It’s a foregone conclusion at this point that anything Marvel Studios puts out is going to be a hit. Your personal mileage may vary, but as a whole, the fandom is locked in. WandaVision and The Falcon and the Winter Soldier (read: Captain America and...) delivered some surprises, but overall we knew the direction they were taking us in. Marvel's Loki differs from these two in its first episode alone by throwing most of my expectations out of the window.
Warning: If you haven’t watched the first episode of the Marvel and Disney Plus Series Loki, turn back, there will be spoilers.
Where Did We Last Leave Loki?
To start things off, Loki is picked up by the Time Variance Authority (Marvel’s Time Cops) very quickly. A lot of theories centered on the idea that Loki getting away with the Tesseract (the Space Stone) would be at the heart of the ‘time problems’. However, Loki being nabbed within the first 5 minutes and processed through the TVA shuts that all down.
The first episode is dedicated to tearing down the very being of Loki as a character at this point in his life. The God of Mischief has always been an antagonist, but as TVA Agent Mobius (Owen Wilson) puts it, Loki isn’t really a villain. His main purpose is to inspire those around him to be the best versions of themselves (mainly Thor and the Avengers.)
The issue with Loki as a character is that through the Infinity Saga we saw the start, middle, and end of his character arc exactly as it should be. As others around him grow and learn, Loki shows promise of doing the same but keeps defaulting back to his factory settings and betraying people...until he doesn’t and dies trying to be the hero.
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