He Who Remains

• Core Identity: He Who Remains is the ultimate master of time, a figure of immense power and intellect who exists at the very end of reality, but whose purpose and history diverge dramatically between the Marvel comics and the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
• Key Takeaways:
• Role in the Universe: In both major continuities, he is the ultimate director of the Time Variance Authority (TVA), operating from a citadel outside of the normal flow of time. His primary function is to manage and observe the timeline to prevent catastrophic outcomes.
• Primary Impact: His most significant impact is the maintenance of temporal order. In the comics, this involves preparing for the birth of the next universe. In the MCU, his actions are far more drastic: he prunes countless timelines and lives to prevent a multiversal war ignited by his own malevolent variants, chiefly Kang the Conqueror.
• Key Incarnations: The central difference is his identity. In the comics, He Who Remains is a unique, ancient being, the last of his kind. In the MCU, he is a specific, war-weary variant of the 31st-century human scientist Nathaniel Richards, whose other versions become the multiverse's greatest threat.

He Who Remains made his first appearance in Thor #245, published in March 1976. He was created by writer Mark Gruenwald and artist/co-plotter Ralph Macchio. His introduction came at the climax of a storyline involving Thor and Jane Foster's journey through time, where they are brought to the Citadel at the End of Time. Gruenwald, known for his meticulous attention to continuity and cosmic hierarchies, conceived He Who Remains as a capstone figure for Marvel's temporal mechanics. He represents the finality and cyclical nature of the universe. The character was designed not as a villain, but as a cosmic custodian with a monumental, almost incomprehensible task. His creation of the Time-Keepers and the flawed Time-Twisters established a key piece of lore for the TVA, an organization Gruenwald would later flesh out. While his comic appearances are sparse, his conceptual importance is immense, serving as the ultimate authority behind one of the Marvel Universe's most powerful organizations.

The origin of the Earth-616 He Who Remains is one of cosmic scale and finality. He is the last living sentient being of his reality, the final director of the Time Variance Authority from the previous universal cycle. His home and headquarters is the Citadel at the End ofTime, a fortress existing in the final nanosecond before the heat death and eventual collapse of the universe into a new Big Bang. His purpose is not to control or manipulate the timeline for personal gain, but to oversee its natural conclusion and shepherd the birth of the next reality. Believing that the nascent universe would need guidance to avoid the mistakes of its predecessor, He Who Remains embarked on a project of cosmic engineering. He created the Time-Keepers, three beings—Ast, Vorth, and Zanth—designed to emerge in the next universe and impart knowledge to its inhabitants, protecting the timeline from its infancy. However, this creation was flawed. Immediately after their genesis, the Time-Keepers' temporal energies spawned a darker, opposite set of beings known as the Time-Twisters. These creatures were imperfect and destructive, believing that the only way to “preserve” life was to destroy all other realities, leaving only their own twisted timeline intact. They traveled back in time, wreaking havoc across history. He Who Remains realized his error too late. To combat the Twisters, he was forced to empower Thor and Jane Foster, who had been brought to his Citadel. He granted them the power to effectively “un-create” the Time-Twisters from the timeline, a feat which Thor accomplished. Learning from his failure, He Who Remains adjusted his process. He allowed the Time-Keepers to be born again, but this time as infants with free will, hoping they would mature into the benevolent guides he had originally intended. These newly born Time-Keepers would go on to become the enigmatic and often bureaucratic masters of the TVA that frequently clash with Marvel's heroes. In the comics, He Who Remains is therefore a distant, almost philosophical figure. He is not a variant of Kang, nor is he human. He is a functionary at the end of all things, whose one major act of intervention went disastrously wrong, setting in motion events that would ripple throughout history.

The MCU's He Who Remains is a radically different and far more personal character, first appearing in the Loki Season 1 finale, “For All Time. Always.” His origin is tied directly to the franchise's overarching multiverse saga and the character of Kang the Conqueror. As he explains to Loki and Sylvie, he was originally a human scientist from the 31st century. This scientist discovered the existence of the multiverse—countless parallel universes stacked on top of one another. Initially, his variants across these universes made contact peacefully, sharing knowledge and technology, leading to an era of unprecedented progress. However, not all variants were benevolent. Some, like the one who would become known as Kang the Conqueror, saw other universes not as partners, but as new lands to be conquered. This inevitably led to a cataclysmic Multiversal War. Variants of the same man fought each other across all of time and space, using weapons that could wipe entire timelines from existence. The entire multiverse was on the brink of total annihilation. The variant who would become He Who Remains was the first to weaponize a creature from outside of time, Alioth, a being that consumes space and time itself. He used Alioth to end the war by consuming all of his rival variants and their timelines. To prevent such a war from ever happening again, he took drastic measures. He isolated a single cluster of timelines, weaving them together into what he called the “Sacred Timeline.” To protect this construct, he created the Time Variance Authority. The TVA's purpose was to monitor the Sacred Timeline and “prune” any deviation—or “nexus event”—that could lead to the creation of a new branch reality. Any such branch, if left to mature, could lead to the birth of a new variant of himself, potentially starting the war all over again. He then hid himself away in his Citadel at the End of Time, a location outside the timeline's influence, and puppeteered the TVA for eons. He invented the fiction of the three android “Time-Keepers” to serve as the public face of the TVA, masking his own existence. For millennia, he lived a lonely, isolated life, bearing the terrible burden of being a “benevolent” dictator, committing countless acts of cosmic genocide to maintain a fragile peace. His ultimate goal was to find a worthy successor to take over his role, as he had grown impossibly old and tired.

