Editor’s Note: The following contains spoilers for Loki Season 2, Episode 5.
AsLokiheads into its second season finale, a few secrets begin to unfold. One of those has actually been present since the beginning, but has only had a little more light shed on it last week, in Episode 5, “Science/Fiction.” In the end credits sequences of Season 2, whenever actorKe Huy Quan’s card shows up, a book calledThe Zartan Contingentis shown in the background. Written by one A.D. Doug, this is obviously not a real science fiction novel — although it certainly has a name for it — and has only now been actually referenced in the series. It may hint at Quan’s character’s real identity, as it’s becoming clearer by the episode that the TVA technicianOuroboros hides many secrets behind his lovable attitude.
Loki, the God of Mischief, steps out of his brother’s shadow to embark on an adventure that takes place after the events of “Avengers: Endgame.”
A.D. Doug Is a Variant of Ouroboros in ‘Loki’
AsLoki’s (Tom Hiddleston) time-slippingcondition is back with the implosion of the Temporal Loom at the TVA, he’s sent throughout the multiverse to the original timelines of his team, until eventually landingin a branched timelinein 1994 Pasadena. There, he meets the original O.B. variant, a passionate science fiction writer named. A.D. Doug — and, apparently, he’s just as quirky and resourceful in every timeline. When we meet him, he’s placing his own books at a bookstore and buying them in an attempt to have them approved to be put up for sale officially. It doesn’t work, though, and we’re all sad about it.
When he meets Loki, we get to really know A.D. Doug. He explains he’s a theoretical physicist at Caltech, and he had to get a PhD to keep his job as a professor, so he could survive as a science fiction writer. It doesn’t matter what timeline we’re in, this is some typical O.B. shenanigans. His background in Physics and storytelling makes him the perfect person to help Loki figure out the time-slipping problem, proven by the fact that he’s the first person to look at Loki as a character in a story, and the time-slipping being an ability he needs to master. And he’s right, asLoki finally realizes he can “rewrite the story” with his new powersshortly before everyone is turned into spaghetti in a major temporal meltdown. Also, he managed to build a primitive version of a TemPad based on the instructions of the TVA Handbook — It doesn’t matter how clever and resourceful you are, that’s something else.
A.D. Doug is but one of the many facets revealed about O.B. throughout Season 2 so far. While he does appear to be just what he seems to be every time we meet him — a quirky and likable dude — he also has the right answer and is always very knowledgeable about everything. He wrote the TVA Guidebook learning fromVictor Timely (Jonathan Majors)but also lets on that he knows about He Who Remains (also Majors) and has been around at the TVA for a long time —maybe since its creation by He Who Remains. His original name, for example, is the abbreviation “A.D.,” and while science fiction writers love abbreviating their names, here it has a special meaning.“A.D.” is also the Latin abbreviation for “anno Domini,“which indicates the years after the birth of Jesus. InLoki, this may allude to the fact that he’s been around sinceHe Who Remains, another “savior,“arrived to end the Multiversal War. Maybe it’s a stretch, but, for someone who holds as many mysteries as Ouroboros, it does make sense.
“The Zartan Contingent” Could Be a Reference to ‘G.I. Joe’s Zartan
As happens with most science fiction writers, it takes a long, long time before their work is recognized for its qualities. Apparently, for A.D. Doug it’s taking a little longer still, but that’s okay, as he’s written only two novels so far. The first is calledThe Sons of Yoren, and he says it’s his most popular work, although there are many copies stacked in his office — which looks exactly like the Repairs and Advancements division where O.B. works at the TVA, by the way. The second isThe Zartan Contingent, which we’ve seen in the end credits sequences before, as well as teased byLokihead writerEric Martininhis social media posts. Although we don’t know what this book is actually about, its title is more than enough for us to theorize upon.
“Zartan” is not just a random word that sounds like science fiction stuff, it has nods to at least two other Marvel works. First, Zartan is one of the villains inG.I. Joe. More than toys,this is a multimedia franchisewith movies, animated television series, and comics, which were published by Marvel in the 1980s. He is a mercenary who leads a group called the Dreadnoks. He has shape-shifting abilities, which makes the lives of the Joes very hard at some points.Zartan can impersonate whoever he chooses, replicating physical and vocal likeness.He can also change his skin color to blend in with different environments and works directly under the main villain, Cobra Commander. During Marvel’s stint publishingG.I. Joecomics, there was actually a Cobra Civil War, in which different Cobra officers were at war with one another. The main factions are led by Cobra Commander (actually an impostor named Fred VII) and Serpentor, who was Cobra Emperor at the time. Zartan fought under Cobra Commander’s army and was the person to ultimately defeat Serpentor. He left the Dreadnoks after the war but eventually came back to expose Fred VII as an impostor.
While the actualG.I. Joecontinuity isn’t all that important in our attempt to figure out who Ouroboros really is in the MCU, it’s worth noting that there are some similar elements: a civil war, different people claiming to be someone else, a warrior who isn’t what he appears to be. Respectively, those can act as parallels to the Multiversal War (fought between Kang variantsfor control over the multiverse), the concept of variants, and O.B. himself.Lokiis shaping up to be just the first time O.B. and his variants show up in the MCU, and his role in the upcomingAvengers: The Kang Dynastymovie may be similar to the one Zartan plays in the Cobra Civil War.
Marvel Has a Race of Shape-Shifting Aliens Known as Xartans
As if one weren’t enough, the Marvel Comics have yetanotherpossible connection to the word “Zartan,” just with a different spelling. There’s an alien race called the Xartans who are also shape-shifters. In the comics, they were created by the Celestials (remember them fromEternals?) when they decided to tinker with the original Xartans’ genetic material. What resulted was a war between the original Xartans and these new Xartan Deviants, won by the latter.
More than being Deviants, the Xartans also havea weird connection to Thor(Chris Hemsworth). Sometime after their creation by the Celestials, the Xartans became a warmongering species and decided to invade Earth. One of them even stole the identity of Donald Blake, the name Thor used while living on Earth inthe Earth-616 comics continuity. The whole skirmish didn’t work out for them, resulting in Thor defeating the Xartan leader, Ugarth, and straight-up hurling his dead body from Earth into space, forcing the Xartan military to go after it. The comics are always wild, but that’s how we like them.
But the Xartans' story also goes beyond just the comics, as they have already made an appearance in the MCU. In the Hulu seriesRunaways, one of the characters is actually a Xartan herself. Xavin (Clarissa Thibeaux) is a gender-fluid Xartan who crashed on Earth and believed she was part of a prophecy that would unite both Xartans and Humans. Over the episodes she appeared in the series, she revealed some facts about her species that set them apart. First, if they impersonate someone, they also copy that person’s powers and abilities.Second, they don’t age like Humans do, meaning they retain their usual appearance through most of their lives. And, finally, they don’t sleep.InEpisode 2, “Breaking Brad,“in the current season ofLoki, O.B. mentions how, if he stops working, the orders just pile up, so he keeps at it forever, no sleep. Like a Xartan. We also know he met Loki 400 years before the Season 2 premiere and hasn’t aged since — but neither has anyone else because time works differently at the TVA.
Could this mean O.B. isn’t actually human? By now, he holds so many secrets, that it wouldn’t be surprising if he weren’t. There’s actually another shape-shifting alien species in the MCU that’s pretty well-established already, the Skrulls, so it could be that the mystery aroundThe Zartan Contingentleads all the way back to them afterSecret Invasion, with “Xartan” being an alternative name for the species. One thing’s for sure: Ouroboros is definitely not what he seems to be.
