Brad Wolfe And Zaniac Have A Very Different History In Marvel Comics Than Loki Season 2
This post contains spoilers for the second episode of "Loki," Season 2.
Chaos unraveled within the Time Variance Authority (TVA) in the season 2 premiere of "Loki," where the titular variant (played by Tom Hiddleston) found himself torn between various points in time after He Who Remains is killed by Sylvie (Sophia Di Martino). After this Time Slippage issue is resolved, thanks to a trip to a space station-esque nexus called the Temporal Loom, Loki tries his best to convince everyone about the impending doom that awaits every timeline, sacred or branched. This aberration in the flow of events disrupts the very foundation of the TVA, introducing fresh doubts in every TVA "employee," now acutely aware of their variant status.
Some Hunters at the TVA, including B-15 (Wunmi Mosaku) and X-5 (Rafael Casal) express their inner turmoil caused by this revelation, stressing that this "changes everything," as every individual used to have a life in the branched timelines they were plucked from. While B-15 approaches the situation with concerned compassion in episode 2 of "Loki", X-5 makes the proactive decision to reclaim agency over his own life by traveling to a branched timeline to live out his dreams.
Once Loki and Mobius (Owen Wilson) travel to this timeline situated in the past, they attend the premiere for a horror-thriller titled "Zaniac!," starring none other than Hunter X-5, who portrays Brad Wolfe in the film (and also goes by "Brad" now). This turn of events allows "Loki" to cleverly incorporate a somewhat obscure Marvel comics character into the MCU: Brad Wolfe/Zaniac, an interesting comic book antagonist who now has a chance to invoke chaos in a world already doomed by temporal calamities. This begs the question: how different is Wolfe/Zaniac in the comics? Let's find out.
A remorseless serial killer
Created by writer Doug Moench and artist Keith Pollard, Brad Wolfe/Zaniac first appeared in "Thor #319," also titled "The Zaniac Craves Blood!," where the antagonist squares off against Thor (and loses). What makes Zaniac interesting as a villain is that he's very different from the almighty mythological beings that Thor usually fights — to be frank, he's just a dude who happened to have superpowers due to a radioactive mutation, mixed with standard demonic possession. Zaniac's backstory really is as wild as it sounds, so it is worth digging into in some detail.
Wolfe was the victim of abusive neglect by his mother while growing up, and this trauma, enmeshed with his growing resentment, was unleashed when he took on the role of a misogynistic serial killer named Zaniac as an actor years down the line. Wolfe was able to empathize with Zaniac's backstory, which mirrored his own, and initially meant to embrace this role to rise up the ranks in his career. However, an accidental fire during the film's shoot caused radioactive fumes from the Manhattan Project to mutate Wolfe's genes while he was in Zaniac's costume and makeup, granting him superhuman strength and speed. At the same time, he became possessed by a demonic entity who pushed him to the point of no return.
As Wolfe started believing himself to be the fictional Zaniac, he started acting out the film's script by killing various women, until Thor intervened and sent him to prison. After he was broken out of prison, Wolfe was killed off in "Thor #372," which is also the issue where the TVA makes an appearance. "Loki" seems to be taking a wildly different route when it comes to Wolfe/Zaniac, but will this path also end in him being a villain?
Reclaiming autonomy
In "Loki," Hunter X-5 travels to the branched timeline to live out a life as a famed movie star, just like Brad Wolfe playing Zaniac in a slasher-thriller. This decision is understandable, as he realizes that his life at the TVA is a lie — a sentiment that he reiterates during his interrogation. Refused to be addressed by the hollow moniker of X-5, he reclaims autonomy and control over his identity. While Brad/X-5 proves to be useful in this episode, as he helps Loki track down Sylvie and prevent timeline-wide catastrophe to an extent, his arc remains open-ended, especially with the incorporation of a deliberate villain backstory from the Marvel comics.
While Brad/X-5 himself seems fairly balanced so far, it is possible that his life as Zaniac will take on a more nefarious undertone in the near future. As the radioactive mutation aspect of the comics is out of the question in this context, is demonic possession a probable option for what comes next? Introducing a demonic entity in a series about heady temporal glitches and loops sounds insane, but it is interesting to note that the demon who possessed Wolfe in the comics was sent by Dormammu, Lord of the Dark Dimension. This entity went on to possess many on Earth-616, and if this strand is indeed introduced in the show, we must buckle up for a wild ride.
Conversely, X-5's turn to villainy could be purely psychological, especially with the looming threat of He Who Remain's variants, who are yet to make an appearance and wreak havoc across timelines. Will X-5 give into bitter disillusion and join destructive forces once he's denied the life he's desperate for? Well, this sounds much more probable than him being possessed by a serial-killing demon who hurls radioactive knife projectiles.