Loki Appreciation 2019

[Rosebunse]

I remember reading that about Young Avengers, but I am not sure how much stock i would put into that under anyone but Gillen. Subsequent writers have been going based on what appeared in the books, not his writers notes, and the reality warping angle was never explicitly stated, even if that was what Gillen had in his head to explain what was happening. Though yes, I do think Loki has had a problem recently with his powers subconsciously getting out of control, and his power levels could be linked to his emotional state to an extent. though he's in a relatively good place now compared to before, which should mean he's in greater control. I mean sure, he's feeling down about his story being basically over and not having an important part to play going forward if the 'happily ever after' thing holds, but compared to before, that's really good for him.

And the X-Men now threw a wrench in the event speculation, but if my guess about the X-Men striking a deal with the Kree is true, it could still work.

The X-Men being involved doesn't exclude Loki from this event. It does make it a lot more crowded, though, especially when you add in Apocalypse...who is someone I would actually like Loki to meet again.

The only time I really remember them meeting was briefly during Acts of Vengeance, where Loki takes the position of humans really being nothing special and Apocalypse actually defending humanity. Now it's rather the other way around, in many ways, and we're left with Loki, who has evolved substantially as a character since then, and Apocalypse, who...well, really hasn't.

[Lambadelta]

To be honest I don’t really see it as a mental state thing, as Loki being depressed or down etc. or a loss of control of his powers. I mean he can be in full control of his powers really and be mentally stable. I think what I took from the quote and what I was trying to get at, but I think failed badly at, was it’s more of the conscious mind vs. the subconscious mind.

Take Old Loki for example or rather classic Loki. In his conscious mind he wanted to defeat Thor and get hold of Thor’s hammer for himself, that was usually is primary goal but what if subconsciously Loki never actually wanted that which is why he always lost? So, no matter what Loki did or what he set out to do, he would always be outdone by his own subconscious mind.

I think if it applies to current Loki, it’s more the case of his subconscious mind telling him to basically give up because no matter how hard to tries to change in the end he will always end up at square one at some point. Loki has seen the horrors of what his future self has become and the horrors that he has unleashed. He changed the course of his future once, but it seems like his future self got even worse rather than better. I think this might be one of the biggest if not the biggest obstacle that current Loki might have to face in making sure he keeps walking the path he wants rather than the path others want for him or what he thinks will always be his fate.
I think though one thing about this current Loki is that for the first time he has accepted responsibility for his past actions and accepted what those actions led to and I wonder if Necro Loki from the future went through that similar experience or whether it never happened.

I don’t really expect them to do anything on Reality warping, Loki has always shown signs of it, but it’s been more low key and you don’t really notice it unless you look hard enough. Loki though is foremost a magic user and to be honest it’s probably the power that has the most variety and versatility without being too OP. I mean there’s a reason why high-tier reality warpers don’t show up that often because more often than not they are extremely hard to write into an on-going story where they show up regularly. They are more characters who will show up from time to time.

On Necro Loki does anyone think there’s a chance that Necro Loki might not actually be Loki?

[Raye]

Oh, i get it that he was acting subconsciously, and he likely can not tap into the whole reality warping thing on a conscious level, at least not right now, it's something a bit more like Black Cat or Domino's low level reality/probability warping; they don't have any control over it, but it's just kind of there, influencing things around them, but theirs acts to their benefit no matter what, Loki's sometimes hurts him. But it is still driven by his emotions, clearly. It seems to be that when he gets all depressed or overrun with guilt that things go pear shaped for him and he subconsciously attacks himself with his powers, as Gillen said, he was subconsciously trying to punish himself. Being in a better place mentally means everyone is better off because he's not accidentally summoning up things to defeat himself, even if he can't consciously tap into that extra power. In your example with Thor, it may not have been depression or guilt, but he was still letting his jealousy and vindictiveness overcome him, so still not actually in a good place mentally, even if he was not depressed.

But you could also just chalk some of that up to fate, not the Leah stuff, but him losing to Thor back in the day all the time ans stuff. that seems to be what Aaron was going for, and maybe Kibblesmith as well, though we will have to see a bit more to say for sure.

Loki's big problem seems to be that he focuses on the negative rather than the positive, it can come out in different ways, in the old days it resulted in embittered jealousy, and today it results in guilt or hopelessness, but it still arises from him focusing on things that are going wrong rather than things that are going right. I think he needs to learn to look at the good things in his life rather than continually focusing on the bad.

