Loki: Who Is Victor Timely?

Loki Season 2 has Marvel fans asking a big question: who is Victor Timely? 

If you've seen the name circulating in Marvel chat threads lately it's not a coincidence: the Loki Season 2 trailers (and that Ant-Man 3 post-credits scene) made it clear very early on to anyone who has read a Marvel comic book that actor Jonathan Majors would be trading his Kang the Conqueror armor and He Who Remains cape for Victor Timely's old-world look. 

So who is Victor Timely in Marvel Comics lore? Here's What You Need to Know 

Victor Timely's Marvel Comics History Explained

In Marvel comic book lore, Victor Timely was a variant of Nathaniel Richards/Kang the Conqueror who chose to live in the early 20th Century. Timely established his own town in Wisconsin, where he was mayor, and there he used his industrious knowledge and might to forge a base and industry that benefit his future self, "Timely Industries." 

Timely's place in the timeline made him an opponent of historical greats like Henry Ford and Thomas Edison and dominated the mechanics industry. He instilled advanced knowledge of his robotics and mechanics into his workers and was the variant responsible for first building Kang's stronghold of Chronopolis, and placing it outside the timestream. 

Using robotic duplicates Timely was able to feign living a normal human lifespan and routinely faked his own death and resurfaced posing as his own descendants, to continue his work across history. Victor Timely would go on to affect the Marvel Universe in some pivotal ways – including inspiring the research that created the original Human Torch android and creating tech that would later become vital to Kang, as well as key to equipment used by heroes like Mr. Fantastic (Reed Richards), Misty Knight and the Deathlok cyborgs. 

In short, Victor Timely was one of Kang's most pivotal variants, when it came to observing and shaping 20th-century events, to better aid him in his battle against The Avengers, Fantastic Four and other Marvel heroes of the 20th-21st-century eras. 

How MCU Victor Timely Is Different

We won't know everything until Loki reveals more, but early impressions from what we saw in the post-credits scene of Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania (and later Loki Season 2 trailers) point to the Marvel Cinematic Universe version of the character being an oddball inventor of the early 20th Century, who is obsessed with time theory. It's unclear if the MCU Victor Timely is a man who embedded himself in that time period, or if Kang's MCU variant is actually from that time period. Either way, the character's introduction in Loki will have some pretty big implications for the series (and beyond...). 

Loki Season 2 is streaming on Disney+.