Is Victor Timely dead… like, for real?! This article contains spoilers for Loki season 2, episode 4, and plenty of speculation on the remaining episodes of the season, too.
You’re up to date with the latest episode of the MCU‘s Loki, which means you’ve seen Victor Timely get shredded into strands of spaghetti, just like John Krasinski’s Reed Richards. Twists like this (as well as Lokius, to be fair) are what makes Loki arguably the best TV series in the MCU to date. Still, the death of Kang the Conqueror‘s most notable variant, shocked even us and left the future of our favorite Marvel characters in flux. That is… if Victor Timely really is dead.
Is Victor Timely really dead?
It definitely seems as though Victor Timely is dead unless you know someone who can survive being reduced to atoms by temporal radiation.
The poor guy was destroyed by the immense energy being released by the Temporal Loom he was sent to fix. This didn’t look like just any old MCU death either; it appeared as if poor old Timely was shredded into mulch.
There is one slight caveat to all this, though. The Kang variant known as Victor Timely has now come to a grim and shocking end, but he was only one of many versions of Kang the Conqueror. In fact, there’s an entire Council of Kangs who are very much still alive – as we say in our Loki season 2 review, this show hasn’t got any less mind-bending – and ready to conquer.
One way to think of it is like a colony of ants: the death of one is insignificant to the colony as a whole because there are so many of them. As the old saying goes, there are plenty more Kangs in the multiverse, or something.
What does Victor Timely’s death mean for Loki season 2?
Doom, desperation, and despair, effectively. Without the assistance of Victor Timely, Loki, Mobius, and OB (who may or may not be Loki’s son, but that’s another story) are going to have to find some alternative means of undoing the apparent destruction of the Temporal Loom, which Timely failed to fix.
But that isn’t as straightforward as it seems: fixing or rebuilding the Temporal Loom can only be done by someone who has the same temporal aura as its creator, He Who Remains, which means they’re on a hunt for other Kang Variants to fix their dilemma. That’s vital, too, because the explosion of the Temporal Loom threatens to destroy the entire TVA, as well as the rest of time and reality.
So, the search for the next Kang Variant continues, and the stakes could hardly be any higher. The big question is who that’ll be, and the good news is that there is no shortage of them from within the depths of Marvel comics lore: The Scarlet Centurion, Kang the Conglomerator, Kamala Kang, or Nathaniel Richards, to name but a few.
The last of these could be a lot of fun, as it would see Loki and Mobius travel to ancient Egypt. Having said that, there’s no sign of Egypt (or any other potential Kang Variants) in any Loki season 2 trailers, meaning that wherever the journey goes next is going to be a big surprise.
Our own rabid speculation has the finger pointed at Ravonna Renslayer. We think (bear with us here) that Victor Timely was just a red herring and that the real Prime Kang is Ravonna herself. In Marvel comics Ravonna has previously taken on the identity of Kang, and has a long and complex history with the villain while proving herself to be just as powerful.
Now that she’s learned of He Who Remains’ betrayal of her, she could be after revenge on the Council of Kangs by becoming Kang-Nebula as seen in the comics, and destroying them from the inside while positioning herself as the Kang-shaped villain for upcoming Marvel movies like The Kang Dynasty and Secret Wars. There’d have to be some narrative changes from the comics story, but that would be a proper twist worthy of Kang.
For more on Loki, read why that X-Men Easter egg wasn’t really an X-Men Easter egg, and find out everything you need to know about Miss Minutes. Or, see what’s new on Disney Plus before committing to rewatching the Marvel movies in order again for the 563rd time.