Everyone's favourite Asgardian god of mischief has returned as the titular character in Marvel Studios' latest Disney+ series Loki, with Tom Hiddleston reprising his role from previous MCU films. Much like WandaVision and The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, Loki takes place after the events of Avengers: Endgame but instead of continuing from the end of the film, we're picking up from the 2012 time heist, which I'll explain more on later. It's long been stated that this new series will expand on the concept of the multiverse, something that the MCU will dive into heading for, and if episode 1 is anything to go by, we're definitely in for some timey-wimey shenanigans. Let's get started.
INITIAL THOUGHTS AND COMMENTS (SPOILER ALERT)
In Avengers: Endgame, we see the remaining heroes in 2023 traveling back to various points in the past to retrieve the Infinity Stones, all in a bid to reassemble the Infinity Gauntlet and reverse the effects of Thanos' Snap. One such time heist (as they're known) was to 2012 during the Battle of New York that took place in The Avengers, with Iron Man and Ant-Man heading after the Space Stone (in Tesseract form). Of course, that plan fails and the Tesseract winds up right in front of Loki, who's about to be taken away to Asgard by Thor. The devious Asgardian picks up the Cube and teleports away, creating an alternate timeline/reality (referred to as Earth-TRN732 on the Marvel Database) where Loki was never incarcerated post-The Avengers and putting him on the radar of the Time Variance Authority (TVA), a multiverse-spanning organisation that helps to ensure the proper flow of time. After Loki escapes to Mongolia, a team of TVA agents led by Hunter B-15 (played by Wunmi Mosaku) arrives to bring him into their custody, something they do successfully and then destroys Earth-TRN732 using a "reset charge".
As we find out, the TVA work for the Time-Keepers, cosmic entities that ensure the flow of time happens like it's supposed to and keep the multiverse in check by getting the TVA to erase any splinter timeline that shouldn't exist. Essentially, anyone who deviates from the dictated timestream are classified as variants, and are hunted down by the TVA to eliminate both them and their new unwanted timeline. That's exactly what happened to this Loki variant, who diverged from his mainstream universe counterpart's set path when he teleported away with the Tesseract. Before he can be erased from existence though, TVA agent Mobius M. Mobius (played by Owen Wilson) "saves" Loki from certain death by attempting to recruit him for a mission. It turns out that Mobius is hunting down a rogue variant that has escaped capture and is wreaking havoc throughout the timestream, killing teams of agents and pushing the multiverse to the brink of another war (more on this later).
Of course, this version of Loki hasn't gone through the events of Thor: The Dark World and Thor: Ragnarok, which were essentially his redemption arc before his heroic sacrifice in Avengers: Infinity War, so at this point in time he's still portrayed as a villain who wants to rule Earth and beyond. However, we get a peek under the hood at the Asgardian's motivations when Mobius tries to find out "what makes Loki tick" by showing him a glimpse of what was supposed to be his future, including inadvertently allowing Kurse to kill his adoptive mother Frigga in Thor: The Dark World. While initially trying to escape, Loki winds up watching the abridged version of his mainstream counterpart's life, seeing both Frigga and Odin's deaths, his reconciliation with brother Thor and ultimately his own death at the hands of Thanos. This more or less brings him up to speed with what would've been his life and he opens up to Mobius, revealing that he only hurt people as an illusion, just like how weak people make others fear them so that they appear strong. Mobius then reveals to Loki that the variant they're hunting is another variant of Loki, who we see at the very end of the episode killing another TVA team and igniting a field on fire in Salina, Oklahoma in 1858.
Many people over at Marvel have said that Loki will open up an entire realm of possibilities for the MCU's future and from episode 1 alone, there're a lot of revelations as to how the multiverse operates with regards to the MCU. For starters, it's important to note that the MCU (Earth-199999) exists alongside the various alternate universes in the comics, whether it's the mainstream Marvel universe (Earth-616) or the Ultimate universe (Earth-1610). Marvel assigns official reality numbers to most of their universes and for those that don't have them, well, the kind folks over at Marvel Database give them Temporary Reality Numbers (TRNs) just like with the various realities spawned from the time heists. As such, it's generally understood that Marvel only operates with one giant multiverse that encompasses everything from comics to live-action films/TV series to even the animated stuff. However, Loki might actually be introducing the fact that the MCU is its own multiverse in and of itself, with it being revealed to us that there was once a multiversal war where different timelines fought for supremacy over one another until the Time-Keepers came in to tidy things up and create a single timeline, which is now known as Earth-199999.
Everything that has happened in the MCU is dictated by the Time-Keepers and is supposed to happen, including the time-traveling hijinks that the Avengers got up to in Avengers: Endgame. However, this then begs the question of how the Loki variant is able to exist as we know him. The only reason he was able to escape is because Earth-199999's Iron Man (who had the Tesseract) was knocked out by Earth-TRN732's Hulk, causing the artifact to slide neatly into Loki's hands, allowing him to teleport away. This issue then results in the Avengers needing to do another time heist to get the Tesseract from another point in time, creating yet another divergent reality that the Time-Keepers allowed. It doesn't make sense as to why this version of Loki is then considered a variant who deliberately "altered" the timestream when his actions directly caused the Avengers to create another timeline but they were let off scot-free.
In the first place, I don't even know how variants can exist. How can anyone possibly decide to NOT do something that the Time-Keepers want them to if they don't know any better? That's like saying one day I decided to end this blog only to get incarcerated and erased by the TVA because I created a splinter timeline that brings the multiverse closer to disaster. Are you confused yet? Well don't worry because this whole thing is absolutely mind-boggling to say the least. While I do believe that some of these questions will be answered not only as the series progresses but also in future MCU products, I fear that this will create more plot holes than solve them. The revelation that the Time-Keepers are effectively controlling everything we do is probably something that'll be expanded on as we go along and there'll probably be a whole free will vs dictatorship plot point in the series.
This is definitely going to be an interesting watch, as we see the titular Asgardian and Mobius hop from timeline to timeline in an attempt to stop the other Loki variant. Along the way, this can only mean that the multiverse will only become bigger and more insane, with different versions of Loki popping up here and there. We don't know for sure who the rogue Loki is but there're theories that it'll be Lady Loki (potentially played by Sophia Di Martino). If we've learnt anything from previous series though, theorising is a dangerous game (looking at you Quicksilver and Mephisto from WandaVision) so let's just see where it goes from here. As of right now, I think it'll be quite fun for Marvel to explore all these new concepts through the lens of an antihero Loki, who hasn't quite become the hero he was post-Thor: Ragnarok but at the same time has come to terms with the fact that he's not a true villain. Tom Hiddleston has constantly killed it in this role over the past decade and this will certainly be no different. It might even be a breath of fresh air to see him return as the "irredeemable" and devilish Loki from The Avengers. Either way I hope you'll join me on this wild ride and explore what Loki will bring to the future of the MCU.
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