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  1. #841
    Extraordinary Member Raye's Avatar
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    Estimates are in, and as usual grain of salt, probably not the actual numbers blah blah, but this is what we have to work with so...
    https://www.comichron.com/monthlycom...9/2019-07.html

    I was slightly off, but thankfully i lowballed it, the book actually debuted at 51,725. That would be a decent start, if it wasn't boosted, but we do have the 50% boost to contend with which places it's initial orders closer to 35k, which is not so hot. BUT as mentioned, it did get a second printing, so Marvel probably saved the book from an early demise with those extra issues, because apparently the retailers were fairly stingy with their initial orders. We will have to see how much it drops over the next few issues to say if it's safe from cancellation for a while. These figures are based on what retailers estimate they can sell, sometimes they guess low, sometimes they guess high, and it takes a while for them to find the actual audience. All depends on the drop off, I've seen books plummet after the first issue, and i've seen some stay steady or even rise (Immortal Hulk being a good example there) but usually there is drop off.

    For comparison, Valkyrie debuted at 43k, though keep in mind that book had one more variant cover than Loki did, plus a more well known creative team.

    In both cases though, if the Amazon listing is correct about the number of issues collected and date, even if it's wrong about the volume number, then that means both books will have their first trade out right as the new run on Thor is probably just beginning, which could help with trade sales for both, and it may help them hold steady or increase from issue 6 and beyond, if they tie into Thor's book from that point on. That may be why they got them on the shelves when they did, despite the very existence of Loki's book spoiling part of the ending of WotR, so they could have that key first trade hitting just before the new Thor run starts, allowing new readers on the Thor book to catch up on the tie-ins easily.

  2. #842
    Protector of Mortals Prof. Aegis's Avatar
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    I think the fact that it went to a 2nd printing on the 1st issue is a good sign. From what I remember, the current Hulk series did start out a hit, but grew to be one. So, I'm keeping a positive mindset and feeling as though Loki will be fine.
    The Doors of Wisdom are never shut! - Benjamin Franklin

  3. #843
    Extraordinary Member Raye's Avatar
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    Yeah, I think we don't need to be all doom and gloom, but it's also not a home run, either. But it's at a place where we can still hope for the best, tho it kind of depends on how large the reorder of #1 was. We'll see in a month, i guess. But I think we are at a place where we can still be optimistic.

    Not like the poor folks over in the Ms Marvel thread. She's in 5 books on those charts, (tho, one is an annual and one is a mini) and apparently all of them have fallen to 15k or below, so all in the death zone (and Champions is already confirmed to be cancelled). But, her current run started out at around 30k, and then got an overship with issue 2, so... I mean, not too different from Loki's situation, we'll have to hope for something better there. But I do think Ms Marvel's sales are falling kind of unusually fast. something about the new volume just isn't clicking with fans, it seems. But she may end up being floated by Scholastic and trades/digital, like Squirrel Girl was, she's in that kind of demographic.
    Last edited by Raye; 08-12-2019 at 06:45 PM.

  4. #844
    Extraordinary Member Raye's Avatar
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    Well, today's issue left something to be desired when it came to a battle of wits between two of the MU's smartest characters, who also happen to be remarkably similar to one another in many ways. He just said Thor sent him (liar) and that was that, Tony let him go and they talked. So that was a little disappointing, I was hoping to have them matched against each other and Loki having to outsmart Tony.

    spoilers:
    He also apparently thought the Casino was Tony's even though that doesn't make sense to me, but as he said in the issue, I am sure that will come back round to bite him in the ass later. Still think Hood is a strong possibility there. I have a feeling his plans changed midway though, he starts out saying he is there for advice, but then never asks for advice, he instead asks... To join the Avengers. Both Thor (when Loki asked him the other day at the library) and Tony find the request ridiculous of course, and tells Loki that they'll let him on the team if he shows up next time with Mjolnir in hand, to which Loki says 'deal.' So of course we know it will happen, now. I mean I have been saying for months and months that he is going to join the Avengers, but I just assumed that when it happened it would be more of a 'we must team up against out better judgement because the situation is just that dire' thing than Loki just asking to join. But now it's set up part of his goal being to join the Avengers, so I think it will happen, especially given the other teases in Avengers itself. One of the teases being that when the Winter Guard showed up they had Perun and Chernobog as an obvious parallel to Thor and Loki, and Tony saying to never go 'double god' after they turned on one another. So of course now the team has to go double god and annoy Tony. Also the teases about Loki lifting Mjolnir, from the cover to issue 1 to "I'm sure I'll be worthy enough any day now" in the Omega issue, to the flash forward to the future, where he has it. There is too much there for it to not happen now, unless it ends up being a case of him realizing that it's not actually what he wanted and retroactively changing his mind. If he gets time powers he may be able to retcon his story.

