Does The Loki Season 2 Finale Make It Easier To Replace Jonathan Majors As Marvel's Kang?
Warning: This article contains spoilers for the season 2 finale of "Loki."
For six whole episodes, fans have had to wait with baited breath to see how the Kang-sized shadow at the center of "Loki" season 2 might complicate an already unenviable and possibly untenable situation. Ever since the news first came down that actor Jonathan Majors had been accused of assault, both Marvel Studios and the moviegoing public alike have remained in a state of suspended animation. Obviously, nothing is more important than the safety of the alleged victim and ensuring that nobody in Majors' circles is ever put at risk. (The assault case, which a judge refused to dismiss despite the attempts of Majors' legal team, will move to trial on November 29, 2023.) From a business perspective, however, the choice to gamble practically the entirety of the next phase on the threat of Kang looks worse and worse in retrospect.
But just as it seemed like season 2 would make an even bigger mess of things, awkwardly doubling down on Majors' Kang in a way that would be all but impossible for Marvel to extricate itself from, the ending of the season 2 finale shook things up. Although the villain appears prominently throughout the episode as Loki (Tom Hiddleston) flashes back to the events of the season 1 finale, the ultimate conclusion turns out to be about finding a way to remove Kang from the equation altogether. And as Loki took up his new "throne" at the end of time and lived up to his godlike title by weaving the timeline threads together in a makeshift temporal loom of his own, fans slowly realized the door may be open for a Kang-less future, after all — or, at least, one without Majors' involvement. The following theories explain how.
Hitting the recast button
This first one's as straightforward as it gets. The Marvel Cinematic Universe has already established the idea of different actors playing the same role — not just through the recasting of Edward Norton's Bruce Banner after "The Incredible Hulk" or Terrence Howard after "Iron Man 2," but also through the multiverse itself. After John Krasinski's cameo as an alternate-universe Reed Richards in "Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness" and the, uh, bloody way that appearance ultimately went down, Marvel now has a built-in excuse to recast any character as they see fit. This includes getting out from under the looming specter of Majors' Kang. Just pin it on the multiverse!
Now that He Who Remains is officially dead, the "Loki" finale depicts the remaining members of the Time Variance Authority as shockingly unconcerned about the leftover threat of Kang's variants. Near the end, Hunter B-15 (Wunmi Mosaku) and Mobius (Owen Wilson) almost nonchalantly discuss the events of "Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania," casually alluding to the fact that Kang the Conqueror was "dealt with" and not even worth the TVA lifting a pinky to intervene. This almost feels like a tacit admission that having the franchise's pint-sized heroes thoroughly kick Kang's butt in his very first big-screen appearance didn't exactly establish him as much of a threat. In that case, debuting a completely different Kang who replaces these weaker variants with superior ones of his own feels like a no-brainer.
Sure, there's the pesky issue of that "Quantumania" post-credits stinger, which established the Council of Kangs and thousands of variants who look exactly like Majors ... but that's one MCU continuity error I have zero issue overlooking.
Will the real villain please stand up?
Stick with me here. Who's to say that Kang has to be considered the next Thanos-level supervillain, anyway? Sure, I know, "Avengers: Kang Dynasty" would need a slight title update, but it's not like Marvel's never done that before. So what if "Loki" season 2 just made it so that Kang need not even factor into the future of the franchise at all and instead pivot to a completely different character?
The obvious replacement would be someone like Dr. Doom, whom Marvel obviously has the rights to following Disney's acquisition of 20th Century Fox. Intriguingly, it appears that this possibility has already been discussed by higher-ups, according to previous /Film reporting. As the franchise gears up for the introduction of both the X-Men and the Fantastic Four, wouldn't this be the perfect time for Kevin Feige to do what he does best and adjust on the fly? Contrary to popular belief, the MCU didn't come into being as a fully-formed, pre-planned phenomenon. If the early movies had flopped, Loki never would've been the main villain of "The Avengers." (Rumors posit that honor would've gone to Red Skull instead, wildly enough.) Nothing's stopping Feige from pulling a similar move here.
The less-obvious solution could be hiding in plain sight, at least according to another fun theory. Critic Alan Sepinwall suggests one "crackpot" idea: Folks, meet Loki Who Remains. I know, everybody loves his redemption story and season 2 certainly ended on a satisfying note ... but what if Marvel decided to restore its original antagonist to all his villainous glory? Having essentially become the new He Who Remains, Loki would be an easy option to take up Kang's mantle. Controversial? Sure. Fun? You bet.
Only time will tell how Marvel ultimately addresses its Kang problem.