Loki Appreciation 2021

[Yoruno]

IDK, Loki said here from the very start he wasn’t going to lie anymore. I do not suspect him of working against the good side. But I wonder if there is a possibility that other characters besides Thor could also be corrupted by the changes in Asgardian magic.
May I ask a stupid question - not related to this run... is it this Loki who is destined to get the Necrosword and meet an honorable death as the Sun storyteller, or is it an alternative one?

[Raye]

Yeah, but that's Cates, it's more Aaron i kinda worry about, and fear he may mess up Cates' plans. I have faith in Cates doing right by Loki, In case my avatar wasn't an indication, I really liked his Dr Strange story. I'm just a bit frustrated by the lack of panel time, which I am assuming is at least partly due to wanting to keep some fans who aren't up to speed on Loki's recent characterization second guessing his motives. But we went through all that in Aaron's run, and I'm just kinda tired of it, is all. I want to see some more development for Loki, and with no solo series, it's going to have to happen in Thor, but if they keep playing everything close to the vest with him, then we're reduced to him appearing for a few panels every couple issues to drop a cryptic clue, for fear of giving too much away, rather than really getting into where he's at right now.

As for the future, that's always changing in comics, so I don't put a lot of stock in shown futures, because another one will come along to replace it in short order. The Black Winter did mention it though, but it said it would no longer come to pass. Just went to look it up, to get the specifics:




So, it appears it is no longer happening, because something is breaking fate. What is breaking it, unclear.

[Yoruno]

I completely missed that hint, thanks.
They might restore their fates (if they need them though), but to me as a reader it seems sort of funny, it's like Aaron says, "So they sacrifice themselves in the end", and then Cates comes and erases it all with this panel. And they both did the same to Kibblesmith's Loki who also had a different future. Which is funny because now Loki is more consistent as a character than, say, Thor.
As for the lack of development for him, I'm afraid they don't know what to do with him when he's not a villain, thus all those "god of lies/stories/outcasts/nothing". IMHO he has a great potential as God of Stories, he's open for adventure and humour and he did well in his solo books where he didn't have to stay in the shadows only to pop up with a not-so-ominous plan. I wonder if the series alleviate the situation.

[Raye]

yeah, but that often happens with futures in a shared universe like Marvel. Someone ALWAYS comes along and undoes it, because if someone wants to do a time travel story with the future, they want a future that means something to their character specifically, and that usually isn't going to be a future someone else established. That doesn't mean future stories are not worth doing, because they never stick, but part of the fun with those is that says something about the character or book it's set in, and it gives writers complete freedom to do something meaningful for that character, without having to worry about screwing things up for other characters. Future stories you can kill off characters like crazy, or make them go insane, or other crazy things you could never do to those same characters in the main continuity. So there is no one future for the MU, or between writers, unless a writer just decides one that's already been established works. I mean there are dozens of futures where Thor is just dead in the future, so.... Hell, Cates wrote one where that's the case. His Thanos story, where at the end of time it's pretty much down to Thanos, Silver Surfer, Hulk, and Frank Castle, literally everyone else is dead. Because that is a future that speaks to Thanos, specifically, and is meaningful to him, so it doesn't really matter what happens to anyone else, except insofar as it related to Thanos. That could be the bad future that needs to be averted that the Black Winter mentioned, but can't be sure about that. Thanos Wins ends with present day Thanos deciding to avoid the future he saw, and he is currently dead, so that's a major hurdle. But we did see Thanos in Black Winter's vision of the future. It may also be that the Galactus thing was the catalyst for the future changing, because it is thanks to Galactus that Thor had his arm and eye restored, and the second that happened, that future became impossible as shown. Galactus was also very much alive in King Thor's time... until King Thor killed him, anyway. So for Galactus to be dead in the present, is also something that makes that future impossible. (though, we all know death is a revolving door in comics, so maybe not a huge mark against it) But what the Black Winter said does imply that the King Thor ending is the proper future. I'm just saying, I think it may now be impossible to get back to it, because of what happened with Galactus. They may still be able to get to the broad strokes of that future, but a LOT of details will need to change. I mean, it was Thor killing Galactus in the future that allowed Loki to get the Necrosword... so by removing Galactus from the picture early, it all falls apart, classic Butterfly Effect. (that was all very rambly and stream of consciousness, so i hope that made sense to people other than me)

