With a little more than two months until the debut of the second season of Loki on Disney+, Marvel shared a trailer for the hit series today. While the main focus of the trailer is Loki and Mobius investigating Kang, there appears to be a nod to another, far less known, villain from the Marvel Universe as well.
A brief moment in the new trailer sees a line of guests waiting to enter a theater with a marquee that reads “ZANIAC!” This could be nothing, but it also could be a nod to a fairly obscure Thor villain.
The Zaniac made his debut in “Thor #319″ in 1982. The character is not really the hulking yellow figure you see in the imag above, but rather a collection of parasitic beings that take over a host and infect them with the overwhelming desire to kill women, who he calls “the pretty-pretties.” In fact, the being is thought to have infected and essentially created Jack the Ripper.
The first host was an actor named Brad Wolfe, who was infected by the parasite while filming a movie. Overwhelmed by the Zaniac, Wolfe kidnapped Shawna Lynde, a friend of Thor’s, and then fought the god of thunder. The actor persona could be a good fit for what we see in this Loki trailer.
While the trailer sees our heroes jumping around to different time periods, there are a few other shots that seem to match the one with this “ZANIAC” theater. That includes the one seen above, in which Loki and Sylvie corner a man in an alley before using their magic to attack him. It could be possible this is Wolfe and the gods of mischief may be restraining him after he attempted to kill an innocent woman.
As for the look of the character, he doesn’t always have the yellow hue. The first look for the Zaniac was actually just a costume worn by Wolfe for his movie. The parasites’ next victim was a gangster named “Thug” Thatcher, which game the Zaniac a much more human look.
Whatever the look of the character may be, it will be interesting to see if this marquee is in fact a hint that we might see this obscure villain in the upcoming second season of Marvel’s Loki on Disney+.
The second season of Loki will debut on October 6 on Disney+.