Necro Loki, I kinda hope it's not actually him, because that would just kind of be confirmation that he can't escape his fate of being the bad guy. But we saw him take All Black from Ego, so it seems to confirm it was him... but he may be under it's influence.

[Lambadelta]

Oh, I get what you mean now. You summed it up pretty well. Current Loki is certainly in a better place both mentally and emotionally, with the only thing that seems to really be troubling Loki at the moment is an identity crisis of who or what he actually is. Of course, responsibilities are getting on top of him .

My hope when it comes to Loki not being Necro-Loki is the ending of Loki #1. We know that future “Thor” is clearly not Thor and is more than likely Loki and we know that he entered the wrong room, that the message he gave was never meant for Thor. The brother “Thor” described pretty much described Necro-loki of him being the end of all things or rather he was dubbed Loki the end. So, was this message for Loki? But if it was for Loki, then Loki sees only one person as his brother and that is Thor and there was the mention of the Unfather.

Although if “Thor” is Loki, I wonder how he could have forgotten that Thor only had one eye and had a destroyer arm and why would Loki call himself "Brother"?

Of course, I don’t think Thor is necro-Loki but I do wonder why there’s a similarity between Necro-Loki and the Unfather, who of course we haven’t seen yet.
But yeah, Necro-Loki is most likely Loki but I’m hoping as you that Loki is either under the influence, perhaps the All-Black is influencing him or maybe he’s being taken over by somebody or something.

I really don't want them to revert Loki back tot he status quo because I think he's had probably one of the best redemption stories in Marvel, where the character growth has been a slow burn and extremely entertaining to read. But I have this feeling that writers will continuously opt for an open end when it comes to Loki's character so that the next writer can choose where to go with Loki next and that they always have the choice of reverting back if they choose to do so. I just have a feeling that this will always be a worry when it comes to Loki, unfortunately.

[Raye]

We kind of went over the whole future Loki thing before (I mean you weren't here, not like you have to read back) but to sum up, I think there are kind of two ends of the world we are looking at here, the one that led to the King Thor future in the first place, and then a second one at the end of time. my thoughts on how it goes is like this:

In the future, Loki becomes a hero and has Mjolnir, and is there when the 'unfather' who is also his and Thor's brother, destroys the Earth. Loki is defeated when this happens, that's what we saw at the end of the first issue, and as mentioned Thor's granddaughters said this as well. But they thought he died, but in reality he either went into hiding or got reincarnated somehow. Either way, he stays away for centuries, millenia even. We don't know exactly what happens in that time.

As for the Unfather, I figure it probably has to be Balder or maybe Tyr back from the dead, or for a real stretch, bring back one of the long forgotten brothers that haven't been used in decades, Vidar or Hermod. Since it has to be a brother of Thor, but we know it's not Loki now. Thor's granddaughters said that Loki died when the Earth was destroyed and Phoenix Wolverine said something like that as well, but they never NAME the brother of Thor that wrecked the Earth. It's always just 'brother' so... as unlikely as it may seem for Balder or Tyr to destroy the Earth, it fits. (I figure maybe Balder is upset that Loki, who had previously murdered him, is being all forgiven and getting a throne and blah blah, and starts out trying to prove to everyone he's up to no good and it snowballs until, much like Loki was, he's overtaken by this bitter resentment and jealousy. but that's just a wild guess at this point.)

As he's away, the entropic end of the universe gets rolling, Entropy overtaking Eternity, and Asgard is a shadow of what it once was, Gorr time traveling to the future during Godbomb happens in this time, which certainly doesn't help matters.

Then Loki gets the Necrosword from Ego after Thor's fight with Galactus, which brings us to Necro Loki.

the big question is what happened in the time between him 'dying' a hero and him going full on evil? Or are we being misled about his motivations at the end there? is he being controlled by the sword? Gorr?

in any case, at least if he goes bad again, it's way far in the future, it won't affect the current books much at all, most likely we'll still get good(ish) guy Loki in the present.

[Rosebunse]

Well, All Black at the end of the day is just a symbiote. A really strong and sort of weird one, but a symbiote nonetheless. Meaning that it would influence its host and feed off of their negative feelings. Loki is probably a very great meal for it since even at his best, he's not got the healthiest mindset.

That being said, I don't think the King Thor storyline has a lot of super weight to what's happening now. It's an ending to Aaron's storyline and a different timeline altogether.

