'Loki' Writer Admits Original Ending Would've Been Disastrous For the MCU

Loki writer, Michael Waldron reveals that the show had a very different ending in the early scripts that would’ve changed everything.

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Most fans can agree that Tom Hiddleston’s Loki definitely changed the MCU in a good way as it introduced fans to the Multiverse. Fans were able to learn about variants and understand the fundamentals of the Multiverse as it will play a pivotal role in the MCU’s future.

After seeing that the timekeepers were fake, Loki and Sylvie (Sophia Di Martino) embark on a quest to find the real timekeeper. At the citadel, the two meet He Who Remains (Jonathan Majors) who is a variant of Kang the Conqueror, but this wasn’t always the plan for Marvel.

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In fact, Waldron admits in a recent interview that he had to convince Marvel to change the villain to be a variant of Kang instead of another old guy:

“The TVA shifted to like, ‘O.K., these guys are actually guarding against a multiverse.’ And so that’s when He Who Remains is just kind of an old creepy guy in the comics, and I pushed and Marvel was very receptive to it, the idea, this should be a variant of Kang. Because I knew Kang was coming down the pipe as a villain in the MCU and it just felt too delicious to not have him intertwined in our time travel story somehow. And so then it was just been coming upon us to justify his role in this place, but Marvel was very supportive of all that.”

If Loki didn’t include Kang, it would’ve been a missed opportunity as the villain is known for meddling with the Multiverse. Loki did an excellent job setting up the major villain to be a major threat to the Avengers and other super heroes.

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Kang is known to be very smart and is just as dangerous as Thanos. Fans would be confused at why the villain would appear in Ant-Man: QuantuMania (2023) and it’s possible that without Kang, there wouldn’t be a second season for Loki.

Waldron also explained that the Loki writing team didn’t know at first what their plans were for the series as they almost made it into a time travel show until they realized it should be about the Multiverse:

“No, that was not in there. I brought to them the idea of Sylvie Lushton, a version of The Enchantress, which we kind of fused into an idea of a variant Loki. And then it became clear early on because one of the first things we had to do in the writer’s room was define the actual rules and nature of time travel in this show. And what does the TVA do and why do they do it? And it became clear to us that according to kind of the rules of time travel, they’d been laid out in Endgame and according to the rules of time travel that made sense to me and that we wanted to run within the show, really, time travel was kind of the multiverse as … It’s like time travel. We were like, ‘We’re really making a multiverse show, more than we’re making a time travel show.'”

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This led to the writing team having a lot of fun moments as the series did have crazy moments. Even in the first episode, fans were shocked to see Infinity Stones used as paperweights at the TVA, and then the show became a mystery as fans had to learn what was really happening at the TVA. This led to many intense moments, but Waldron believes the best moments of the series go to Sylvie:

“I mean, there were many moments like that, many of them which turned out to be false victories in writers’ rooms. Certainly knowing that it was Kang at the end of it all, that the Timekeepers were fake, was a big one. But weirdly enough,one of the biggest ones was figuring out what Sylvie was doing, actually how she was hiding from the TVA, just because that felt like such a fun, clever bit of Sci-Fi that I hadn’t seen before, that it’s, ‘Oh, what a cool way to hide from the time police, you would go relive apocalypses over and over.’ And that gave us the climax. That really gave us the backbone of episode two, all of episode three. Episode four is all about trying to figure that out. In episode five, even sort of plays on ideas. So, for me, that was the idea. I remember that light bulb moment in the writers’ room, being like, Oh s—, this show’s going to be good because that’s a big, cool idea.'”

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Unlike most MCU series, Loki won’t end with one season. Season 2 should begin filming shortly and Kang will definitely have a role in the series. Since Sylvie killed He Who Remains in the season finale, several of Kang’s variants will appear in the MCU meaning that the Kang we will see in Ant-Man 3, won’t be the same Kang in Loki Season 2.

Tom Hiddleston can’t seem to get away from playing the God of Mischief, but fans do wonder if he will appear in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (2022) or not. There were reports last year that the cast would be in the sequel, but Doctor Strange 2 has also been cutting some of the cameos out of the film. Hopefully, Loki will make another appearance as fans would love to see more of the God of Mischief.

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The MCU is just beginning to add more superhero teams into the Marvel universe because now, the Avengers need all the help they can get. It is only a matter of time before we see the Young Avengers, Illuminati, Defenders, Midnight Sons, X-Men, Fantastic Four, and the Thunderbolts enter the MCU.

Do you think Loki will appear in Doctor Strange 2?  Let us know what you think in the comments section below!

Phase Four has started off with a lot of content for Marvel fans to look forward to in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. On Disney+  you can expect more episodes of  Moon Knight on March 30, Ms. Marvel on June 8, and She-Hulk to debut this year. For movies, Doctor Strange In the Multiverse of Madness comes out on May 6, followed by Thor: Love and Thunder on July 8, and of course, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever on November 11.