The character of He Who Remains first appeared in the Bronze Age of Comic Books in Thor #245, published in March 1976. He was created by the prolific writer Len Wein and legendary artist John Buscema. His introduction came during a period when Marvel Comics was heavily exploring cosmic and mythological frontiers, with characters like Thor, the Silver Surfer, and Adam Warlock delving into the nature of time, space,and existence itself. He Who Remains was conceived as the ultimate bureaucrat at the end of everything—a final, lonely figure whose purpose was to oversee the peaceful death of one universe and shepherd the birth of the next. His design was that of a wizened, robed elder, embodying the immense age and knowledge he possessed. For decades, he remained a relatively obscure character, known primarily to dedicated readers of Thor and cosmic Marvel storylines.
The character's transition to the screen marked one of the most significant reinventions in Marvel Studios' history. He Who Remains made his explosive debut in the Marvel Cinematic Universe in the season one finale of Loki, titled “For All Time. Always.,” which premiered on July 14, 2021. Portrayed by actor Jonathan Majors, this version was developed by showrunner Michael Waldron and director Kate Herron. The creative team made the critical decision to use the obscure name “He Who Remains” as a title for a specific variant of the major upcoming villain, Kang the Conqueror. This masterstroke allowed them to introduce the concept of Kang—a brilliant, time-traveling, and existentially dangerous figure—without revealing the warlike Conqueror himself. The MCU version was given a vibrant, eccentric personality, a stark contrast to his solemn comic book counterpart, making him an instantly memorable and enigmatic figure who set the stage for the entire Multiverse Saga.
The origin of the Earth-616 He Who Remains is intrinsically tied to the very end of time. He is the last living being of his reality, the final director of the Time Variance Authority (TVA). Residing in his Citadel at the End of Time, he has witnessed the entirety of his universe's lifespan, from its fiery birth to its final, fading light. His existence is one of profound isolation and immense responsibility. His primary story arc begins with a monumental task: to ensure the knowledge of his dying universe is passed on to the one that will follow. Believing that the next universal cycle should have proper guidance to avoid the mistakes of the past, He Who Remains embarks on a project of cosmic engineering. He creates three beings, the Time-Twisters, intended to be wise teachers for the nascent realities of the next multiverse. However, his creation is flawed. The Time-Twisters are born imperfect; instead of nurturing new timelines, they develop a ravenous hunger to consume them for energy, becoming a temporal plague across realities. They travel back in time, ravaging countless timelines and threatening the main Earth-616 reality. This threat draws the attention of Thor and his then-lover Jane Foster, who, with the help of a being called the Time-Tapper, journey to the Citadel at the End of Time to confront the creator of the monsters. They find He Who Remains, a solemn and regretful figure. He acknowledges his failure, explaining his noble intentions and the disastrous outcome. To correct his mistake, he accelerates the birth of his second attempt at creating universal guardians. From cocoons within his Citadel, a new trio of beings emerges: the Time-Keepers. These beings are designed to be the antithesis of the Twisters—protectors and shepherds of time. The newly born Time-Keepers immediately engage and seemingly destroy their flawed predecessors. Satisfied that he has corrected his error and established proper guardians for the future, He Who Remains allows Thor and Jane to return to their time. Unbeknownst to him, however, the Time-Keepers would eventually become their own kind of temporal threat, proving to be manipulative and dogmatic in their enforcement of a singular “sacred” timeline, creating a cyclical pattern of flawed guardianship.
The origin of He Who Remains in the MCU is a dramatic and personal tale of discovery, war, and weary victory. As he personally recounts to Loki and Sylvie Laufeydottir, he was originally a human scientist from the 31st century, one of infinite variants of a man who would later be known as Nathaniel Richards. This brilliant scientist made a reality-shattering discovery: the existence of the multiverse. He found that there were infinite parallel universes stacked on top of his own, and he developed the technology to cross between them. Initially, this discovery led to an era of enlightenment and collaboration. He and his more benevolent variants shared knowledge, technology, and culture, helping each other's universes flourish. However, not all of his variants shared this peaceful outlook. Other versions of Nathaniel Richards saw new universes not as partners, but as realms to be conquered. A war broke out—not between universes, but between the variants of a single man. A Multiversal War erupted, with each Kang variant fighting to preserve their own timeline and destroy all others. The conflict threatened to annihilate all of reality. The man who would become He Who Remains was the variant who ended this war. During his studies of the multiverse, he encountered a terrifying, trans-temporal entity composed of torn-apart time and space: Alioth. He learned to weaponize the creature, using it to consume the timelines and physical forms of his warring variants. With his opposition “eaten” out of existence, he stood victorious. To prevent such a war from ever happening again, he took a drastic step. He isolated a selection of timelines and wove them together into a single, manageable stream—the “Sacred Timeline.” To police this new construct, he created the Time Variance Authority (TVA). He populated it with variants plucked from pruned timelines, wiped their memories, and fed them a fabricated religion centered around fictional “Time-Keepers.” From his Citadel at the End of Time, a fortress located outside the flow of time itself, he secretly orchestrated the TVA's every move for eons. He dictated the flow of the Sacred Timeline, ordering the “pruning” of any branched reality that could potentially lead to the emergence of a new Kang variant. He lived millions of lifetimes in solitude, bearing the burden of being a “benevolent” dictator to protect reality from himself. His entire existence became a lonely, unending vigil until two Loki variants, Loki and Sylvie, finally breached his citadel, forcing him to present them with a choice: take over his work or kill him and unleash the multiversal chaos he had so long suppressed.
