The second episode of Loki Season 2 featured a clever nod to the Thor mythos diehard fans quickly caught — and that is the monstrous Zaniac, who unbeknownst to many is actually a long-forgotten Marvel comic book villain. So, who is this Zaniac in the Loki series? Is he any different from the comics?
WARNING: This article contains MAJOR SPOILERS for Loki Season 2, so READ AT YOUR OWN RISK!
Loki Season 2 Just Brought Zaniac to the MCU
Rafael Casal is one of the newest additions to Loki Season 2's list of cast members. It was only last year when leaked set photos indicated his major role in the God of Mischief series.
Joining Loki as X-5, you'd think he'd have a bigger role apart from taunting Mobius M. Mobius about not knowing his true identity beyond jet skiing and working as a TVA agent.
Well, things changed when Loki Season 2 Episode 2 aired on Disney Plus. As it turned out, Loki and Mobius were on the hunt to get X-5 back into the Time Variance Authority headquarters.
See, in the previous episode, Loki saw the future of Sylvie looking for him to tell him something important. Unfortunately, he got pruned before the Lady Loki variant could say anything.
Now, with the second episode, they managed to track down X-5's whereabouts on the Sacred Timeline. Lo and behold, he was thriving in the attention he was getting as Brad Wolfe, aka one of his variants, lived his life as an acclaimed movie star.
More specifically, an actor who's supposedly playing Zaniac, one of Marvel's iconic comic book villains. Though it's quite a doozy for non-comic book readers to hear the name, Marvel diehards know exactly who he is and his origins.
Loki Season 2 Gets Another Zaniac Reference in Episode 5
In the latest Loki episode, Marvel has once again inserted a clear easter egg of Zaniac in the very bar where Loki and Sylvie decided to get a drink.
Although it was a brief moment, this is a pretty on-the-nose reference that we might be seeing the iconic Thor villain in the MCU soon, especially since the comics had him somewhat involved with the TVA, as well.
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Zaniac's Marvel Comics Origins Explained
According to Loki executive producer Kevin Wright, here's what X-5's major role is in Season 2 (via Inverse):
"In a story that is so much about not wanting people to be purely heroes or villains, where everyone has a truth that's somewhere in the gray, we needed somebody at the TVA who could feel intrigued by a life on the timeline. [X-5 / Brad] acts as an annoying antagonist force for our team. I think that was something that Rafael himself started to develop in a fun way. He identified, 'I get to be what Loki has been for 10 years of movies in this.' The guy that's provoking, but also not wrong."
As much as we got a glimpse of how Rafael got to depict the villainous role, here's who Zaniac really is in the Marvel comics.
Loki Season 2 pretty much teased who Zaniac is going to be, as well as his origins.
Basically, an actor by the name of Brad Wolfe starred in a slasher movie at the University of Chicago. The same university that held numerous experiments for the Manhattan Project.
While the star was in costume as Zaniac, he got trapped in a nuclear explosion, in which Brad earned himself incredible strength and abilities from the explosion.
Because of his origins, the movie star began acting out his movie's plotlines in real life. There was even a point in which he kidnapped Thor's friend.
Though the God of Thunder rescued said friend, Zaniac got away with murdering other innocent women. Women victims he liked to call 'pretty pretties.'
One of Zaniac's attempted murders actually included Jane Foster at some point. This is when Thor teamed up with a TVA agent known as Justice Peace to prevent Zaniac from causing a world war in the future.
It remains to be seen whether we'll get to see Zaniac in action as early as in the Loki series or if this is teasing Thor's eventual return to reunite with his brother.
But for now, fans are expecting more comic book characters to come to live-action within the MCU's progression.
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