Thor #1 Spoilers

[JKtheMac]

Except that isn't actually what JiM presented us with. Kid Loki was a creation of Old Loki, designed with the express purpose of buying him a new, more innocent reputation without having to do any work to redeem himself. Kid Loki actually WAS a separate entity, with his own soul and free will. Who loved his brother and tried to find a path out from under all the evil and manipulations of the Old Loki and to a future that could be his alone. His innocence, his heroics, were his own. And then Old Loki murdered him, in order to claim the face and reputation of a more innocent, well respected Loki.

Old Loki wanted all the benefits of changing, without having to actually change. Kid Loki was his shortcut, letting somebody else do all the heavy lifting while he stole the benefits out from under him. The greatest tragedy of JiM is that Kid Loki couldn't escape Old Loki. That Old Loki got away with the perfect murder. Gillen went on to show that Old Loki wasn't completely unaffected by these events in his Young Avengers, which saw New Old Loki (still wearing Kid Loki) try to gain control of Wiccan's mystical powers. And at least implying that Old Loki may not quite be Old Loki anymore, having been changed by the brutal actions that led to his then-current form. Teen Loki was the result, a kind of Hybrid New Loki, born from accepting the guilt he felt at murdering the innocent soul he created to buy his way into good graces again.

This ‘Old Loki murdered him’ is not even how Gillen saw it. He specifically talked about how that wasn’t the case when he said he made it appear that was what had happened in Young Avengers. Old Loki died Ikol and the ‘ghostly Loki’ are not Old Loki. Loki is Loki. The entities present at the ‘murder’ were Loki. Kid Loki was only a part of the whole. This is why both stories since have focused on the idea of different aspects of Loki acting against each other. The act of killing Kid Loki which is effectively a denial of independence and agency of a more optimistic aspect, has left psychological scars on the wider entity that is Loki, and they needed healing to take the character forward. In AoA that isn’t really Old Loki either that’s not how the story gets resolved. Because Old Loki doesn’t actually have an independent existence. The only time he did was in the past.

The writers are never going to tie Loki down to one idea. In Marvel he is clearly a trickster figure. He is a mutable symbol, as slippery as language, impossible to define with language. If any writer categorically explained everything in detail in exposition they would be doing the character a huge disservice. He isn’t supposed to be explained. He is a character that entirely exists in that tricky area of story meaning. He can only be interpreted and never subjected to objectivity. He is no longer a simple villain, indeed he never really was, he was just occasionally written that way.

Anyone that needs closure on Loki needs to look for it more deeply for this reason. Traditionally characters are given closure and clarity of exposition during the denouement. Loki won’t ever get that kind of exposition because it would undercut his very existence as a character.

[Skedatz]

Just read the new issue. I had it for a couple of days, but forgot to read it. I enjoyed the humor in the first story, like Thor living on a tug boat, and Thori laying on his back after eating the shark made me laugh. The art hurt my eyes for the first few pages, but then my brain adjusted to it, and I guess I can live with that for a few issues. The back up story was good. I enjoyed Jane being the Earth Mother, but the ending with Logan? Don't know what to think of that.

Del Mundo's art can sometimes be jarring, but it grows on you.