And I think editorial likes the direction of Loki right now, in a general sense, but the specifics are up in the air, so we have him trying on different roles. But, you came later, so you haven't seen my grand theory of what I think is going on. I think his inability to find a role that fits is actually part of the whole deal. Basically, from things we saw during Aaron's run, and even before that, mainly with Gillen, and Cates seems to be continuing this, Asgard functions according to having archetypal roles that move the story forward. The whole 'gods are creatures of story' thing. BUT, I think those roles can be re-cast, and then the story begins again, but updated for a new audience. Kind of like those movies where they do Shakespeare, but set in the modern day, like how West Side Story is, basically, Romeo and Juliet. Or the Lion King is Hamlet. the broad strokes of the story are the same, basically the same characters are there, but names may be changed, and details may be different. I think we are in the middle of casting for the next adaptation of the Asgard story. Bor's reign was the OG play version, Odin was like, an otherwise faithful adaptation but with modern english, and Thor is the retelling set in modern times. Thor has taken Odin's old role, Sif has taken Heimdall's, Karnilla has turned the Queen of Hel into a duo, Jane has become the main Valkyrie, and we have had a 'new God of Lies' teased, (probably Tyr, if Valkyrie was anything to go by) and so on... Except Loki has not landed a role yet. My theory is that his problem is that he keeps trying to create new roles for himself, but the Asgard story runs on existing roles. It's not a brand new story that's beginning, it's an updated adaptation of the old one, so the role he gets has to fit into that. Loki can't just create a new role, because that won't fit into the story properly, and he is still bound by the Asgardian story, which kind of acts as fate. Also, Thor is refusing to give up his old role, he's trying to play both, and that won't work. This may be why fate is broken, because Thor's screwing things up by refusing to relinquish his old role. He went with Galactus, when, as King, he should have delegated that task to someone else, the person who should have taken over his old role, (granted, Galactus kind of forced the issue) who may have resolved the situation differently.

My hope is that with Odin being here, he is going to tell Thor he has to let go of his old role and fully devote himself to being King.... or give up the throne. He can't be both at the same time.

All this talk of the future tho... I have to wonder, could they be working towards bringing the TVA into things, to help tie into Loki's show a bit? I mean he TVA was first introduced in Thor's book, so it being used in a Thor book now is completely fitting, even without the show. And Loki did have a recentish encounter with them, too. I mean, we know the future comes into play, because of what the Black Winter showed Thor, and that page mentions something messing with fate, which basically means things are diverging from the proper sequence of events, which is precisely what the TVA is there to prevent. Their responsibility is, basically, to maintain fate. (which is probably why they are being used for Loki's show, since he has a long history of fighting fate, so to have him being forced to protect it...) I dunno... just a random thought i had.

[Fanto.mx]

"Re-casting" the roles is the best analogy for what we've been talking about.

The Norns are all still dead, right? That would allow someone or something to really muck things up, right? The bus is rolling down the road, but no one's driving.

[Raye]

yeah, Norns still dead, or at least dispersed. I suspect Karnilla's 3 babies in the Valkyries mini (which, yes, I do think is just the cancelled arc of Valkyrie but repackaged, forgot to say that earlier) are the new Norns. Assuming Balder is the father, that means they are the children of the old Norn Queen and the new Norn King (another role that's changed hands) and there are 3 of them, so that's a pretty strong tie to being Norns. So we may have some time, until they are a bit grown up and settled in the Norn Keep, until fate is set in stone again. If i had to guess, I'd say it is the death and subsequent (re?)birth of the Norns that triggers a new 'adaptation' to begin. When they died is about when all the roles started changing hands.