The comic book He Who Remains is characterized by a profound sense of solemn duty and cosmic weariness. He is less a person and more a function of the universe itself. His demeanor is stoic, detached, and philosophical, shaped by eons of solitude and observation. He speaks with the weight of ages, and his actions are driven by a logical, if sometimes flawed, desire to preserve knowledge and ensure a better future for the next universal cycle. He is not malevolent, but his cosmic perspective can make him seem cold and uncaring of the smaller, individual lives affected by his grand plans.
In stark contrast to his comic counterpart, the MCU's He Who Remains is endlessly charismatic, eccentric, and theatrical. Jonathan Majors portrays him with a manic, playful energy that masks a deep, profound exhaustion. He is a man who has won the ultimate war and is bored and lonely in his self-imposed prison. He can switch from affable and quirky to terrifyingly serious in an instant. He is a master manipulator, using his knowledge of the future and his opponents' psychologies to control every interaction. Despite his immense power, he is also deeply cynical about free will, believing his totalitarian control is the only thing preventing total annihilation. His final offer to Loki and Sylvie is born not of benevolence, but of a desperate desire to finally retire from a job he has held for eternity.
This storyline serves as the definitive appearance of the comic book He Who Remains. The plot is set in motion when the Time-Twisters begin erasing the future of Earth-616, prompting Thor, Jane Foster, and Zarrko the Tomorrow Man to investigate. Their journey leads them to the very end of time, where they enter the Citadel of He Who Remains. Inside, they find the ancient being, who confesses his role in the crisis. He explains that as his universe was dying, he created the Time-Twisters to pass on its spirit to the next. The process, however, was corrupted, turning them into timeline-devouring monsters. He Who Remains' arc in the story is one of atonement. He assists Thor not by fighting, but by providing the means to create a solution. He reveals the cocoons of the Time-Keepers, his second, more perfect creation. The climax sees the Time-Keepers hatch and fulfill their purpose by seemingly neutralizing the Time-Twisters. The event permanently altered the cosmic landscape by introducing the Time-Keepers, who would go on to become major players in Marvel's temporal stories.
This episode represents the character's entire arc in his first MCU incarnation. After surviving the Void, Loki and Sylvie enter the Citadel at the End of Time and meet He Who Remains. The majority of the episode is a tense, dialogue-heavy confrontation where he lays out his entire history. He details the Multiversal War, his victory using Alioth, and his creation of the TVA to maintain peace. His critical decision is to abdicate responsibility. He has grown tired of his eternal vigil and offers the two Lokis a choice: they can take over his job and run the TVA together, or they can kill him and deal with the infinite, far more dangerous versions of himself that will immediately emerge. Loki, having seen the chaos of pruned timelines, is swayed by the argument for stability. Sylvie, driven by a lifetime of pain caused by his creation, cannot see past her need for revenge. Her decision to kill him is the episode's climax and the single most important turning point in the MCU's Multiverse Saga. His death causes the Sacred Timeline to immediately splinter into countless branches, unleashing the multiverse and setting up the central conflict for years to come.
Though physically dead, the shadow of He Who Remains looms over the entirety of Loki's second season. His core philosophy—that a single, controlling hand is necessary to prevent multiversal annihilation—becomes the central problem Loki must solve. The Temporal Loom, the heart of the TVA, is revealed to be He Who Remains' creation, a fail-safe designed to only manage the Sacred Timeline and destroy all other branches. The season becomes a race to “fix” the Loom to accommodate the burgeoning multiverse. Through his painful time-slipping, Loki learns to master time itself, ultimately confronting the same choice He Who Remains faced. In a final, powerful conversation with a recording of his predecessor, Loki realizes that the choice was always rigged. To save his friends, he must either kill Sylvie in the past (preserving He Who Remains' timeline) or find another way. Loki's ultimate decision is a direct refutation of He Who Remains' ideology. Instead of pruning branches, Loki destroys the Loom and takes its place, becoming a living anchor for all realities—a god who chooses to protect free will rather than control it. This arc permanently reframes He Who Remains as not just a villain, but as a necessary catalyst for Loki's transformation from a god of mischief to a god of stories and time itself.
Kang is the primary variant He Who Remains sought to prevent. While He Who Remains achieved victory and sought only to maintain a static peace, Kang is a variant who was exiled and now seeks total conquest over all of time and space. He is far more direct, militaristic, and openly tyrannical. He Who Remains ruled from the shadows with surgical precision; Kang rules from a throne with an iron fist and an army. He represents the raw, unbridled ambition that He Who Remains feared would tear reality apart.
Introduced in Loki Season 2, Victor Timely is a variant from the 19th century who was manipulated into existence by He Who Remains and Miss Minutes. They ensured he received a TVA handbook as a child, setting him on a path to “discover” the principles of temporal mechanics. Unlike the confident He Who Remains or the aggressive Kang, Victor is timid, socially awkward, and a pure inventor. He embodies the genius intellect of Nathaniel Richards without the accompanying megalomania, representing the potential for good that He Who Remains chose to suppress in all his variants, including himself.
This group, led by the variants Immortus, Rama-Tut, and a version of the Scarlet Centurion, is the living embodiment of the Multiversal War He Who Remains described. They are the thousands of variants he defeated and pruned who have now been unleashed upon his death. The Council demonstrates the scale of the threat he was containing. Their collective power and differing ideologies show that the chaos he predicted was not an exaggeration, but an understatement of the danger the multiverse now faces.
While not biological variants, the Time-Keepers are ideological variants of He Who Remains' intent. They were his second attempt at creating perfect temporal guardians after the failure of the Time-Twisters. However, just like their creator, they became obsessed with maintaining a “pure” timeline and were willing to manipulate and eliminate anyone who threatened it. Their story serves as a parallel to the MCU version of He Who Remains, demonstrating that in the Marvel Universe, any attempt to impose absolute order on the timeline inevitably leads to tyranny.