The comic book version of He Who Remains is less of a physical combatant and more of a cosmic entity defined by his position and knowledge.

• Abilities & Powers:
• Nigh-Omniscience of Time: Existing at the end of all things, he possesses a near-complete understanding of the entire history of his universe, from its beginning to its end.
• Chronal Manipulation (Limited): While he doesn't actively interfere with the timeline, his technology allows him to manipulate time and space around his Citadel. He can summon beings from any point in the timeline to his location.
• Cosmic Engineering: His most notable power is his ability to create artificial cosmic beings. He successfully engineered the Time-Keepers and inadvertently created the Time-Twisters, beings with immense power over time.
• Immortality: He is effectively immortal, having lived until the very end of the universe itself.
• Equipment:
• The Citadel at the End of Time: His base of operations is a technological marvel that exists outside of normal time, protecting him from the ravages of the universe's death. It contains all the technology he needs to observe the timeline and create his temporal agents.
• Personality:
• He is portrayed as a detached, scholarly, and weary figure. His motivations are not driven by malice or ambition, but by a sense of cosmic duty. He is a creator who made a grave error and sought to correct it. His personality is that of a grand-scale archivist and planner, not a charismatic leader or a tyrannical ruler.

The MCU's interpretation is a character study in power, exhaustion, and charisma, brought to life by actor Jonathan Majors.

• Abilities & Powers:
• Genius-Level Intellect: As a 31st-century scientist who discovered the multiverse, his intellect is far beyond any modern human. He not only understood temporal mechanics but mastered them on a multiversal scale, engineering the entire Sacred Timeline and the TVA's technology.
• Master Tactician and Strategist: He successfully won the Multiversal War against infinite versions of himself. He then orchestrated a bureaucratic system that ran for millennia without his direct, visible intervention, pre-determining every single event on the Sacred Timeline to ensure its stability. He anticipated Loki and Sylvie's every move to bring them to his Citadel.
• Immortality (Technological): He has lived for eons, far beyond a normal human lifespan. This is presumably achieved through the advanced technology of his Citadel, which exists outside of time. However, he is still physically vulnerable.
• Control over Alioth: During the Multiversal War, he tamed and weaponized Alioth, a feat none of his other variants could achieve.
• Equipment:
• The Citadel at the End of Time: Similar to the comics, this is his sanctuary. However, in the MCU, it's also the control room for the entire Sacred Timeline.
• Advanced TemPad: He possesses a sophisticated personal TemPad that allows him to teleport and manipulate his immediate temporal environment with a flick of his wrist. It is far more advanced than the standard-issue TVA devices.
• The Loom of Time: While he doesn't operate it directly by the time he meets Loki, the Loom is his creation—a massive temporal refinery designed to weave raw time into the physical structure of the Sacred Timeline.
• Personality:
• He Who Remains in the MCU is profoundly complex and charismatic. He presents as eccentric, friendly, and slightly unhinged, casually eating an apple while discussing the genocide of trillions. This masks a deep, profound weariness. He is tired of his eternal vigil and genuinely wants to retire.
• However, beneath this affable exterior is a chillingly pragmatic and terrifying figure. He is utterly convinced of the righteousness of his actions, viewing the enslavement of an entire timeline and the pruning of countless lives as a necessary evil. He presents Loki and Sylvie with a choice—take over for him or kill him and unleash his infinitely more dangerous variants—with a detached sense of inevitability. He is not a classic villain; he is an antagonist who believes he is the only thing standing between reality and something far worse.

• Earth-616:
• The Time-Keepers: His intended successors and the beings he created to safeguard the next universe. Though their relationship is that of creator and creation, they are his most significant “allies.”
• MCU:
• Miss Minutes: An advanced, sentient Artificial Intelligence he created to serve as the TVA's mascot and his personal assistant. She is fiercely loyal to him, carrying out his will and protecting his secrets long after his death.
• Ravonna Renslayer: It is heavily implied that before he erased her memories, Ravonna was his partner and commander in the Multiversal War. Their shared history is a closely guarded secret, but their alliance was foundational to the creation of the TVA.