    And speaking of the future. So it appears the book doesn't have the future shown in the flash forward, instead it is a bland 'and they lived happily ever after' ending. Which Thor likes, because he sees it as they having broken the Ragnarok cycle, and just generally a good thing. Loki sees it as the story ending with him never being anything more than 'Thor's brother' and I think he wants to be seen as more than an accessory to Thor's story.

    And then Thor leaves after telling him a Loki will never be an Avenger, which, I mean, rude. And a mysterious figure approaches him with a deal, which Loki knows is probably a bad one, but goes along with it anyway, I guess figuring he has nothing to lose. He is whisked away to the House of Ideas, and greeted by 2 children with the same kind of look as Eternity, so I guess the Children of Eternity are literally Eternity's kids. He experiences a flashback of some of his life highlights, good and bad, including him as 'a fancy cowboy' so that's happening, and as for the future, we get one caption 'I fall in love, I die in battle, I get everything I wanted' so we haven't seen the love part, but that does line up with him hitting the Thor story beats, he needs a 'Jane'. In any case, it's been a long time since we've seen him with anyone romantically, aside from that brief thing with Zelma in Dr Strange, I think that was about it in.... decades. So that will be nice to see. And dying in battle seems to line up with what we saw at the end of the first issue. So that end may be what he wants than we first guessed. It seems that he wants a dramatic end to his story if it is to come to an end, rather than just trailing off. Which is kind of sad in a way, it's the same line of thinking that led to him being eaten by Laufey. But at least now he is intending to live first, make a name for himself that's all his rather than a part in Thor's story.

    Also, as all this is happening Nightmare enters the waking world through the Nightmare of a woman, and makes her worst fear a reality (having never met the woman who would become her wife) and swears revenge on Loki. So you know set up for next issue.
    end of spoilers

    Overall, it's still fun, but not as good as the first issue. Certain things don't make sense or quite line up, mostly regarding the casino, but it may be some time shenanigans cropping up early, somehow. Like, the timeline just doesn't seem to sync up right. If Loki intentionally went to the casino to show Tony he wanted to do Avengering, then it doesn't really make sense that it occurred before the talk with Thor in the library where he first floated the idea of joining the Avengers. It's also not clear why he thought Tony would A) be impressed that he destroyed a casino he owned, assuming that was the case. B) why Loki thought Tony would have an illegal casino in the first place.

    Also he referred to the Library meeting as a 'save point' so there is some video game stuff coming in already, and I think the Breath of the Wild walkthrough could make a bit more sense, in the way I speculated before where it is presented as him playing a game. The time stuff could be him basically save scumming. Like, imagine he can play the game, get a result he doesn't like, then go back over and over until it works out the way he wants. He can only travel back to a previous state, not forward, but he will retain the memory of the previous attempt. Just like playing a game with a save where you load the game after the boss kicks your ass, or you mess up a puzzle, you choose the wrong dialogue option, or you realize you forgot to pick up a key item an hour ago and need to do that to progress. (more an issue with old school adventure games, Sierra was where I encountered some of these, much to the frustration of my young self, in Kings Quest and Space Quest, but most modern games make accidentally creating an unwinnable state impossible, but still). Everyone else is playing a MMO, he's playing a single player RPG with hundreds of saves.
    Last edited by Raye; 08-14-2019 at 06:55 AM. Reason: added links incase you're not an old school adventure game nerd like me

  5. #845
    Spectacular Member Karabaja's Avatar
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    I actually liked it even better than the first issue. The interaction between Loki and Thor was emotional, conveying well their drastically different views of what a happy ending is, and Thor is so happy that he and Loki are finally on the same side that; it's sweet. Pity he once again fails to understand Loki's displeasure and too easily brushes it off, and Loki once again feels like he's in Thor's shadow. The overall tone was an appropriate combination of funny and foreboding. Me like.

  6. #846
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    Good comparison to games, but I also remember how often my saves would be corrupted, especially on the PS1. And even today, if something happens to my systems, then again, my saves are useless.

    So while this is a massivd power boost for him, you can also see the downsides already rearing up.

