Loki Season 2 Producer Addresses Whether There Were More Than 2 Kang Variants In Original Plan

Warning: SPOILERS lie ahead for Loki season 2!

Despite an early report indicating otherwise, Loki season 2 executive producer Kevin Wright confirms the show’s original plan never had more than two Kang the Conqueror variants. Set to be the next big bad of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, season 2 saw Jonathan Majors play a new variant of the character in the form of mild-mannered scientist Victor Timely, as well as reprising season 1’s He Who Remains. With it part of The Multiverse Saga, a report during the show’s production claimed that Majors would be playing a large number of Kang variants after Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, namely multiple within Loki season 2.

While speaking exclusively with Screen Rant for the Loki season 2 finale, Kevin Wright addressed and debunked said reports of more Kang variants in the season. The executive producer admitted to being unsure “where that came from“, and explained the reason they kept the focus on He Who Remains and Timely, believing that they were key to evolving the story set in motion in season 1 and doing more would risk undermining their efforts. See what Wright explained below:

No, it was always Timely, our big trick up our sleeve was you were gonna see He Who Remains not just in flashback, but that he would come back properly. So, no, the Council of Kangs in Quantumania was shot as additional photography as we were making season 2, so that kind of came separate after we had finished writing — and it was cool! But no, there was never any other versions of Kang, so I don’t know where that came from. It was always just about playing our characters in our story. Anything that felt too connected to the bigger other stories felt wrong for us.

Two Kang Variants Were More Than Enough For Loki Season 2

While the show seems like a prime candidate for exploring other versions of the big villain, Loki season 2 would ultimately have been the wrong place to do so with the approach the creatives took. Season 1 of the show did tackle some of the fun to be had from its time-travel and multiverse premise, in part thanks to Head Writer Michael Waldron’s past with the similarly premised Rick and Morty. Season 2, on the other hand, dealt with the consequences of He Who Remains’ death sparking the collapse of the multiverse and Loki’s rise to finally discovering his “glorious purpose.”

Another major reason Loki season 2 worked best for sticking to just two Kang variants is how it affects the future of the MCU. Offering Victor Timely an extended focus allowed audiences to discover a potential fresh path for the franchise to take the character, introducing a potential good variant that could be an ally for the coming multiversal war in Avengers: The Kang Dynasty and Secret Wars rather than solely introducing villains. He Who Remains’ return also teased the devious nature of the various Kangs, with him proving far more powerful than he initially let on in his season 1 finale appearance.

On a similar note, the other benefit Loki season 2 had in minimizing its Kang variants was avoiding overloading audiences with new versions to track across the future. Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania‘s mid-credits scene took a big swing with introducing the Council of Kangs, comprised of hundreds of variants of the villain, though their exact motivations and home universe settings were left unclear enough for general audiences to remain stumped on what the tease actually meant, even as comic book fans excitedly prepared for the war to come. Though it could be argued that one of these variants could have been further fleshed out in Loki season 2, keeping the focus on the two allowed for the eponymous character’s arc to take the meaningful evolution set up in season 1.