Loki’s Time-Keepers weren’t quite what they seemed to be in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but they have a very different story in comics.
The Disney+ series Loki opened up a whole new world to the Marvel Cinematic Universe, thanks to the timeline-spanning efforts of the Time Variance Authority. Although they weren’t quite who they initially seemed to be, the legendary Time-Keepers, the TVA’s leaders, also made their debut. However, these Time-Keepers proved to be different from their comics counterparts, since they were ultimately little more than robotic figureheads. This is far from their story in the comics, which saw the Time-Keepers as cosmic begins turned victims of one of Marvel’s biggest interdimensional wars.
The Time-Keepers themselves had been a quietly integral part of the Marvel Universe ever since their first appearance in 1979’s Thor #282 by Mark Gruenwald, Ralph Macchio and Keith Pollard, though it wouldn’t be until decades later in the pages of Avengers: Forever, by Kurt Busiek, Roger Stern and Carlos Pacheco, that their place in it became clear.
Immortus, one of the many names that Kang the Conqueror took for himself, started working on behalf of the Time-Keepers. Having been created by He Who Remains with the express purpose of keeping time safe, the Time-Keepers almost immediately found their attention drawn to Earth’s Mightiest Heroes who they deemed too influential for their own good. In fact, all of humanity was quickly becoming a problem across all timelines. Their concerns were largely centered around the Destiny Force, an enigmatic power that humanity held the secrets without even knowing it. When the Time-Keepers decided to cull almost all versions of the Avengers in a bid to protect themselves during 1999’s Avengers: Forever #11, the Destiny War began with a bang.
To protect themselves from their intended targets, the Time-Keepers called upon countless versions of the Avengers from across various timelines, including entire battalions of Thor, Captain America and Iron Man clones. The true Avengers were largely able to overcome the onslaught of less capable versions of themselves thanks to the help of Rick Jones, the Supreme Intelligence and even Kang himself, creating one of the more unlikely super teams in comic book history. This massive team-up proved so threatening to the Time-Keepers that they retreated with Immortus to their citadel in the hopes of reordering all of time at once to stop their own impending demises from becoming reality.
Thankfully, the Avengers and Kang were able to keep up with their enemies, leaving the Time-Keepers no choice but to try and advance Kang’s own personal timeline to transform him into Immortus. While this would have otherwise removed most of the threat to them, the Time-Keepers greatly overestimated their own abilities. As Rick Jones tore his way through their Time Canon, Kang tore his own way out of the transformation he was being forced to undergo. Once free, he turned his guns on the now weakened Time-Keepers.
While the Time-Keepers had initially been created with the intent of protecting time itself, their own hyperinflated sense of importance proved to be the exact thing that led to their downfall, as the Destiny War likely would have never taken place if not for the Time-Keepers insistence on protecting their own livelihoods over anything else.
As vastly different as the Time-Keepers of the primary Marvel Universe and Marvel Cinematic Universe are, there is an eerie similarity between them in that particular aspect. The Time-Keepers of the MCU may not have been anywhere near as powerful as their comic book counterparts, but with all things considered, that was probably for the best.
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