What is Alioth? Loki’s Time Monster Explained (Powers & Origins)

Warning: Contains SPOILERS for Loki episode 5.

Loki episode 5 introduced a monstrous creature called Alioth - an entity drawn from the comics, where it is the greatest enemy of Kang the Conqueror. Loki may consider himself the trickster god, but the secrets of the Time Variance Authority are twisted beyond anything even he could have expected. In Loki episode 4, he and his variant Sylvie discovered the Time-Keepers are nothing but mindless androids. And the shocks kept coming when Loki was apparently destroyed by TVA technology, only to emerge in a mysterious new reality.

In Loki episode 5, Judge Renslayer explained the pseudo-science behind all this to Sylvie, offering her a chance to save Loki. According to Renslayer, when the TVA prune a branched reality it is impossible to destroy all its matter. What survives is shunted to a place on the timeline where it won't continue growing - what she describes as "a void at the end of time." Sylvie deduced the true power behind the Time-Keepers exists somewhere beyond this void, out of sight of the TVA. She swiftly joined Loki in the void, eager to learn the truth - and get her revenge upon the being whose agents had ruined her life.

But Loki and Sylvie learned this void was inhabited by an entity named Alioth, which manifests as a massive cloud that consumes all matter. Alioth is essentially the last defense guarding the real founder of the TVA, a powerful being whose only interest seems to be to feed. The creature is actually lifted straight from the comics, where it's even more impressive - and the Lokis had better hope it never becomes a threat on the scale of its comic book equivalent.

Click here to watch Loki: Alioth Time Monster Explained at YouTube

What Is Alioth?

As other variants of Loki explained it, the void at the end of time can best be compared to a shark tank - and Alioth is the shark. The creature is "a living tempest that consumes matter and energy," and it feels more like an animal than a person, content to feed on the detritus of the timelines dumped into the void by the TVA. You can survive brief contact with Alioth's tendrils of smoke, but if you are fully consumed then you disintegrate, presumably providing it with sustenance. It's reasonable to assume Alioth was not originally so vast in size, but has grown as it feeds. While Alioth does seem able to disintegrate non-organic matter, it is drawn particularly to living creatures.

Alioth's Powers & Origin Explained

Terminatrix encounters Alioth in Marvel Comics

In the comics, Alioth considers itself to be the first entity to free itself from the constraints of time. Alioth feeds upon temporal energy, and anyone or anything that spends too long in its mass is absorbed into it; which means that time travelers like Kang are a particularly rich source of energy to Alioth. It dominates a massive portion of Limbo, the dimensional plane that time travelers access in order to jump through time, and rules the first few billion years of the universe's past, long before the dawn of man. Disturbingly, when Alioth dominates a portion of Limbo, the time periods linked to that part of the dimension gradually wind up absorbed into it as well.

Alioth is the sworn enemy of Kang the Conqueror, ruling an empire two or even three times as vast as its rival. It is only prevented from further expanding across Limbo by another temporal being, Tempus, who possesses similar absorption powers - meaning the two are locked in perpetual combat at the very border of Alioth's domain, neither able to defeat the other, with all time and space doomed should Tempus ever fall.

How The MCU Has Changed Alioth

As seen in Loki, the MCU's version of Alioth is conceptually similar to the comics, but rather than dominate the first few billion years of creation it instead lives inside the void at the end of time. It appears to consume temporal energy in the same manner as the creature in the comics, explaining why it is drawn to living beings but doesn't tend to be especially interested in non-organic matter (otherwise it would have devoured everything in the void). Unlike the comics, though, it doesn't seem to be especially intelligent - more of an animal, a predator seeking prey, eager to feed. Loki correctly deduced Alioth is basically a guard dog, preventing anyone getting to the true power behind the Time-Keepers.

Given Alioth isn't especially communicative, it's interesting to speculate how the Lokis came to know its name. The most likely explanation is that Loki and Sylvie were not the first ones to try to enchant it, and that someone else had succeeded in delving deep enough into its mind in order to discover a glimmer of self-awareness and identity. Presumably that person - likely another variant of Loki - didn't manage to take control of Alioth, though, because they were working alone. It took two Lokis working together to dominate Alioth's mind.

How Alioth Links To Kang The Conqueror

Alioth has changed a lot in the MCU, reduced from one of the greatest powers in the Multiverse to a sort of temporal guard dog. As noted, in the comics it is the greatest enemy of Kang the Conqueror, and indeed in the miniseries Avengers: The Terminatrix Objective it successfully consumed a portion of his city Chronopolis - along with countless variants of Kang, a governing body he called the "Council of Kangs." If Alioth had triumphed, it would have destroyed anyone's ability to travel through time, and its energy would have ultimately seeped through into every aspect of the Multiverse, destroying it. Fortunately Kang was able to restore Tempus as his guardian by sacrificing variants of himself in order to provide enough temporal energy to set up the rematch.

Given Alioth's links to Kang in the comics, it wouldn't be a surprise to learn he is the true force behind the TVA in Loki. Kang is due to appear in Ant-Man & the Wasp: Quantumania, played by Jonathan Majors; while Majors has denied being in Loki, he wouldn't be the first Marvel actor to lie. What's more, conceptually the void feels similar to a realm Kang has indeed occupied on occasion, known as Purgatory, the Great Forgetting, or the Lost Zone, which was seen in the Avengers Forever miniseries. In the MCU, then, Alioth could have been recast as Kang's pawn rather than his nemesis - but if it is ever allowed to escape the void and enter the timeline, then it could yet become the threat seen in the comics.

More: Theory: Phase 4’s Multiverse Spider-Men Are Variants (& Loki Restores Them)

Loki releases new episodes Wednesdays on Disney+.