[Yoruno]

Your grand theory makes sense, especially if we take Ragnarok cycles into consideration. Asgard itself has been restored several times, and if Thor and Loki try to keep it from falling apart this time, that could mean that they're forcing themselves back into another cycle. As for Loki, yes, he tries to create new roles, I agree, but the thing is he already has a new role imposed on him by the events, that of a hero, but he is not accepted as such.
MCU Loki case might be different. In Thor 3 he was accused of stagnation, persisting in his old role, though the whole Thor 3 thing was quite OOC.

[Raye]

Yeah, while I dunno if i would label him a full on 'hero' just yet, he's certainly on the track to that. I think he's actually a very likely candidate for Thor's role, both because all the other major roles have been claimed, and he is the only major character without a new role. And I think he's come a lot further than I think even he realizes, even if he does have some work to do. We have to keep in mind that we are starting from the beginning of the story, not the end point, and I think the 'Thor' role includes a good amount of learning on the job. Loki is not meant to be at the same place as Thor hundreds of years after he began. He's about here:




It's about the journey, not the destination, and all that. There would be no story if everyone who stepped into a new role had no room to grow into it, right? I'm just saying, I think Loki is on the right track, assuming no one comes along and hits the reset button on him, but he's still got a ways to go. He may technically already be in the role, even if no one in story actually realizes it yet. But I think he has to go a lot further before he reaches the same level as Thor towards the end of his time in that role. But that's fine, Thor had to as well, there's a reason he had to earn Mjolnir, and he worried about worthiness even after he passed Odin's tests for him. I also don't think Loki will begin acting like Thor, or fighting like him. I think the point is that the story is being updated for a new era, and that means all the characters, while fulfilling the same basic function in the story, go about accomplishing things differently. We saw this hinted at with Sif lecturing Thor about how he should be better than Odin was and not just do what Odin would do, even though he is occupying the same role as him now. Or look at the pages above, and see how Thor did the same thing as Odin did with him hundreds of years ago, but accomplished it very differently.

But the whole God of Stories or God of Outcasts things don't have to be completely forgotten, they can still serve as his guiding principles and methods.

[Raye]

Little ramble, after just purchasing a hundred dollars worth of glitter (yes, really. also some chameleon micas) reminded me of this. I have been giving some thought related to what I said above, about how Loki should be a different kind of hero than Thor, doing good, but in his own way. And kinda want to clarify what I meant by that, after going down a Youtube rabbit hole. So, like you probably saw, since it has 27 million views, Mark Rober unleashed his latest glitter bomb on phone scammers. And the rabbit hole is that, I ended up on the channels of the guys who assisted with that, Jim Browning and Scammer Payback.

So, you can see, these guys are doing good, but they are doing so via deception and trickery, with a mischevous flair, aiming to create chaos at the scammer call centers. They are hacking, lying about who they are, and so on. They are also targeting bad guys who would be totally off of Thor's radar because they are tech based, but are a problem that needs to be addressed in the modern day, and Loki might be on to them. These guys are doing good in a Loki sort of way, they are showing you don't have to go out there an beat the **** out of someone to defeat bad guys.

but sitting behind a computer isn't that interesting to read about, even if they totally embody the ethos of a good guy Loki. But it could be scaled up, to something a bit more superheroey, I think Roxxon would be a good foe for Loki where you could scale up these tactics, and being Loki, some magic could be involved etc. And also, I would sprinkle in some Sacha Baron Cohen, to trick people in person.

And that, basically, is what I am envisioning for a heroic Loki. I don't want him to go out and start fighting bad guys like Thor does, I want him to fight bad guys like Loki.

[Yoruno]

Yes, he definitely has to do it his own Loki way, like he did when he beat Nightmare. BTW, was that the only case when someone thanked him for what he did?