[Lambadelta]

We kind of went over the whole future Loki thing before (I mean you weren't here, not like you have to read back) but to sum up, I think there are kind of two ends of the world we are looking at here, the one that led to the King Thor future in the first place, and then a second one at the end of time. my thoughts on how it goes is like this:

In the future, Loki becomes a hero and has Mjolnir, and is there when the 'unfather' who is also his and Thor's brother, destroys the Earth. Loki is defeated when this happens, that's what we saw at the end of the first issue, and as mentioned Thor's granddaughters said this as well. But they thought he died, but in reality he either went into hiding or got reincarnated somehow. Either way, he stays away for centuries, millenia even. We don't know exactly what happens in that time.

As for the Unfather, I figure it probably has to be Balder or maybe Tyr back from the dead, or for a real stretch, bring back one of the long forgotten brothers that haven't been used in decades, Vidar or Hermod. Since it has to be a brother of Thor, but we know it's not Loki now. Thor's granddaughters said that Loki died when the Earth was destroyed and Phoenix Wolverine said something like that as well, but they never NAME the brother of Thor that wrecked the Earth. It's always just 'brother' so... as unlikely as it may seem for Balder or Tyr to destroy the Earth, it fits. (I figure maybe Balder is upset that Loki, who had previously murdered him, is being all forgiven and getting a throne and blah blah, and starts out trying to prove to everyone he's up to no good and it snowballs until, much like Loki was, he's overtaken by this bitter resentment and jealousy. but that's just a wild guess at this point.)

As he's away, the entropic end of the universe gets rolling, Entropy overtaking Eternity, and Asgard is a shadow of what it once was, Gorr time traveling to the future during Godbomb happens in this time, which certainly doesn't help matters.

Then Loki gets the Necrosword from Ego after Thor's fight with Galactus, which brings us to Necro Loki.

the big question is what happened in the time between him 'dying' a hero and him going full on evil? Or are we being misled about his motivations at the end there? is he being controlled by the sword? Gorr?

in any case, at least if he goes bad again, it's way far in the future, it won't affect the current books much at all, most likely we'll still get good(ish) guy Loki in the present.

Does it actually have to be a brother of Thor though? I mean future “Thor” did actually enter the wrong room and the message was never actually meant for Thor but someone else. Who that someone else was is unknown, I mean the most likely candidate is Loki but there are other options to.

But if the message was meant for Loki and not Thor, then the brother can actually only mean Thor because I don’t think Loki classifies the others as his siblings, only Thor. The other exception is Angela but of course she’s out of the question since she’s not a brother but a sister.

But if the “Brother” is Thor then that doesn’t mean that he’s the unfather but it might be the case that Thor kick starts something that leads to the events that leads to Future “Thor’s” future. Kind of like how Loki was the one who kick started who Malekith became and it ultimately leading into the war of the realms. I mean it doesn’t have to be an ill-intended event like with Malekith and Loki though and in Thor’s case it would probably be an event that is out of good-will but just has massive consequences, probably unforeseen ones, in the future.

I mean this is all if the Future “Thor” message was actually for Loki though, if not the possibilities are more endless.

But I can see Balder or Tyr being the Unfather. I would lean towards Balder though.

Gorr makes a lot of sense, if anyone is likely to be a candidate to take over or control Loki it's Gorr, espeically since we know King Thor and Gorr the God butcher and it could also tie into Necro-Loki himself calling himself Loki the butcher. So it's very possible that Necro-Loki is actually Gorr.

But then again the future events of King Thor might not have any impact whatsoever on Current Loki and there's a chance that this isn't a future that is waiting for this current Loki either.

[Lambadelta]

Well, All Black at the end of the day is just a symbiote. A really strong and sort of weird one, but a symbiote nonetheless. Meaning that it would influence its host and feed off of their negative feelings. Loki is probably a very great meal for it since even at his best, he's not got the healthiest mindset.

That being said, I don't think the King Thor storyline has a lot of super weight to what's happening now. It's an ending to Aaron's storyline and a different timeline altogether.

Good point. If there is anyone who is the perfect candidate for All-Black to feast upon, it's Loki.

[Raye]

I am counting hints in other things from Thor to Infinity Watch when I say it was a brother of Thor that wrecked the Earth. It's been said 2 or 3 times in Thor, going back to Godbomb, that his brother destroyed the earth, burned it, specifically, but they never name the brother. Same with Phoenix Wolverine in Infinity Watch. If we assume that the future in Loki is the same as in Thor, and I think that is very likely, considering how big a deal they are making about the future in Thor, and how much it is leaking into other books that are not written by Aaron, then we can assume that the 'brother' mentioned by both Thor and Loki who destroyed the Earth is the same person. And I do think Loki considers Balder and Tyr his brothers, even if Thor gets the most of his attention. I can't see why he wouldn't, he's not related by blood to Thor any more than he is to them, and they were all raised together, so that's more than he has with Angela, who he does consider his sister despite not knowing she existed until recently.

