Tom Hiddlestone’s Loki has been wooing Marvel fans since he first appeared in Thor, always growing both in terms of character development and prominence within the MCU. Despite being more of an anti-hero than a villain, the god of mischief has become one of the best Marvel antagonists throughout these 13 years.
For that reason it really wasn’t too surprising that Marvel Studios had Loki first in line when deciding to produce the many spin-offs that will adorn Disney Plus in the foreseeable future. However, since the main timeline Loki is very much dead after sacrificing himself in Avengers: Infinity War, the Loki starring in his own series will be an entirely different take on the character.
All things considered, Loki represents a very different kind of series for Marvel than WandaVision or The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, as those two are meant to tie loose ends by resolving storylines or question marks that were lingering after Avengers: Endgame; meanwhile Loki will likely be based on entirely new problems created by the trickster god.
WandaVision and Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness will set up the plot of several realities within the MCU, but Loki is playing off the beat laid down by the timeline split in Endgame. This is very obvious in the show’s first trailer which poses the premise of what would happen to a Loki that escapes with the Tesseract and never goes on to live all the events that went down in Thor: The Dark World, Ragnarok and Infinity War.
This leads to the first standout element in Loki, that being the existence of several Lokis even within his own show. To better understand this it’s better to take a look at Loki’s new forced labor gig in the Time Variance Authority (TVA), the agency mixes all the bureaucratic nightmares of institutions like the FBI and CIA with the mind-twisting complications of interdimensional time travel that will surely spill some consequences over the rest of the MCU.
In Marvel Comics lore, the TVA is tasked with overseeing the smooth development of all time across all dimensions, intervening whenever one of the Avengers or their foes disrupt the natural flow of things. This puts the TVA at odds with many time travel aficionados like Reed Richards and the rest of the Fantastic Four, several characters within the Thor comics and Kang the Conqueror.In that sense, Kang the Conqueror could be part of a new approach to MCU villains since he’s already booked for Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania. By deciding to tackle head on the existence for multiple universes and timelines, Loki’s introduction to the TVA helps frame the reality-twisting shenanigans with an ounce of order from an all-powerful entity like the TVA or the Living Tribunal.
Loki himself is already teased to be assigned missions across different eras, even hunting himself down, as can be seen in the President Loki part of the trailer in a shot that seemingly shows two Lokis in the same place. In that same way, the suited-up version of Hiddlestone’s Loki would apparently place him as the mysterious D.B. Cooper, a real-life plane hijacker from the 70s that pretty much disappeared from the face of the earth.
In six episodes Loki could put the character against other versions of himself that are altering other timelines on Earth in ways not suited to the TVA’s interest, even some never-before-seen takes on the Asgardian like Lady Loki, Kid Loki, or Classic Loki. The female version of Loki is likely what many could have mistaken for Black Widow in the series’ trailer due her being shown in a setting similar to where Natasha Romanoff met her fate.
These many incarnations of Loki all come with their own very different personality traits, with Classic Loki being the more deranged villain the character was designed to be and something like Kid Loki being more of a reincarnated god that’s finally found his path to redemption, so maybe the TVA’s purpose is just to have Loki reign in his doppelgangers prior to his definitive death later on or usher the era of a new Loki for the future.
And that’s only as far a Loki is concerned, as the series still has to designate a main antagonist for Loki and the TVA, which could be anyone from Kang the Conqueror being teased for Ant-Man 3, the Roxxon Corporation, or maybe just another version of Loki himself. One shot that focuses on Owen Wilson’s Mobius M. Mobius and a little girl has a stained glass featuring a devilish figure that could very well be the Mephisto fans had been so hyped for in WandaVision.
As for potential cameos, the airplane hijacking scene in the trailer has a Loki voiceover where he appears to be talking to Heimdall and Thor, so who knows if Idris Elba and Chris Hemsworth found time to shoot any Loki scenes. Given the early record with WandaVision, crazy cameos are not to be expected as this might just be another case of Marvel wanting to focus on the spin-off protagonist.
If The Falcon and the Winter Soldier are supposed to sort out who’s the next Captain America and WandaVision introduces the Scarlet Witch, Loki should be an overview of just what kind of four-dimensional chess game will be taking place in the MCU’s Phase Four. At the very least it should be a grand encore and sendoff for one of Marvel’s most charming villains, since as Loki would say he’s always been “burdened with glorious purpose”.
Loki is set to release on Disney Plus on June 11, 2021.
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