[Raye]

You know, it might be... nothing else is coming to mind. Maybe in Squirrel Girl, but I'd have to look up the details. Usually it's more like they accept his help, but only begrudgingly, or he helps them in a creative way that, while it resolves the situation, also manages to piss people off.

But yeah just felt like clarifying, because I've brought the whole roles idea up here before, (not always in this particular thread) and people have trouble grasping it, and think that when I say a character is taking on a role, that means they will begin acting like the previous role holder. That's not what I am seeing here so far, though. It seemed like it might be going that way under Aaron, (and still may be, in Valkyrie. Where we have Jane having thoughts that are not her own, making her act in in ways she may not have otherwise, and Tyr acting very much like old school Loki, rather than himself filling the same narrative function as Loki used to. I get that he may want to tie up some loose ends, regarding the status quo he set up, and solidifying the whole role change thing is great and all. But he should also be trying to work with where Cates wants to go, since it is Cates who is calling the shots now) but Cates has leaned more towards the characters taking the roles in a new direction. We are seeing it primarily with Thor himself right now, who seems to be thinking he kinda needs to be Odin 2.0, but that approach is going poorly for him, and that is contrasted by Sif who is fulfilling her role differently than her brother did. She is much more involved than Heimdall was, who was more of a passive observer, and had a sort of sense of duty to the king that had him acting as more of an extension of Odin's will than acting on his own. But if Sif sees something bad going down, she will actively do something about it, rather than just watch it happen, and she will tell her King to his face that he is being an idiot, and even openly disobey him, if she thinks it is the right thing to do.

Anyway, on that note, there was a preview for Beta Ray Bill: https://www.gamesradar.com/daniel-wa...ta-ray-bill-1/ and in the recap page, it spoils a little part of the end of Prey. It says there, that Thor will be appointing Bill his "Master of War", so we have another role filled, Bill is taking Tyr's place, and notably NOT Thor's. I was kind of thinking Angela may end up as Goddess of War, but... Bill works too, i guess. (tho now i am curious what will be done with Angela) And it kind of makes sense in that speaks to how Thor filled his old role. Beta Ray Bill is VERY similar to Thor, he has to be, in order to be worthy of Mjolnir, since Mjolnir had, until recently, fairly narrow worthiness requirements. So for Thor to appoint Bill as his Master of War kinda says that Thor sees himself as war-like. What i was saying above about how Thor's first choice tends to be beating the **** out of the problem most of the time. That also means pretty much the only big roles left are Balder's and Thor's (well, and Freyja, but I presume that will come a bit later). Of course, no one wants Balder's. That's a bad one to get. Nothing against Balder, but his role in the story was to get killed.

But yeah, basically, one major contender for Thor's role, probably the one a lot of people most favored due to his similarity to Thor, is no longer in the running. I've always felt Bill was probably not really right for it, both because he embodied the old ways, in terms of attitude and morals, because he was worthy of Mjolnir at the same time Thor was, and because I feel like the role should come with a strong connection to Midgard, which Bill lacks, and would have en extremely hard time building that in a short time. Bill cares about Asgard more than he cares about Midgard, by a lot. He has friends in Asgard, he has no one on Midgard, because he is an alien who has spent not much time on Earth at all, let alone forged connections there.

Granted, I do not think the 'Thor' role is something you strictly get assigned, so I am kind of doubting we will see anything big and dramatic, to be honest. It's something you stumble into, especially if we use the retconned history Aaron set up, which I think Cates is drawing on, and is also backed up by things Ewing and Gillen set up with Sigurd. Sigurd was not assigned the role, he just kinda earned it without specifically trying for it, by killing Fafnir, with his 'Mjolnir' Gram, right? We saw all this in Agent of Asgard. Yeah, Odin and Loki were involved and nudged him into the position, but it still was not assigned to him by Bor. And with Thor, at least in Aaron's take on things, Odin never placed the enchantment on Mjolnir targeting Thor specifically. Lifting it was a goal that Thor set for himself, and Odin actually discouraged him from trying. And it was that goal that made him slot into that role, over time. I'm just saying, i think it's one of those things that is more apparent in hindsight. Unlike some other roles where it is kind of a specific job you do, and you can see that from the beginning, like Thor is King, Sif watches from the Bifrost etc. it's one of those things that may only become really apparent later. I think, as I pointed out above, Loki has fulfilled some of the early beats, but we need more of them to be really sure. And it may or may not come with Mjolnir. As mentioned, Sigurd had Gram. Thor filled the role without Mjolnir for a long time. If it is Loki, it may take a long time for him to earn his special weapon, whether that is Mjolnir or something else, because part of the role is earning it.

