THE ORATOR
He Who Remains in Loki
As Loki progressed, speculation grew about what the Disney+ series was slowly building towards in its finale. Who is the man pulling everyone’s strings? And what will happen when Loki and Sylvie confront him? It turned out that many fans had predicted correctly: it was Kang. Or rather, a mellow variant of the time-travelling Marvel villain, introduced while he’s chomping on an apple, seemingly happy for the company. To quote the man himself, “Not what you were expecting, hmm? Don’t tell me I’m a disappointment.” As played by Jonathan Majors, Kang — or, as he’s called in the finale, ‘He Who Remains’ — was far from a disappointment. If Loki as a whole is the talky-talkiest content the MCU has ever produced, then Kang is the epitome of it. For over ten minutes, we and the Lokis watch as he gives us some much-needed answers, explains his origins, and foreshadows what’s to come. It’s an exposition-dump that Majors turns into art. Deliberately and delightfully off-kilter, he jumps on tables, mimes out actions, and has a whale of a time eloquently talking his ass off about matters of extreme consequence. It’s a riveting exception to the rule of MCU finales, which are typically heavy on bombast and CGI mayhem. Here, all we have are three people having an intense conversation about the beginning (and potential end) of the multiverse along with an abundance of quirk, and it’s just as satisfying. Given that it seems we’ll be seeing many more versions of Majors’ Kang in the coming years, this bodes well for the future of the MCU.