Loki Season Two Set Photos Include Teasers of Marvel's Most Obscure Heroes

By Russ Burlingame

Set photos for the second season of Marvel's Loki reveal a look at what appears to be a 1970s English street, where movie posters tease appearances by some obscure Marvel heroes. It seems that within whatever timeline Loki is visiting here, the characters of Zaniac and Phone Ranger are both headlining major motion pictures. Which, honestly, kind of feels like a great timeline to be in, so good for Loki. There is not much context here, but there is also a fictional movie poster featuring the likeness of Kingo, the Bollywood actor played by Kumail Nanjiani in Marvel's Eternals.

This is not the first time Marvel has used this gag; in Guardians of the Galaxy vol. 2, movie posters featuring Simon Williams, the Marvel hero known as Wonder Man whose civilian identity is an actor, popped up. The character was played by Nathan Fillion there, whereas the Loki posters appear to be painted, featuring stylized interpretations of the comics characters more than any one actor.

Zaniac, which first appeared in Thor #319 in 1982, is an entity that possesses human hosts, compelling them to kill beautiful women. It has been implied that the entity possessed Jack the Ripper, and later, a Zaniac movie existed within the world of the comics.

First appearing in Marvel Age Annual #1 in 1985, the Phone Ranger was a telephone repairman who gained his powers when he was called to fix a phone that was secretly a prison to a race of aliens with advanced technology. When the phone broke, the aliens left in haste, leaving their techology behind, which allows Phone Ranger to tap into any communications device.

Given the presence of posters for Airport 1975 and Herbie Rides Again, it seems the scene takes palce in 1974, the year both of those films debuted. The actor credited as playing Phone Ranger is Charles Theobald, and while there are a few of them a quick Google search away, the only obvious Marvel connection is to Brigadier Theobold "Inky" Blott, a supporting character from Excalibur who has ties to F.I.6. That would track with the English theming, at least. Goodman Productions, the named producer of the film, is named for Martin Goodman, who founded Timely Comics (the company that would eventually become Marvel) and later hired his wife's cousin, Stan Lee, as an editor.

Loki Season One is now streaming on Disney+, while the second season has yet to set a release date. If you haven't signed up for Disney+ yet, you can try it out here.

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