• Earth-616:
• The Time-Twisters: His flawed creations and his primary antagonists. Their destructive journey through time was a direct consequence of his hubris, forcing him to intervene to stop them.
• MCU:
• His Own Variants: His ultimate enemies are infinite versions of himself from across the multiverse. Figures like Kang the Conqueror, Immortus, and the Scarlet Centurion represent the very chaos he fought to contain. His entire life's work is dedicated to preventing their re-emergence.
• Sylvie Laufeydottir: While he views her as a potential successor, she becomes his executioner. Her entire life was ruined by his TVA, and her singular goal is to destroy the system he built. Her refusal to accept his “lesser of two evils” argument leads directly to his death and the unraveling of the Sacred Timeline.

• Time Variance Authority (TVA): In both continuities, He Who Remains is the ultimate, albeit secret, leader of the TVA.
• Earth-616: He is the final director, the end-point of the organization's existence.
• MCU: He is the founder, creator, and hidden puppet master of the entire organization, having crafted its mission, technology, and false mythology from scratch.

This is the character's definitive storyline in the Earth-616 comics. After being drawn into a temporal conflict, Thor and his companion Jane Foster are transported to the Citadel at the End of Time. There, they meet He Who Remains, who explains the nature of his existence and his failed experiment with the Time-Twisters. He tasks them with stopping his creations, giving them the power necessary to erase the Twisters from history. The arc establishes his role as a cosmic observer and the origin of the TVA's masters, the Time-Keepers. It's a high-concept, philosophical story that solidifies the character as a force of nature rather than a conventional hero or villain.

This is the defining story for the MCU version of the character. The entire first season of Loki builds to his reveal. After surviving Alioth in the Void at the End of Time, Loki and Sylvie are granted access to his Citadel. He Who Remains greets them not with hostility, but with an offer. He lays out the entire truth: the Multiversal War, the creation of the Sacred Timeline, and the necessity of the TVA. He explains that he has paved their entire path to him, seeking a replacement. He offers them a choice: take over his sacred work together, or kill him and unleash the multiverse and all his terrifying variants. Sylvie, blinded by revenge, rejects his logic and kills him. His final, chilling words, “See you soon,” signal the splintering of the timeline and the return of Kang, setting the stage for the entire Multiverse Saga.

While He Who Remains is dead, his presence looms over the entire second season of Loki. The TVA begins to fall apart as the Sacred Timeline splinters into chaos. The season's central conflict revolves around fixing the Temporal Loom, a machine he designed with a failsafe that only he could bypass, proving his manipulative genius even after death. His past self, as the timid 19th-century inventor Victor Timely, becomes a key plot point. Ultimately, Loki realizes that the choice He Who Remains offered—tyranny or chaos—was a false one. Loki destroys the Loom and becomes a living anchor for all the timelines, a “god of stories,” effectively replacing He Who Remains not as a dictator, but as a benevolent protector, fulfilling the dead variant's goal of finding a successor in a way he never could have imagined.

The concept of “variants” is central to He Who Remains, particularly in the MCU. It is crucial to distinguish the comic and cinematic relationships between these characters.

• Comic Book Multiverse:
• Kang the Conqueror: A time-traveling despot and descendant of Reed Richards' father, Nathaniel Richards. He is a major Avengers foe.
• Immortus: A much older, wiser, and more manipulative future version of Kang the Conqueror who serves the Time-Keepers. He resides in Limbo and seeks to manage the timeline.
• He Who Remains (Earth-616): In the comics, this character is completely separate from Kang and Immortus. He is an unrelated cosmic being from the end of a previous universe, not a human variant.
• Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU):
• In the MCU, all these characters (and more) are variants of the same 31st-century human scientist. He Who Remains is simply one specific outcome—the one who won the Multiversal War and chose isolation and control over conquest.
• Kang the Conqueror: The variant seen in Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania. He is a ruthless, brilliant warrior and empire-builder who was exiled by the Council of Kangs for being too extreme. He represents the “conqueror” archetype that He Who Remains feared most.
• Victor Timely: A variant who was sent a TVA handbook in the 19th century by Miss Minutes, as per He Who Remains' plan. He is a brilliant but socially awkward inventor who becomes a key figure in the attempt to fix the Temporal Loom.
• The Council of Kangs: A vast assembly of thousands of Kang variants from across the multiverse, led by a trio including Immortus, Rama-Tut, and a version resembling the Scarlet Centurion. They view themselves as the protectors of the multiverse from incursions and outsiders like the Avengers, but their methods are no less dangerous. They were responsible for exiling the “Conqueror” variant. He Who Remains fought and defeated this council (or a precursor to it) to end the first Multiversal War.

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