    Also, freaking "Low Key" had me rolling! How long did it take them to come up with that? Lol

  7. #847
    Extraordinary Member Raye's Avatar
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    A comparison doesn't mean every single aspect has to carry over. It's not as though the MU can have it's hard drive corrupted, and if it did, then Loki (and everyone else) likely has much bigger problems to worry about than not being able to go back in time. It's the concept that's important. I think it fits with what Kibblesmith said about the new power, and it could retroactively explain some of the weirdness we've seen with Loki over the past few years and him constantly popping up with cryptic warnings about the future, and no explanation of how he got that knowledge. And yes, this is basically, at it's core, the trick Dr Strange used in his movie vs Dormammu.... or Moira. but the way I am thinking of it, Loki is doing it on a larger timeframe. He's immortal, he can roll things back hundreds of years if he really needs to, whereas Strange only had moments to work with. Problem with the larger timeframes though is, if you've done this in a game, you know how annoying it is knowing that you have to lose hours of progress because you missed some stupid macguffin or forgot to talk to some character or whatever an hour ago, or just died and you forgot to save in a while, (I installed an auto-save mod on Skyrim and Fallout for just this reason) or the fucking Russians finish building a wonder 3 turns before you were due to finish it, and you have to play through all that stuff again. (but this time with more forest chopping, because **** you, Russia, if anyone is going to have the Hanging Gardens it's going to be me, Japan) Well, if Loki only needs to alter one thing days, or even years ago, but everything else has to stay the same, he's got to live through all this stuff he's already done while changing nothing, just repeating it. Even bad things he no longer wants to do, if he goes back to the bad old days. Potentially over and over, like Groundhog Day. If he doesn't stick to the script he could alter the future far more than he intends. That could be where the curse comes in. If this does end up being the case, I am not sure if it would be a case of this being the intent all along, or if it would be Kibblesmith trying to explain away a weird quirk of Loki's recent appearances, but works either way.

    and the shirt, i mean, it's one of those things where to me, it's like why didn't they do it sooner? But judging by the cover for issue 4, it looks like Loki is probably going to end up fighting Nightmare before he can go home to change his clothes, so this may be his outfit (barring flashbacks/nightmare visions/time hops) for the next several issues.

    I guess mostly I am just a bit bummed that we never saw the battle of wits between Loki and Tony. I was just kind of looking forward to that aspect. But i do think that given a bit of time, as Loki kind of alluded to, they could actually be friends, because they think on such similar wavelengths.

    edited to add - oh, and on the Avengers front, though I was kind of expecting something more dramatic when Loki joined up than just, you know, asking. (though with a test of worthiness thrown in, even if it is one that Tony does not expect he would be able to fulfill) I guess this does clarify things for both fans and the other characters where he stands. Some will probably say it's a trick, and that he has an ulterior motive, sure, but this is about as clear as his motivations have been in years, and it's kind of a relief after having to piece together all these little hints to figure out what he was up to. But this may also explain why he wanted the Avengers re-formed in the first place. so... yes, that would mean an ulterior motive, but not necessarily a bad one.
    Last edited by Raye; 08-14-2019 at 09:52 AM.

  8. #848
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    I don't think Loki intended to join them in the beginning, but now he wants to because it's something to do and something that will be interesting and trying and which will make him feel better.

    I honestly feel like Thor is trying to protect Loki here. He wants Loki to be out of danger and in a safe environment where he won't be hurt or feel the need to hurt himself.

    And Loki is not only talking about how he expected his story to end in his death via heroic suicide, but Loki is still obviously worried that the other giants will eat him. That isn't healthy and that gives you a pretty good reason why Thor wants him to just do something safe.

    And while the MU doesn't work exactly like a video game, Loki's powers would be pretty dangerous if his mental state worsens or even if his drinking does become a problem later on.

  9. #849
    Extraordinary Member Raye's Avatar
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    ok here's my thoughts on the Avengers, and the time travel stuff, if it pans out. We don't have any reason to believe that the children of Eternity approach Loki only in the timeline as it appears here, presumably they approached him in other, worse timelines as well. They have to approach them in all timelines, or it can't hold together, because it creates a paradox otherwise. So assume he gets this power no matter what. It is fixed, regardless of events. So we have to assume they approached him in one where everything went wrong with WotR (but he still managed to live) and he went back to form the Avengers, and fix magic in Dr Strange, and all that other stuff he did where he seemed to be acting with future knowledge and dropped cryptic hints. All in order to ensure WotR, even if he could not stop it, could be survivable, and Malekith be defeated in the end. With magic fixed, and the Avengers formed and setting up shop inside a dead Celestial, Dr Strange can evacuate people to a new impenetrable base at the North Pole that Malektih never does manage to capture, and serves as a refuge for thousands, while providing a base of operations for the fight against Malekith. So I think it could be argued that forming the Avengers was part of this, considering all the weird future knowledge it took to accomplish it. Joining may be a later decision, once he saw how his actions ended up playing out with WotR, and that it led to the end of his story.

