Marvel’s Loki Trailer May Include First Look at Kang

Marvel fans are still buzzing about the first trailer for the Loki Disney+ series – along with all of the other hot new footage Marvel Studios released as part of Disney’s Investors Day event. However, in all the footage of Tom Hiddleston’s Loki being apprehended by the Time Variance Authority (and all the mischief he gets up to there), there may have also been a first look at the next Big Bad of the Marvel Cinematic Universe: Kang The Conqueror. As a time-hopping warlord, Kang can be anywhere (or anywhen) within the new Marvel Cinematic Multiverse – and his hold may already be bigger than we thought.

In the Loki trailer, we catch up with the version of Tom Hiddleston’s Loki that escaped in the alternate 2012 timeline of Avengers: Endgame. After using the Tessaract’s true power for the first time, Loki is a little confused and disoriented – and those responsible for safeguarding time (The TVA) seem to catch up to this new temporal anomaly pretty quickly. However, when Loki gets taken into the “headquarters” of this organization, the interior decorating may hold our first look at Kang The Conqueror:

Marvel fans know just how complicated a character Kang is, since the time-hopping villain has been able to exist in several key places of the Marvel Universe, at different stages of his life. One such feat saw Kang form the Council of Kangs, a group of Kangs from throughout the Multiverse. However, that group was taken and re-purposed by Kang’s adversary (and future self) Immortus, into becoming an organization of Kang-hunters that scoured the Multiverse eliminating all alternate Kangs. Immortus’ end goal was to narrow the possibilities down to the one “Prime Kang,” who would evolve into Immortus himself. It was just one of many chess games played by Kang and Immortus across time and reality.

It would fit with what we’ve seen from Loki if the story is truly about Loki being recruited as an expendable cosmic agent – one that Immortus and the Council of Kangs use in their plot against Prime Kang. Of course, Loki being Loki, he’d probably find some way to outwit everyone with little more than his wit and tongue.

Other hints in the trailer include the presence of actress Gugu Mbatha-Raw. Since Lovecraft Country star is confirmed to play Kang in Ant-Man: Quantumania, speculation is that Raw administrative-looking characters at the TVA could be an alt-Kang or one of his relatives.

Howver, there is another possibility: it’s not Kang’s face at all. In Marvel Comics, the Time Variance Authority is also tied to the Time Keepers, a trio of beings (key number there) who take on the mission of guarding time, eventually selecting Immortus as their servant.

Either way, it seems Loki could be working for Immortus, whether he’s aware of it or not…

Marvel’s Loki premieres in 2021 on Disney+.