Kang. Multiple versions of resuscitated Renslayers or Renslayer variants. Sometimes, they carry on with each other. Other times, they fight. And somewhere in between, a Renslayer variant even accidentally destroys the barrier meant to keep Alioth at bay. Later on, it gets repaired again with the help of the Avengers.

Either way, Renslayer, Kang and Alioth are all connected to each other in the comics. Is this also the case in «Loki»?

The end of time

Other times, I think to myself that maybe all roads lead to He Who Remains, after all. Because what Renslayer, the TVA judge, says next sounds a lot like it. Namely, pruned timelines and variants don’t get destroyed. It’s apparently impossible to completely destroy matter. Instead, it gets transported to the end of time.

The end of time...

In the comics, that’s where He Who Remains is – the last director of the TVA, who witnesses the end of the universe and all beings and now awaits the beginning of a new multiversal cycle. In an attempt to make this one better than the last, he creates the Time-Twisters – three beings birthed from three cocoons intended to survive the end and have knowledge of the past to create a better future.

The plan fails. Instead of moving through to the next reality, the Time-Twisters travel into the past of the still-existing multiverse. Wandering backwards through time, they appear every 3,000 years and destroy whatever just so happens to be alive. But shortly before reaching the 20th century, Thor confronts them.

Realising he can do nothing against the Time-Twisters, Thor travels to the end of time himself. There, he meets He Who Remains – the Time-Twisters are still in their cocoons at this point – and convinces him of the Twisters’ destructive nature. He Who Remains destroys the Twisters before they hatch, but this creates two new timelines:

one where the Twisters live and another where they don’t exist.

To protect both timelines, He Who Remains creates new, improved versions of the Twisters: the Time-Keepers. From then on, the Time-Twisters and the Time-Keepers have been locked in an eternal war.

It seems the series is painting ‘the end’ a bit differently in the MCU. Contrary to the comics, Alioth, the all-devouring cloud that absorbs space and time, dwells in the future and not the past.

This adds up. Sylvie had always hid in apocalypses because their destructive nature covered any trace of her. So, it does make sense to send all pruned timelines and variants to the place where everything ends, namely Alioth’s hungry stomach.

But who from ‘the end’ actually dictates the Sacred Timeline? Nobody knows. Not even Renslayer, if we believe her. I’m not yet sure if her qualms are real or fake.

But we do now know the end is probably not the utopia-in-progress that TVA employees are always told about.

Loki and the Lokis

Our Loki runs into other Lokis. The alligator is awesome, as is the older Loki. They don’t seem to have anything in common with their comic book counterparts, though. Like I said, Loki dies in the comics every now and then, too. There, each pantheon of gods – the Norse gods, Egyptian gods, and so on – has a guardian of departed souls. One of these guardians is Hela, mistress of Niflheim and the fortress Hel, where she rules over the souls of deceased wrongdoers and the lost.

Yep, the Hela who’s also Thor’s sister in the MCU, unlike in the comics.

When Odin dies and Asgard perishes after Ragnarok, Loki rethinks life. But even his death and resurrection as a goddess – Lady Loki – in the now earthbound Asgardia can’t quite mellow his inner turmoil and anarchical character.

Then the crossover event «Dark Reign» happens in the comics. Loki first sides with Norman Osborn, whom you probably know as Green Goblin from the Spider-Man movies. At the time, he was the leader of the secret service S.H.I.E.L.D. After an invasion of the shape-shifting Skrulls (the «Secret Invasion»), Osborn has the backing of the American people, as he’s the one who shoots the alien queen dead. So, S.H.I.E.L.D. is disbanded and replaced by H.A.M.M.E.R.

What no one expects: Osborn is actually conspiring with the most powerful villains and outsiders in the Marvel Universe.

The evil intrigues are exposed when Osborn declares war on Asgardia. Loki dies (again) while defending the city against the Void, a Superman-like being with evil powers.

As a being of enormous magical power, Loki is reborn once more and wants to continue down a different path. As Kid Loki – his new chosen form – he’s pursued and tormented by Hela, Goddess of Death. He’s also plagued by an evil future incarnation of himself that travels back in time to prevent the reawakened boy’s attempts at reformation.