[Prof. Aegis]

And that, basically, is what I am envisioning for a heroic Loki. I don't want him to go out and start fighting bad guys like Thor does, I want him to fight bad guys like Loki.

This is what made the Agent of Asgard and most recent Loki series so good. It wasn't that Loki was being the "hero" like Thor or Iron Man, but Loki was taking care of the bad guys and dealing with cosmic type events by being Loki. It set his series' apart from what else was out there and was true to the character. I'm hoping we see more of this in coming stories/series.

[Alpha to Omega]

Anyway, on that note, there was a preview for Beta Ray Bill: https://www.gamesradar.com/daniel-wa...ta-ray-bill-1/ and in the recap page, it spoils a little part of the end of Prey. It says there, that Thor will be appointing Bill his "Master of War", so we have another role filled, Bill is taking Tyr's place, and notably NOT Thor's.

That's not a spoiler for the the end of Prey, Thor asked Bill to be his Master of War in Thor #7 "Hammerfall Part 1".

[Yoruno]

This would be a major change, and I'm not sure Marvel is willing to adopt it. If we take the general public, children still see Loki as a 100% villain because that's how he's presented and marketed in cartoons. Lots of adults see him in this way, too, because they're not interested in nuances - "MCU is sort of a wrestling show, comic books are for kids and nerds, character motivations... wait, what does this word mean?"
It’s more or less OK with it in my country, we have a long tradition of antiheroes and conflicted characters in our classic literature, and the same applies to Chinese audiences, I believe... but, in a nutshell, Marvel mostly plays a double game with Loki. He still pops up here and there as a villain, or his actions are left unexplained so that the readers might still suspect him to be a villain. I'm just afraid Marvel won’t let him move on. Remember this page by Kieron Gillen titled "The Journey", where Lokis whisper to each other, "You can escape"? Now it seems to me it's not a fight with the destiny or with Loki's own chaotic personality, it's a fight with Marvel itself.
Technically, Loki, even as chaotic as he is, has every chance as a character to stay on the good side (and question it from time to time), but will Marvel really invest into persuading the audiences he's not a villain?
Loki's role in myths is basically saving the universe from himself or his mistakes. They followed the same pattern in several stories, e.g. Ratatoskr's escape in Squirrel Girl. Does this make Loki a villain? Not really. Does this make Loki an easy character to market? Definitely not.

[Raye]

I dunno, I know status quo has been god in comics for quite some time, Journey Into Mystery (which that page you mentioned kind of built on) was kind of about that. Characters often get reverted or are not allowed to progress because there is this notion that the characters have to stay the same to be recognizable. But on the other hand, they did allow some characters, like Venom, to grow and change quite a bit, and I think in general that sort of attitude is becoming less and less prevalent. The Illusion of Change is something that was enacted in the days when first of all, there was an assumption that the audience turned over every few years. The books would appeal to an audience of primarily children who would move on when they grew older, so they typically kept long term developments to a minimum, because they'd just have a new batch in a few years and it would all be new to them again. Also, it was implemented in the days when buying back-issues was the only way to catch up on old stories. So there was this attitude among some editors and writers that they should give every reader a chance to experience the characters at their 'most iconic' so any character development the characters had would be quickly reverted, to allow that. Maybe a bit of change would b allowed to stick, but typically stuff that would not alter the core of the character very much. Also, because back-issue buying was the only way to follow the development of a character, it was done to make the books less confusing because you may have missed the story that explains a change. And a combination of those factors that's kept comics fairly stagnant with character development compared to other forms of media.