    And i don't think Loki is worrying about being eaten specifically, or that he's wanting a 'heroic suicide' so much, he was just using that as an example of why his current situation wasn't as good as Thor was making it out to be. Likely mentioning being eaten because Laufey ate him, sure, but I don't think 'avoid being eaten' is a motivator so much as all the other stuff. I think ensuring his story isn't over and being relegated to doing nothing of consequence with the rest of his very long life, and wanting to create a legacy for himself that doesn't revolve around Thor or being the bad guy is his main concern. He got declared a hero and then the story was kind of declared over right as that happened, which is sort of a bad deal. He kinda gets the title in the story/history books, but none of the benefits in life. Being slapped with the title of hero due to one heroic act isn't the same as being a hero. And it is still all wrapped up in Thor's story rather than being fully his own. As for dying, i think he just doesn't want to live without purpose. He's not suicidal right now, I don't think. I think he just wants his life to have meaning. If his story is over according to these magic books of fate, then what exactly is he supposed to be doing for the next few thousand years?
    Last edited by Raye; 08-14-2019 at 11:53 AM.

  10. #850
    Extraordinary Member Raye's Avatar
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    A thought occurs to me that this new love interest whoever they may be (I'm still on the Giant Man train, personally. but not in a will die for my ship kind of way, I'd be cool with whoever, really, I just kind of would like it to be a guy, since he is canonically bi/pan, but has only ever been with women up until now, and I think he makes sense) could help keep the new power in check, in the sappiest way ever. Okay, think about it, you just found someone to love, it is a brand new relationship, and it's all super sweet blah blah. But your new power is going back in time to fix past wrongs, but you can't jump forward again, if the save scumming analogy holds true. So in that case, are you going to jump back in time a hundred years over and over, unless it's SUPER urgent? A year, even? While Loki can jump back and still interact with his family, (though depending on when he jumps to, they may hate him, but still) if this is a mortal, every time he sends his consciousness back, he's saying goodbye to them for potentially a very long time, until he catches up with meeting them again. And if he alters things too much, they may not longer be in a relationship with you when he gets back to the present, hell, they may die, or not be born at all. Look what happened to that woman in this issue, it would be just like that. It would encourage Loki to use caution and restraint, or he puts this relationship, maybe the person themselves, at risk.

    Also of course, there is the question of what happens to Loki personally. I mean, depending on how it works, since we are apparently not dealing with bodily time travel, but it is his consciousness going back to a previous state, it could be seen as erasing his past self, and the farther back he goes, the more different he is, so the more severe it gets. Present Loki's mind suddenly appearing in the body of his past self from the viking days would be... very different. And that difference could create problems in the future if he does not play the part exactly, as mentioned above. It's potentially kind of like erasing Kid Loki's consciousness all over again, depending on how much of a replacement of the mind it is. Is it just a memory dump? or is it an actual rewriting of the brain from a later state? it definitely poses some moral quandaries if he goes back more than a couple months.

    Basically, yes, this is powerful, but it carries HUGE risk.

    And of course this all depends on if I am even right. I think it fits, but I could be wrong.
    Last edited by Raye; 08-14-2019 at 03:07 PM.

  11. #851

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    Oh hey, Loki made it onto the cover of Squirrel Girl #50! Alongside a lot of Doreen's reformed villain friends, but its still so nice to see his part in the book being acknowledged as part of a final issue cover.

  12. #852
    Extraordinary Member Raye's Avatar
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    here's the cover:

    https://www.marvel.com/articles/comi...-this-november


    It's not all reformed villains on there, Doreen's usual friends are on there, including iron Man, tho he's not in his armor. Also a couple not-so-refomred ones, like Mole Man, and, well... Kraven is dead.... :-/

    but omg, we so need a Loki, Squirrel Girl and Iron Man teamup.
    Last edited by Raye; 08-14-2019 at 03:19 PM.

  13. #853
    Protector of Mortals Prof. Aegis's Avatar
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    I enjoyed issue 2. I liked the interaction between Loki and Tony. I thought Loki did a good job of outsmarting Tony, but throwing Thor's name in there. Tony calmed down, even though he didn't fully believe Loki. And Loki's comment about Tony naming his new car ANVL. Classic. And Tony getting flustered about the name and that Loki could see it was a bad idea.

    Okay, so Nightmare escaped and found Loki. Does Loki realize that and just playing coy, or does he not have a clue?

    Yeah, Thor still doesn't understand Loki, and the depths of his soul. And you can see how Loki is frustrated and stressed over it. That was a great page seeing some of the highlights from his past. And his possible future. Curious.

    So who are those two at the end? And yeah what is that house? What do they know about time. And was one of them the one that brought Loki to the house?

    No UnFather this issue, but hope he's mentioned next issue. Thought this was well done and adds to the story and intrigue.
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  14. #854
    Spectacular Member Karabaja's Avatar
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    I'm rereading it now, and here's a stupid question about that flashback: when, exactly, had he been a "fancy cowboy"? Did I miss something?

  15. #855
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    It was ok. But Loki is not as smart than before.
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