[Lambadelta]

I am counting hints in other things from Thor to Infinity Watch when I say it was a brother of Thor that wrecked the Earth. It's been said 2 or 3 times in Thor, going back to Godbomb, that his brother destroyed the earth, burned it, specifically, but they never name the brother. Same with Phoenix Wolverine in Infinity Watch. If we assume that the future in Loki is the same as in Thor, and I think that is very likely, considering how big a deal they are making about the future in Thor, and how much it is leaking into other books that are not written by Aaron, then we can assume that the 'brother' mentioned by both Thor and Loki who destroyed the Earth is the same person. And I do think Loki considers Balder and Tyr his brothers, even if Thor gets the most of his attention. I can't see why he wouldn't, he's not related by blood to Thor any more than he is to them, and they were all raised together, so that's more than he has with Angela, who he does consider his sister despite not knowing she existed until recently.

If that's the case then yeah it would have to be a brother of Thor and I guess you're right about Loki seeing the others as his brothers as well, even if he doesn't share a relationship with any of them. I think it's because I see it at least he has a relationship with Thor and a somewhat one with Angela but that doesn't mean that he doesn't see the others as his siblings.

If Future "Thor" is Loki I can actually see why he chose to most likely seek out his past self rather than seek out past Thor. I think Thor would most likely assume that the "brother" is Loki and one can't blame him for jumping to that conclusion if he did, Loki is trying but it's still going to take some time where the blame instantly isn't directed at him. But with going to Loki instead and also having the appearance of Thor due to Mjölnir he can kill two birds with one stone by basically saying the brother is neither Loki nor Thor. I suppose this was meant to lead into Loki finding out who the brother was and working out how to stop them but of course Future "Thor" plan went awry when he entered the wrong room.

I wonder if this is what Eternity and his children need Loki for?

[Rosebunse]

But then why is that brother a threat? Especially such a cosmic threat that some piece of Eternity has to get involved? I don't know, I guess it seems to me like these Eternity kids are just trying to use Loki for some end that isn't entirely good.

[Lambadelta]

But then why is that brother a threat? Especially such a cosmic threat that some piece of Eternity has to get involved? I don't know, I guess it seems to me like these Eternity kids are just trying to use Loki for some end that isn't entirely good.

This could be the case but future "Thor" did say that the brother would be the end of all things. I mean your guess is as good as mine why this brother is such a threat that he's meant to be the end of all things.

But yeah, Eternity and his children could just be using Loki as a means to an end.

[Rosebunse]

I mean, it just seems like a bad idea to give Loki even more power when you know that there are more bad futures involving him than there are good. It's like bringing in a lion to deal with your mouse problem. The mouse problem may be taken care of, but now you get a lion! Fun!

I mean, they have to think they can control him in some way or else there's no point.

[Prof. Aegis]

Or Then and Now feel Loki can change up the future so that this brother doesn't end all things. Perhaps they can't control Loki, but feel he can be the catalyst or wild card that can change the future. Thor shows Loki, the Book of Loki stating that all ends well for Loki. Now and Then tell Loki, it's all lies, so maybe it's their way of motivating Loki to change the future and create new stories and possibilities.

[Rosebunse]

Or Then and Now feel Loki can change up the future so that this brother doesn't end all things. Perhaps they can't control Loki, but feel he can be the catalyst or wild card that can change the future. Thor shows Loki, the Book of Loki stating that all ends well for Loki. Now and Then tell Loki, it's all lies, so maybe it's their way of motivating Loki to change the future and create new stories and possibilities.

But isn't that still using him and not really caring how this effects him? Sure, Thor might be insensitive, but he's still trying to go with the future where his little brother is safe and out of harm's way. As boring and depressing that is to Loki, why shouldn't Thor want that for him? Especially given everything Loki has been through? And Loki may want uncertainty and a bit of fun, but he's making deals with the Devil. If there's one thing Marvel has taught me, it's that making deals with cosmic entities is normally not going to go your way.

It just feels like these kids are offering Loki something they know he can't resist and I can't understand why they would do it except to screw him later.