But now, we have seen that a lot of those kids they assumed would move on have not, and we now have a large audience of adult fans who are in it for the long haul, and a lot of them don't particularly want to see nothing really progressing. (tho some readers do like that it is all familiar and unchanging month in month out) I know some think we should go back to making all the books for kids, but I don't agree with that (though I do believe there should be books that are aimed at kids, I just don't think it should be ALL of them, i think there should be a wide variety for all types of readers) And most importantly, trades and the internet are now a thing. With trades or digital distribution, it has never been easier to read the old stories. No more do you have to dig through boxes of back issues, if you want to read the characters at their most 'classic' you can totally do that by just buying a trade or digital books, or even get a Marvel/Comixology Unlimited subscription and just binge all the old stuff in one go. And on top of that, we have numerous wikis and such to help us keep up to speed with developments even if we miss some books. So we no longer need the comics to stay static in order to make the iconic versions of the characters accessible to people, or make things make sense even if you are coming after missing some stuff. But tradition persists, a lot of fans have come to expect that the characters are unchanging, and it creates a large amount of inertia to overcome. But on the other hand, Ithink people in general expect more change from characters now, after the popularity of shows like Game of Thrones, Breaking Bad etc. and I have noticed that a lot more change is being allowed to stick in recent years than it used to. Sometimes we get characters being reverted for no good reason beyond that they are more recognizable in their 'classic' forms, like Galactus or Doom, but we also have Venom and, you know, Loki, as a counterpoint to that.

As for Loki in particular, I think the Thor editorial is supportive of the change. Different editors handle things differently and have different philosophies. If you look at the stuff Wil Moss edits, it's often stuff that pushes the envelope and advances characters more than some others might. Vision, Immortal Hulk, etc. So I think at the very least, he is not standing in the way of change, and may even be actively pushing for it. Tho we may be in trouble if Thor gets a different editor who is more about putting forward 'classic' depictions. When Loki is handled by other editors, is when things tend to sometimes get a bit wonky. But there does still seem to be this desire to have it both ways with Loki that, while I totally understood why they were doing that in the beginning, I think has overstayed it's welcome, and it is time to just fully commit and move forward with the new direction. It seemed like they were with Loki's most recent solo, so maybe this is more Cates' doing, where he wanted to play up the ambiguity for his story, but in either case, I think it's time to drop that angle. But I don't think there is a lot of incentive to revert him back, to be honest. Loki's last been what you might call 'classic' depiction over 10 years ago, and the Thor books have not suffered because of that. If they have managed to go 10 years without Loki acting as the primary antagonist, is he really needed in that role? I think it's enough that he simply be in the books, as a character for Thor to interact with, rather than specifically be a bad guy. But that it has been over 10 years, and people are still anticipating he will revert back to the old mustache twirler any day now, kind of speaks to how much nostalgia and the old depictions can influence people's perceptions. But I don't think those perceptions are a reason to keep him from developing. If anything that those exist will make the story more interesting because it will be unexpected, and thus more interesting, for many people.

In any case, as i said above, if I am correct that it could be Loki who is taking over Thor's role, rather than like Angela or someone, I don't expect it will be a sort sudden thing. I think it will slowly build over time, and may not be explicitly stated in the books for quite a while, because the role is not really appointed, as such, and that could help kinda ease the audience in. But I don't think we need to keep actively playing up the 'is he good or bad?' thing. If people wonder that, that's ok, but i don't think we have to keep Loki ambiguous forever intentionally.

That's not a spoiler for the the end of Prey, Thor asked Bill to be his Master of War in Thor #7 "Hammerfall Part 1".

whoops, i guess i must have missed that bit somehow. Usually have pretty good attention to detail but must have spaced that.