Loki season 2 is continuing to string viewers along about one of the series’ biggest mysteries since the first season: What is the true identity of Owen Wilson’s Mobius M. Mobius? The Time Variance Authority agent who’s become good friends with Tom Hiddleston’s Loki has hinted that he’s curious about who he was before getting recruited by Jonathan Majors’ He Who Remains and had his mind wiped in the process.
The big reveal at the end of Loki season 1 was that all of the TVA employees were variants of people who would otherwise have to be pruned from the sacred timeline, just like Loki. As such, some of the agents have gone rogue in the latest season to reconnect with their former identity, such as Rafael Casal’s X-05 dipping out to 1977 Earth in order to resume his life as the movie star Brad Wolfe. However, there are tons of other characters whose origins we know nothing about, with Mobius being one of the biggest names teased.
With that, let’s take a look at some of the best theories out there to explain who Mobius was before getting recruited into the TVA.
5. Mobius is a jet ski salesman
One clue about Mobius’ origins might be his obsession with jet skis. Owing to having a copy of Wake magazine in his office and going off about jet skis all the time, saying how they’re “awesome,” we think this is one aspect of his past life that was really integral. There’s even a quote from Mobius in Loki season 1 episode 4, “The Nexus Event,” that supports this:
“You know where I’d go if I could go anywhere? Wherever it is I’m really from. Yeah, wherever I had a life before the TVA came along. Maybe I had a jet ski. That’s what I’d like to do. Just riding around on my jet ski.”
Why would Mobius’ knowledge about jet skis from his previous life survive the TVA’s mind wipe but not much else? It could be that his sales pitch for jet skis was so ingrained into him, like second nature, that it was just too deeply integrated into his very personality to be dissolved from his mind. Seemingly supporting his theory is the fact that we’ve seen a shot of Loki standing in front of what appears to be a jet ski dealership or rental place, called Piranha Powersports, in the trailers for Loki season 2 that will likely pay off any day now as the series progresses.
4. Mobius is a variant of Phil Coulson
One fan theory we discovered on Reddit by the user u/PrinccessMorphius intrigued us for its excellent job of reconciling the Marvel Cinematic Universe with Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., a TV show whose canonicity is sometimes disputed. This theory suggests that Mobius is actually a variant of Clark Gregg’s Phil Coulson. While Phil was killed by Loki in 2012’s The Avengers, he was later resurrected in S.H.I.E.L.D. via Project T.A.H.I.T.I., an experimental program that involved using alien tissue to bring people back from the dead.
Even though T.A.H.I.T.I. was meant to resurrect a fallen Avenger, Samuel L. Jackson’s Nick Fury ended up using it to bring back Phil. However, Phil had to get his mind wiped because the procedure could make one go insane. As a result, Phil had falsely implanted memories of recovering from his injury from the Battle of New York on a beach in Tahiti. It could be that doing lots of jet skiing happened to be part of his fictional recovery period in a tropical paradise, thus resulting in Mobius constantly talk about jet skis as that one sliver of an implanted memory just couldn’t get erased by the TVA.
Coulson’s resurrection in Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. has specifically been called out by The Avengers director Joss Whedon as not being canon. However, Phil being brought back from the dead could be the Nexus Event that caused the TVA to take him out of his timeline to begin with, making it a perfect plot point to reconcile the MCU with the ABC series. Plus, we love this theory for the inevitable confrontation this would set up for Mobius and Loki as the God of Mischief would have to explain why he killed his new friend in one version of reality.
3. Mobius is LokiÂ
Another intriguing fan theory founded on the r/FanTheories subreddit posits that Mobius and Loki are actually the same person. With Loki struggling with time-slipping in season 2, he is routinely jettisoned to either the TVA’s past or future. Perhaps during one of these slips to the past, he has to duck out from the wrath of some confused TVA hunters so he disguises himself as Mobius using his powers to change his appearance.
However, maybe something goes wrong, Loki gets recaptured by the TVA and has his memories wiped again, but he is still in his Mobius form and basically thinks that’s who he is for real. This theory suggests there was no “original Mobius” but rather he is part of an endless loop created by Loki’s time slipping, a “bootstrap paradox.” This would be somewhat akin to Lars Fillmore from Futurama being a version of Philip J. Fry from another time period from the TV movie Bender’s Big Score.
While this theory sounds wacky at first, the Reddit post includes numerous examples of dialogue in Loki seasons 1 and 2 that seem to hint at this. It would also make sense of Mobius’ name — a Mobius strip is, after all, an infinite loop.
2. Mobius is the Oklahoma McDonald’s employee
There is also an intriguing theory by Erik Voss that states we’ve already met Mobius’ pre-TVA self in the form of the young McDonald’s employee in Oklahoma, the place where Sophia Di Martino’s Sylvie is currently hiding. Voss even went so far as to suggest that the character could have developed his love of jet skis, even though Oklahoma is land-locked, due to the prominent lakes and rivers.
The two characters also conveniently have Southern accents, so it does track in that regard. Plus, Sylvie even asks Jack (played by Jack Cunningham-Nuttall) if his mom is coming to pick him up. Her wanting to make sure he gets home safe could be some kind of clue that she actually knows he is her friend Mobius from the past.
1. Mobius is a clone
In the comics, Mobius is actually a clone of another character, Mr. Alternity. Mr. Alternity is the highest-ranking authority within the TVA and its director. So far in Loki seasons 1 and 2, we haven’t met Mr. Alternity. However, there are still more episodes to come this season so maybe we will one day and maybe he will be played by Owen Wilson, too.
