Loki: How He Who Remains' Powers Work

Loki season 1 ended with a major twist that revealed that He Who Remains, a variant of Kang, is the one behind the TVA, and while he only appeared in the season finale, he got to show some of his powers. The Marvel Cinematic Universe is introducing a bunch of new concepts and characters in its Phase 4, the most notable one being that of the multiverse, which will play a big role in this new wave of content. Loki turned out to be key in the introduction of the multiverse, and it also served as the debut of Jonathan Majors in the MCU, though not exactly as the character everyone was waiting for.

Although Loki was killed in the first act of Avengers: Infinity War, the time heist in Avengers: Endgame made it possible for his 2012 version to escape with the Tesseract, thus making way for his return in his own TV show. Loki, then, saw the God of Mischief being brought to the Time Variance Authority (TVA), an organization that oversees the timeline and makes sure everything happens as planned, and his escape wasn’t part of those plans. The TVA seized Loki’s abilities to catch another Loki variant – Sylvie (Sophia Di Martino) – but both Lokis ended up joining forces to uncover the truth about the TVA. In the season finale, Loki and Sylvie got to the Citadel beyond the Void and met the being responsible for everything they had gone through: He Who Remains, played by Jonathan Majors.

He Who Remains is a character from Marvel Comics, but his history was changed to fit the MCU’s current narrative. In the comics, he was the final director of the TVA and created the Time Twisters with the purpose of having them survive the end of the universe and travel to the next universal cycle with knowledge of the past to improve the future. In the MCU, however, He Who Remains and Kang were made into the same character, with He Who Remains being the variant of Kang that triumphed over the rest as he discovered Alioth and put an end to the Multiversal War with the creation of the TVA. Although his appearance in Loki was brief and cut even shorter by Sylvie killing him, He Who Remains got to show some of his powers, which are nothing like those of his comic book counterpart.

The MCU’s version of He Who Remains had the power of omniscience up until “the threshold”, meaning he knew everything that was going to happen, which allowed him to escape from Sylvie’s murder attempts. He Who Remains could also teleport, which is how he dodged Sylvie’s attacks, but it’s unclear if this was achieved through powers he already had in him or through a device, and he also lived for millions of years without aging, though he wasn’t exactly immortal as he was killed by Sylvie. Other abilities are genius-level intellect (which matches that of the Kang fans were expecting to see), and he was a master tactician and engineer, coming up with a whole backstory for the TVA and its employees in order to conceal the truth and creating the lifelike androids of the Time Keepers. The powers of the MCU’s He Who Remains don’t match those of his comic book counterpart, who had the ability to manipulate temporal energy to an unknown degree, create unique forms of life, and was once able to drain the strength from Thor.

Just like with Loki, Sylvie, and the other Loki variants, the powers He Who Remains had and those Kang the Conqueror will have when he makes his proper debut in Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania will be different, even if they are, essentially, the same person. In the comics, Kang the Conqueror doesn’t have superpowers and it’s all based on him being a scientific genius, which fits with some of the abilities of He Who Remains. With this Kang variant now gone, it’s unlikely the MCU will explain all the things he was able to do and will wait until Kang the Conqueror arrives to make a comparison between these two.

Next: Loki's Villain Compared To The Comics - How Kang's Story Changed