The Loki series has been a runaway success for Disney+, breaking streaming records and reigniting an already loyal fanbase. With its rise in popularity, many lesser-known Marvel characters have been brought into the limelight of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), including Mobius, who is portrayed by Owen Wilson.
First appearing in the Fantastic Four comics in the early 90s and despite being loved by some diehard comic book fans, Mobius was not well-known before the Loki series.
Mobius is really a bog standard guy compared to many of the heroes and villains he interacts with. He’s just an office worker really with no superpowers. And while his office just so happens to be the fantastical Time Variance Authority (or TVA), it is odd that such a regular Joe has such an unusual name.
But it turns out the name is interesting – and, indeed, fitting.
A Mobius strip is a very curious shape in maths. It is a surface with only one side and one boundary curve meaning that if you draw a line along the edge, it will travel in a full circle to the opposite point to where you started.
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For further proof on this you only have to look at his full name – Mobius Mobius Mobius – and you’ll see the ‘endless loop’ narrative the writers were looking to convey. His duty is to keep the timeline steady without disruption.
But of course, for anyone who has watched the first series of the show, we also know this mission is disturbed with the introduction of Loki, Sylvie and the revelation that the TVA is basically a lie. Mobius, like all who work at the TVA, is a variant (someone who has disrupted the timeline and created a branch in reality).
Knowing what we know now about what happens to a Mobius strip when it is cut off-centre (or you could say, steered away from it’s usual flow), it’s hard not to draw comparisons from the shape’s namesake.
And as a further thought, it’s also quite interesting that Mobius’ main weapon in the series is to trap people in a time loop.
That said, we will leave you pondering on why – knowing what you now know about the name – it is Mobius who often utters one of the show’s most quoted lines: ‘For all time. Always.’