Did Loki Season 2 Just Reset the MCU?

Warning! This piece contains massive spoilers for Loki Season 2 Episode 4.

The newest episode of Loki has arrived and with it an unbelievable reset that might have just changed everything we know about the MCU and who we think of as its biggest bad. Centering on the attempts of Loki (Tom Hiddelston), Sylvie (Sophia Di Martino), O.B. (Ke Huy Quan), and Mobius (Owen Wilson) to save the TVA — and the universe — with the help of its creator, Victor Timely (Jonathon Majors), the episode ends with a shocking twist. Not only does their plan to stop the Temporal Loop fail, but it also leads to the death of a major character and the possible destruction of at least one if not all universes in the MCU. So with all of that said, let’s dig into what the wild events of Episode 4 mean for the final episodes. 

Is Ravonna Renslayer Going to Be the New Kang? 

This was something we first theorized back when the trailer for Loki Season 2 arrived and seemed to drop some pretty heavy hints that Ravonna would be a key player this time around. As Loki Episode 4 comes to an end, this theory is gaining traction for two major reasons. The first and most obvious is that poor old Victor Timely (Jonathon Majors) was turned into intergalactic spaghetti after the Temporal Loom imploded, leaving a power vacuum in the Loki-verse. But, more important, is the massive reveal that the TVA wasn’t just started by He Who Remains , but was instead founded by he and Ravonna (Gugu Mbatha-Raw) together.

Ravonna, like the rest of the TVA, had her mind wiped after that founding.

In the comics, the pair are romantically entangled throughout time as on-and-off lovers and enemies who constantly backstab, betray, and then reconcile, and we’ve been getting hints at a deeper, more complicated relationship between the two of them since they came together on screen. 

That connection is confirmed with that bleak reveal that He Who Remains cut Ravonna out of the creation of the TVA and his life. In an especially cruel twist, we also learn the motto of the TVA “For All Time. Always” was a shared promise between the two. The malicious clock and recent Kang-hater Miss Minutes digs into the TVA archive to share all of this with Ravonna,  so perhaps we could see the pair utilize those same resources in the future to discover more of He Who Remains’ secrets. 

While it might seem like a jump for MCU fans from this reveal to Ravonna becoming Kang, it’s actually something that happened in the comics during comic book legend Walt Simonson’s time on the Avengers and the Fantastic Four during the introduction of the Council of Cross-Time Kangs. That’s important to note as we know that the current MCU is taking from that arc — the Council is what we saw at the end of Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania. 

So, what else can we learn about Ravonna’s time as Kang from the comics? Well, there are some really interesting connections to what we’ve seen in Loki so far for starters. The TVA, for example, first appeared in Thor #372 and Simonson then brought the concept over to the Fantastic Four, beginning when Ravonna-Kang was an antagonist. Those terrifying TVA cubes that trap and kill whoever’s inside them? They were first seen during Ravonna’s time as Kang in Avengers Annual #21 when a so-called “Hyper-Cube” was used to trap the Avengers. All of these connections not only make it clear that they’re taking from this era of comics but also make us think that the best way to parse out what happens next is to look at the source.

If Ravonna Becomes Kang, What Does that Mean for the MCU and Loki?

Let’s start by talking about the logistics. With Victor Timely gone, that means that at least in the TVA-verse there is a Kang-power vacuum. We also know that the Kang the Conqueror we met in Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania is either dead or currently out of commision in the multiverse somewhere. That means that Ravonna does have a good shot at taking over the Kang mantle at least in some universes. But, the big question is what would she do about the Council of Kangs? 

We know that there are 100s of Kangs (all currently played by Jonathan Majors) who she would have to face down or take down before being able to rule. How could she do that? Well, In the comics, Ravonna has a special suit that allows her to take on his appearance. We could definitely see that technology brought in here, especially as it could be a really interesting way for her to infiltrate the Council of Kangs. If they don’t know she’s not one of them, they may well share their secrets, and this is something Ravonna-Kang did in the comics. 

The other option is that Ravonna could craft a Kang suit of her own that would see Mbatha-Raw as the core performer of our main Kang from here on out. In that case, we’d still have the issue of the Council. But, perhaps they could use the potential universal reset that the Temporal Loom created to erase the Council of Kangs (seems like a bit too quick and clean of a resolution but desperate times, etc.), leaving Ravonna as the sole Kang in the MCU. 

There’s also the chance that Ravonna will want to rule the TVA, but through the archives learns about the other Kang’s and teams up with Loki and his crew to stop them. After all, if she survived the implosion and is in charge of the TVA and its infinite knowledge, she could definitely use that to rid the world of all Kangs, either by pruning their timelines or using the power of the TVA to destroy them. After all, Kang the Conqueror — and all of his other forms — is nothing more than a very, very smart human.

If Ravonna manages to take over all of the Kangs, they may eschew the Kang name forever and instead look to her own infamous villain mantle and armor which she took on during the miniseries Avengers: The Terminatrix Objective. In that, her cool new Terminatrix name, shapeshifting suit, and brash leadership struck fear in the hearts of heroes everywhere, so we could see a version of that here. They could even combine both to create a Terminatrix-Kang version of Ravonna that’s unique to the MCU and craft a truly original antagonist for the franchise. Seeing as Loki is all about a villain turned morally-complex hero, it’ll be interesting to see if Ravonna’s arc follows that of our beloved God of Mischief and sees her become an anti-hero rather than the villain that she currently seems to be. 

Did Loki Just Reset the MCU and the Multiverse? 

The end of Loki Episode 4 sees the Temporal Loom implode, leading to a massive explosion that’s seemingly going to destroy the TVA, the universe, and all of its respective timelines. The question is just how much is that going to impact Loki and the rest of the universe? Will it just erase the TVA timeline that we saw in Loki Season 1 and some of Season 2? If it actually impacts the wider universe(s), it could potentially free all the timelines, creating a multiversal collapse with multiple incursions. Or, it could even reset the MCU’s messy multiverse completely. 

While it appears unlikely that the franchise would do a massive reset in a TV series, the reality is that Loki Season 1 introduced Kang, who was supposed to be the big bad for the next couple of phases of the franchise. The MCU isn’t afraid of using the Disney+ shows to introduce big plot points and narrative shifts, so perhaps this could be a way for them to reset after what has been a pretty disappointing period for the franchise in both box office and critical response. What that would look like is unclear but they could introduce a new streamlined timeline or even a Battleworld-esque combined universe where multiple multiverses exist alongside each other. 

Seeing as we’re already off the theory deep end, there’s one more thing we have to raise here. If there was anywhere that it made sense for the MCU to tease the Fantastic Four, it would be in this series which has featured so many nods, narratives, and name drops from Fantastic Four lore. While we don’t expect to see the members of the team actually show up here, we wouldn’t be wholly surprised if there was some mention or reference to Marvel’s First Family, especially now that we essentially just created a new timeline or lost the MCU as we know it depending on your reading of the end of Loki Episode 4. 

Whatever actually happened, you can expect it to have a big impact on the series as it heads into the final episodes of the season. The question every fan will be asking, though, is whether or not we’ll see those ramifications affect the wide MCU going forward…

Rosie Knight is a contributing freelancer for IGN covering everything from anime to comic books to kaiju to kids movies to horror flicks. She has over half a decade of experience in entertainment journalism with bylines at Nerdist, Den of Geek, Polygon, and more.