The penultimate episode of "Loki" on Disney+ was a wild, Variant-filled ride that set up
what is sure to be a mind-blowing finale. It was also jam-packed with fun Easter eggs
for fans to find. Here are a few you may have missed in Episode 5, "Journey Into Mystery."
At the beginning of Episode 5, we travel through a destroyed cityscape full of decrepit buildings.
Most of these structures seem like filler to emphasize the destruction, but there's one
significant Easter egg hidden within the rubble that's worth noting. Toward the end of the camera
pan, a building on the right reads "Qeng" — "Q-E-N-G" — at the top of it. Marvel Comics
fans should know this famous name as it's related to a major villain who's set to appear in the MCU.
This tower represents Qeng Enterprises, and if you thought it looked like the Avengers Tower,
you weren't wrong. In the comics, it's revealed that Stark Industries sold the building to the
company in "Avengers" Vol. 6 #0 from 2015. The CEO of Qeng Industries is Mr. Gryphon,
aka Nathaniel Richards, who exists on Earth-6311 — an alternate version of
Earth-616, the reality where all the main Marvel stuff goes down.
Nathaniel Richards is also known as Kang the Conqueror, as the latter was split into
two different versions of himself due to a timestream error. It's a complicated story
from 2015's "All-New, All-Different Avengers" #1, but this nod to Kang — a major villain
we know will appear in "Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania" — is something that we can't ignore.
During Episode 5, one of the first things we see in the Void is a menacing purple-black
cloud with a monstrous face within it.
"This is The Void. That's Alioth. And we're his lunch. Come on!'
Known as a trans-temporal entity, Alioth doesn't exist in any reality,
but instead what the comics describe as Temporal Limbo. The being is the
biggest enemy of Kang the Conqueror, and its empire is bigger than his foe's.
Alioth first appeared in 1993's "Avengers: The Terminatrix Objective" #1 and is known for its
absorption powers, which we saw play a huge role in Episode 5. Alioth is drawn to living
beings more than anything and has the power [to disintegrate them as soon as it encompasses them.
In the MCU, it appears as if Alioth lives within the Void at the end of time,
unlike its location in the comics. It's also being used to protect the person or entity
behind the Time Keepers, who many now suspect to be Kang. If this is the case in the MCU,
the two would be on the same side, a massive shift from their comic book origins.
In a move we never thought would happen, the Thanos-Copter became canon in the Marvel Cinematic
Universe thanks to "Loki" Episode 5. When the Mad Titan finally perished in "Avengers: Endgame,"
it looked like we might never see the famous aircraft, but now, we know why we never did.
The Thanos-Copter first appeared in 1979's "Spidey Super Stories" #39
and was a helicopter the villain used one time to attack Hellcat,
a popular Marvel hero who fought the Titan as he tried to obtain the Cosmic Cube.
Thanos also picked up Deadpool in the helicopter in Deadpool Vol. 5 #45, when the latter was hired
to help the Mad Titan steal the cube. It's such a shame we never got to see that scene
play out on the big screen. Fortunately, "Loki" Episode 5 paid homage to a great — and frequently
mocked — comic book moment. The Thanos-Copter matched its comic book appearance exactly,
with its bright yellow paint and the Titan's name written across it in large bold letters.
We knew we'd be getting a version of the trickster god from the classic "Vote Loki" comic after he
appeared in several trailers for the series. And he finally arrived in Episode 5 but only for a
brief scene where a scuffle breaks out between a gaggle of Lokis. As for the variant's origin
story, the four-part comic series debuted in June 2016 and was a satire on the United States
presidential election of the same year. In the fourth and final issue, Loki concedes the race.
In the comics, Loki's campaign is based on his honesty about how he's going to lie to the
American public. The citizens eat it up, except for a reporter from the Daily Bugle, who's trying
her best to take him down. It's definitely one of the weirdest Loki stories of all time,
complete with "Political Action Cults" sacrificing goats. And we're incredibly glad this dapper and
politically ambitious Loki got to show up on the screen, even if it was only for a few minutes.
Just before the Loki group makes their way down to their secret hideout, we see different layers of
rubble above their little base. And buried in all this debris, we get a glimpse of Mjolnir
and a small glass jar with "T365" written on it. Trapped inside this jar is a tiny version
of Thor ... and one who's a bit more amphibious than we're used to seeing the God of Thunder.
Known as Throg, this powerful frog version of Thor first appeared in "Thor" #363,
although #365 is more significant for the character because it's where
he lifted Mjolnir and became the Thunder Frog officially.
This coincides with Mjolnir being just out of Throg's reach in the episode,
as he's trapped in the glass jar. "Thor" #365 also heavily features Loki,
who suspects something is afoot with his brother.
It's a hilarious storyline which includes Thor helping an army of frogs battle an army of rats.
Just as with D.B. Cooper in Episode 1, Episode 5 of "Loki" further explained some
great American mysteries. The first to appear in "Journey Into Mystery" was "Polybius" — an
arcade game long considered an urban legend. The legend of "Polybius" suggests
this fictitious '80s game was real and run by the government as a psychological experiment.
It was supposedly created to test mind control on users, but the arcade game was never found.
It looks like it was swooped up by the TVA and sent to the place where urban legends go to die.
In the middle of "Episode 5," we also see the USS Eldridge fall out of the sky and
into the Void. Unlike "Polybius," the famous naval ship was an actual thing. In 1943,
it was alleged that the ship was made invisible as part of the famous Philadelphia Experiment.
As some claim, it was also apparently teleported from Philadelphia to Virginia,
and back again. Crew members who were on board reportedly went insane, and the story
was so bizarre it was adapted into a time-travel movie — "The Philadelphia Experiment" — in 1984.
Since Episode 5 mostly took place in the Void, set designers had a
major opportunity to include an incredible amount of Easter eggs from the MCU's past.
Some of these include "Ant-Man" villain Yellowjacket's helmet in the first act,
which we saw as we panned over the landscape, and Ronin's Dark Aster spaceship also makes a
brief appearance. We also get a brief look at a demolished Helicarrier sitting in the wasteland.
Also, in the vast devastation across "Loki" Episode 5 is what appears to
be a stone face of the Living Tribunal — which we know isn't an MCU relic ... yet.
One of the most important entities in Marvel Comics is the character who first appeared
in "Strange Tales" #157 from 1967. The Living Tribunal basically oversees everything, ever,
in every reality. Serving as somewhat of a judge of the entire cosmic universe and all of its
realities, the Tribunal is more powerful than all of the Infinity Stones combined.
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