Loki’s Ravonna Renslayer, unraveled by Gugu Mbatha-Raw and comic book history

The Disney Plus series Loki launched by sending everyone’s beloved, endlessly double-dealing Asgardian princes to face a despotic time travel that regulates the bureaucracy known as the TVA. When the credits for episode 1, “Glorious Purpose,” revealed that the TVA judge in charge of Loki’s possible execution was Ravonna Renslayer, longtime Marvel Comics readers felt they knew about it before anyone else. “Ravonna Renslayer” seemed like a strangely specific, operatic name for a seemingly minor role. But that’s because Ravonna is an established Marvel character with a long and complicated comic book history as a time-shifted villain.

For some fans, their presence indicated it Loki is out to bring in some specific comic book storylines and characters – notably her estranged husband, Kang the Conquerer, a time-traveling threat on its own. But Gugu Mbatha-Raw, who plays Ravonna on the show, didn’t turn to deeper comic book lore to help her decipher it Loki.

Image: Stan Lee, Don Heck / Marvel Comics

“I looked at it,” she tells Polygon, “but I also knew it wasn’t the most useful piece of information for the story we were telling Loki. So it was [series director] Kate Herron and our producer Kevin Wright drove me. They told me not to get too deep into this stuff because it isn’t really the part of the time that we deal with. ”

On Loki, Ravonna is in a position of power – even over her TVA counterparts like Mobius M. Mobius of Owen Wilson. And that was a farewell for the actress.

“It’s so exciting for me to play such an influential character,” she says. “I’ve never really had the opportunity to play a character with that kind of gravitas […] And then the chance to get some action and do some of the stunt stuff that we see a little later on the show was really nice too. “

Alternatively, Ravonna Renslayer began editorial life in Marvel Comics as a girl princess in her 40s John Carter from Mars or Flash Gordon. She fell in love with the time-traveling despot Kang and jumped in front of a laser explosion meant for him to save his life and end her own. But she was given a new lease for continuity when a later kang ripped her off her timeline at the last moment before her death and put her in Mister Freeze-style stasis in hopes of finding a way to save her life.

After a series of events (OK, OK, Kang lost a bet with the Grand Master where he chose the Force to kill the Avengers instead of resuscitating Ravonna, and the Grand Master resuscitating Ravonna himself to let them know how badly Kang screwed it up). She became a time traveler herself, caught in a never-ending love-hate battle with Kang over time.

The really juicy part of it, for deeply invested Marvel Cinematic Universe fans, is that Kang the Conqueror is heavily rumored to be the villain of Ant-Man & the Wasp: Quantumania, the upcoming third Ant-Man film in which he will be played by Jonathan Majors (Lovecraft land). Could Loki‘s Ravonna lays the trail for Ant manis kang?

“Who knows, maybe we’ll meet in the future or in the past or whatever. What’s time in TVA anyway? ”Laughs Mbatha-Raw.

Focusing on an earlier version of the character than the comics ever showed gave Mbatha-Raw a lot more freedom to interpret the character in new ways. “Loki is more of an origin story for Renslayer,” she says. “So this is older than what the people in the comics know and love about them. That gives us a little leeway to do something unexpected. “

The unexpected happened in episode 3 of Loki, “Lamentis,” when Sylvie revealed that every Time Variance Authority official is a variant himself – torn from their own timeline, with memory altered so that they would believe they were created to be TVA agents. And that wasn’t the end of the surprises.

[Ed. note: Spoilers ahead for episode 4 of Loki, “The Nexus Event.”]

Image: Marvel Studios

Episode 4 saw Ravonna and Guards fighting Loki, Sylvie and Hunter B-15 before the three Time Keepers themselves – who turned out to be mindless robot simulacra; the time equivalent of Disneyland’s Hall of Presidents.

Then, just as Loki was about to say something to Sylvie that seemed very important, Ravonna reared up and crossed Loki off the timeline. (It’s okay, he did well.) Did Ravonna know she was a variant? Did she know about the timekeeper’s deception? How much power does she really have in the Time Variance Authority?

Mbatha-Raw couldn’t answer those questions, of course (and we hadn’t even seen the episode at the time of our chat), but she appreciated the questions the show ultimately faces.

“When you have an antihero main character, ask yourself, ‘What is good? What is bad Is someone really good, is someone really bad? ‘”She says. “The Timekeepers and Renslayer stick very much to the idea that things should only happen in one direction. [The show asks,] Is that true? Can we change or influence our fate? Can we evolve? Can someone like Loki change? This is really a universal human question. “

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