Warning: This article contains moderate spoilers for Loki season 2, episode 5.
There’s a lot to unpack in Loki season 2’s penultimate episode, from the revelations about the TVA gang’s personal lives to the meaning of Loki’s handy new power-set moving forward. It pays to pay attention to every single detail in the installment, then, with even the name of O.B.’s science fiction novel potentially having mind-blowing multiversal ramifications.
In episode 5, Loki tracks O.B. down to 1990s Pasadena, where we learn O.B.’s pre-TVA identity was A.D. Doug, a theoretical physicist who really dreams of becoming a successful author. His (poorly selling) new novel is called The Zartan Contingent, a title that not only has deep-cut ties to Marvel Comics history but also tips its hat to Paramount’s ever-growing, increasingly feared Hasbro cinematic universe.
The Hasbro die-hards out there may be aware that Zartan is a villain in the G.I. Joe franchise, a master of disguise who was memorably played by Arnold Vosloo in both 2009’s The Rise of Cobra and 2013’s Retaliation, in which he impersonated Jonathan Pryce’s POTUS. Interestingly, Zarton was first introduced into Joe lore in Marvel Comics’ G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero #25 (1984).
Naturally, Marvel doesn’t have the rights to any Hasbro characters these days, but it’s telling that Loki utilized that specific spelling, when there’s a race of similarly named shapeshifting aliens called the Xartan elsewhere in the back catalog. The Xartan were introduced in a Thor story in 1963’s Journey into Mystery #90, so you’d expect Loki to reference that name instead. But, no, it’s definitely spelled with a Z not an X — the title has been staring us in the face in Loki season 2’s end credits sequence week after week, after all.
What with Transformers: Rise of the Beasts teasing that a G.I. Joe/Transformers crossovers is on its way, no matter what we have to say about it, Marvel shoving Zartan’s name in our faces so prominently definitely feels like a veiled threat or some kind. The Zartan Contingent? Don’t tell us Marvel has a contingency plan to make a deal with Paramount if the whole Jonathan Majors as Kang thing doesn’t work out?
At the very least, this serves as a stark reminder that, even though the Multiverse Saga is a bit of a mess, there are still much worse cinematic universes out there.