Though to no avail. At least not yet.

What’s also interesting is that Kid Loki becomes a member of the Young Avengers. Among them are Wiccan and Speed, Wanda Maximoff’s children, whom we’ve already seen in «WandaVision». The Young Avengers also have an Iron Lad. Iron Lad and Kid Loki never meet. But as it later turns out, Iron Lad is none other than a time-travelling teen version of Kang.

Later on, young Loki continues to try to do good in the comic book series «Loki: Agent of Asgard» as the eponymous Agent of Asgard, working on behalf of the All-Mother triumvirate, Gaea, Idunn and Freyja.

But Loki falters under the pressure of his chaos-creating ways and the impending doom of the Multiverse. When reality is renewed, Loki again wants to cheat his troublesome destiny, in which he constantly loses while others surpass themselves as a result. Ultimately, he lacks the strength to truly change his ways. And so, he falls right back into his pattern of trickery and spite – which continues to this day.

Back to the series. Loki and the Lokis roam a desolate wasteland that must have once been New York. Kid Loki is the leader of the little group. What was his Nexus event, one might wonder. He killed Thor. Wow. If that doesn’t make him top dog, I don’t know what would. They then totally inconspicuously walk past the Thanos-Copter.

Oh yeah, we’ve seen it before in the comics!

And there’s Frog Thor, whom we also know from the comics!

In this episode alone, I spotted Yellowjacket’s helmet from «Ant-Man», a S.H.I.E.L.D. Helicarrier, Ronan’s spaceship and the missile that the Hank Pym Ant-Man once disarmed along with the Wasp.

Did I miss anything?

One nightmare after the other

Lokis are rather strange creatures. The female Loki, Sylvie, realises that the mastermind(s) could be hiding behind the end, behind the Void – behind Alioth. How does she plan on getting there? Why, by going straight through Alioth, who’s probably the watchdog protecting what the TVA has created. There’s one problem: according to Renslayer, you can’t survive this. Never mind that. Sylvie’s determined to pass through it. And so, she prunes herself.

Meanwhile, Loki also refuses to give up. He wants to kill Alioth, kill the Void. After all, Sylvie needs him. Ah, romance... Then, a few new Lokis show up, spearheaded by a Loki who once wanted to be president.

We’ve seen that in the comics as well. Namely, in the four-part «Vote Loki» mini series from 2016. In said mini series, Loki unabashedly deceives and lies to the American people and mocks politics, the establishment, and those who lust for power. According to him, the other presidential candidates are not one whit better than he is. The only difference is that he at least admits he won’t ever deliver on anything he promises and that he’s simply providing people with the meaningless platitudes they want to hear.

And the people love him for it.

The parallels to Donald Trump’s presidential candidacy that same year are unmistakable. That’s exactly what makes Vote Loki so brilliant. It’s like a mirror for the American population to look into and draw its own conclusions.

In «Loki», it doesn’t take long for the Lokis to double-cross each other and end up at each other’s throats. «This is a nightmare,» says our Loki, before fleeing with the only three other sane Lokis: the old man from the future, the who killed Thor and the alligator who ate the wrong neighbour’s cat.

Somewhere else in the Void, Sylvie arrives and is promptly attacked by Alioth. She escapes with Agent Mobius’ help. As luck would have it, Loki and the Lokis are also nearby. Together, they come up with a plan: Alioth is not to be killed, but enchanted.

Until they can see who’s hiding behind him.

The final battle

The rest of the episode is easily summed up: beautiful character moments. Big final battle. Stunning effects. Kid Loki hands Loki a golden sword similar to the one he uses in «Loki: Agent of Asgard». Old Loki from the future gets his heroic entrance – delightful, because he does it in the most ridiculous of costumes.

Loki and Sylvie’s plan works. Together they cast a spell on Alioth, opening a rift to the other side of the Void, where... we’ll have to wait and see what comes next.

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Who do you think Loki and Sylvie will encounter? Kang? Or He Who Remains? I’m betting on Kang, if only because of his connection to Alioth and Renslayer in the comics. But if I had to make a crazy guess, a really crazy one... no, no. Not Mephisto.

What if behind the end of time was another Loki variant?