Jonathan Majors has played Kang and his variants for quite some time now. Debuting as He Who Remains, in 2021’s Loki Season 1, it is difficult to imagine another actor in the role. The writers of the show, however, were actively considering another actor in place of Majors to play He Who Remains, and the choice might not be what most viewers had in mind.
Majors has successfully embodied the myriad of characters that are Kang the Conqueror and his variants, bringing a distinct charm and personality to each of them, while maintaining an underlying united emotion across them all. So who could possibly have fit the role of the multiversal threat, the next big Avengers villain? The answer is more of a callback than you might think.
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Loki was about Loki dealing with…well…Loki
The entire first season of Loki shows us Loki confronting the various aspects of himself. It is important to remember that this is the Loki that laid siege to New York City in 2012 and experienced the rest of his life as a literal spectator in the TVA. This Loki sees his evolution through The Dark World, Ragnarok, and Infinity War, eventually watching himself die at the hands of the Mad Titan Thanos.
Once he has made peace with himself, he sets out to confront his own variant, who he eventually ends up falling in love with. Keeping all these developments in mind, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that He Who Remains, was originally, supposed to be a variant of the God of Mischief himself.
He Who Remains is not a variant of Kang in the comics. Making him a variant of Loki would have been just as absurd. The idea was actively entertained by the writers, albeit briefly, but didn’t even make it to Tom Hiddleston before it was scrapped. The idea, according to co-executive producer Kevin Wright, was rejected because:
“… while there is something fun about that, and there are compelling aspects to it, it makes the universe feel small.”
How different the MCU could have been.
It doesn’t take much effort to imagine Loki as the sole survivor of a Multiversal War, It opens up a lot of interesting readings of the character. If it were the case, Loki would be running the TVA (probably as a vassal to Kang, to maintain The Conqueror as a threat in the overarching narrative) from the shadows, taking his philosophy of being ‘burdened with glorious purpose’ to its logical extreme. There, Loki would have been in charge of the entire timeline, watching over it at the End of Time.
To have this version of Loki confront 2012’s reformed Loki and a vengeful Sylvie could have been an interesting equation to solve over the course of the season’s finale. Classic Loki’s sacrifice would have felt that much more tragic and Loki’s version of He Who Remains would have come across as that much more apathetic if this were the case.
God (of Mischief) knows where we would have been at the beginning of Season 2 if Loki had seen a giant statue of himself after Sylvie pushed him from the time door and killed his He Who Remains Variant, right after kissing him.
The first 2 episodes of Loki Season 2 are now Streaming on Disney+
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