Forget Thanos, MCU Phase 5’s Multiverse Villains Just Made The Snap Look Insignificant
Forget Thanos, Marvel’s new Phase 5 villains just had the most kills in MCU history, and it’s not even close. If you thought the murder of millions with the Infinity Stones in Avengers: Infinity War was the most devastating loss of life the MCU had ever seen, then Loki season 2 will make you think again. The genocide witnessed in the name of saving the multiverse from itself is as devastating in its scale as it is terrifying in its simplicity. There are a few certainties: death, taxes and the rise of superhero movie villains. Right after Loki dusted himself off from his failed invasion of Earth in The Avengers, Thanos winked at the camera in the post-credits scene. And although the Mad Titan’s dust is still smoldering in a field outside New York after Avengers: Endgames ended, plans to bring Kang to the MCU are already in place. Or more accurately, thousands of Kangs. Even now, the conversation about the biggest threat after Kang is still going on among fans: Galactus? Ahhihilus? The crushing weight of expanding continuity? Before any of this became a reality, Loki’s new villains made Thanos’ global genocide look like a complete failure.
Loki’s TVA Just Killed Way More People Than Thanos
In Loki Season 2 Episode 2, General Dox (Kate Dickie) carries out his plan to “fix” the multiverse mess Sylvie created by killing He Who Remains (Jonathan Majors) in Loki’s season 1 finale, leads a rogue TVA faction. the hunters are on a mission to destroy all branches that destabilize the sacred timeline. In a move designed for the greater good, Dox loyalists placed bombs on countless tree branches, destroying them in an effort to prevent the complete collapse of the multiverse. To their surprise, the mission was a success, taking down countless branches in a matter of minutes as the hunters jumped from branch to branch. As Hunter B-15 (Wunmi Mosaku) points out, the mass pruning of tree branches by TVA’s rogue hunters killed billions of people, but the true scale of their genocide was underestimated in Episode 2 from season 2 of Loki. Each bombed branch represents the entire universe and billions and billions of creatures on every planet, continually shrinking the scale of Thanos’ Infinity War. Thanos wiped out half of existence, but TVA only wiped out 100% of existence in some universes. The scale of these victims is almost unimaginable.
Why The TVA Are More Evil Than Thanos (For 2 Reasons)
Like Thanos, TVA believes its mission is for the common good. Even Loki himself admitted in episode 1 that He Who Remains made the hardest decisions to avoid an even worse future: the multiverse war that He Who Remains won against the its variation. Thanos’ endgame is clearly one of universal balance, making the difficult choice of erasing half of existence so the other half can thrive. In both cases, there was certainly a legal element to their plans, but there were also complex moral questions: notably who appointed the assassin gods to decide the fate of the others? Arguably, TVA is even more evil than Thanos in its mission of destruction. The Mad Titan’s plans are at least random for the sake of balance: in both TVA versions (He Who Remains and Dox’s faction after his death), there is nothing random. Each branch is considered fraudulent because it deviates from the approved timeline He Who Remains has decided is the sacred timeline. Every variation, every imperfection, and every outsider – like Sylvie and almost every other Loki – is unacceptable, deviating from the prescribed path of the Sacred Timeline regardless of agenda Self-preservation of the Remainer. However, among Kang’s villainous variants, there may be some good that will be destroyed in the name of a cruel and uncaring order. It is not balance, it is tyranny, and Loki confirms the terrible cost.