Loki: Agent of Asgard #7 *spoilers* - The Ice Cream Parlor of Doctor Doom.

[ImprobableQuestion]

"No...you're evil because that's who you are. It's easier for us if you're evil so stay that way."

It really reminds me of the stop motion comic "Thor and Loki: Blood Brothers"

One final note: Ego Death (which was back in issue 6).
When Doom found old Loki in the future with Skully, he said "That which is called Ego Death is coming to you. Be not weak"

To the first point, I am often guilty of thinking of Magneto that way, though I suppose Magneto has never been repentant no matter what side he batted for, so there's something of a difference.

As for the second point, I think you're on to something. Clearly you know something about Freudian Power Trios. Webknow that Deadpools usual Id is going full on superego during AXIS, so it does seem likely that Doom's Ego will be targeted. But will he become I'd or Superego? What is Doom's id? The boy obsessed with saving his mother?

[Raye]

Current Loki does definitely have something of Kid Loki, he totally rubbed off on him, or the copy was an imperfect one, or something. Because no, he is NOT just the exact same as he was before he died in Siege. But at the same time, I think a lot of what he said in Young Avengers and now when he refers to himself in the third person is a way to try and distance himself from his past actions and doesn't necessarily mean he's not still old Loki in a fairly substantial way. He is building a wall between his past and his present, finding ways to distance himself from it, and disavow responsibility. While I can understand why he does that, it doesn't necessarily mean he's right to do it, or that it means he should feel no connection or responsibility for things he did before his death. But I am sure it's much easier for him to go on with things if he does believe that a different person did those things, so as I said, I totally understand it. There are definitely aspects of the old Loki there, though, including all his memories and experiences, as well as some personality flaws like a big selfish streak and disregard for others needs. I think he was and STILL IS a psychopath, just... not a murderous and intentionally cruel one. But he does still manipulate people, even people he is close to, to get what he wants, sometimes without even realizing he is doing it. Even his desire to be a better person is driven more by what HE gains from it than any form of altruism. This is classic psychopathic behaviour. It's just balanced out by more of an awareness of his own actions, and he has more lines that he is not willing to cross.

Anyway. The point they were making is that if this is Kid Loki plus Old Loki, shouldn't he be more effective than Kid Loki alone?

[dom]

Well, in Young Avengers volume 2, Loki (current Loki) stated that he's not the "same old Loki", he's a copy. He's the "murder weapon" Loki, not the "murderer" Loki, (I think this has been discussed in Agent of Asgard #5 discussion thread) And every time he refers to the Old Loki, he speaks about him in the third person. "The Loki who burned" rather than "Hey, that's old me."

See, when copy Loki stepped into Kid Loki's story, that story also stepped into Copy Loki, and created something new (a new "story" and a new "hero" for that story.) This was also explained in Young Avengers volume 2.

I like to think of it as a different actor playing the same character. When an actor plays someone they bring out different aspects of that character's personality.
Old Loki=Evil/cruel/calculating
Kid Loki=Innocent/sweet/ready for change
AoA Loki=Crafty, repentant, swashbuckling.

I'm fairly sure all the talk about him not being same old Loki is just a talk about changed morals. Like Loki has changed, and he doesn't want to be connected with his older self in any way because he is massively guilty of what he was before. I agree that this change of heart may be the result of what happened in JiM - that Ikol did not win, but the two Lokis kinda combined. But nevertheless the current Loki still has all his memories, knowledge, power, and a brilliant mind (if his kid self was incredibly smart, the current one should be only smarter).

And it makes sense for Verity to know more about the weapon. Think about it, Gram is "truth" and Verity has lived with the truth her whole life, so naturally she would be the most knowledgeable about all forms of truth. Loki is still getting used to using the truth as a weapon (and through most of the run, he barely uses it at all). He even said so in the first issue, "Truth is not a weapon in my arsenal")

That actually made me thinking now. Didn't Loki, when he reborn in Sif's body, made a promise to never lie and made the truths his weapons instead of lies?

I don't really get why THIS Loki can't fail when old Loki used to fail literally all the damn time.

Also, I would argue that the thing about him being "new" at this is still in play. He's not used to being the hero. He's not used to people liking him and he's not used to having to put their needs above their own. He got very lucky with Verity being there or else no one would have come to save him, save for maybe if Doom had let him out to fight the Red Skull.

This Loki is new to being a good, decent person, and you can see that he's admitted that he's having trouble with it. In the fight with Dr.Doom, he made heroic mistakes, he played the role of the archetypal hero, and he afterwards he helped save thousands of people even though he it caused him pain and suffering. He's new, he's the hero, and he's doing the best to fit into that role.

Now, another problem with this all is Future King Thor telling current Thor that he should have killed Loki. This makes me think that Loki did do something really, really bad that caused the end of the world, and that the real Future Loki must be trying to stop that.

Well, I'll again compare it with JiM because theme of Loki trying to be a hero is exactly the same there. And Kid Loki was also failing quite a lot there. And made mistakes. But he wasn't an archetypal hero and that's what Loki shouldn't be. He is a master manipulator, his main trait is smarts and manipulation. Despite Kid Loki failing a lot of times, you could still feel like he was the smartest guy in the room. And that's how it should be. Currently, Loki seems like the least smartest guy in the room. With Verity being in that room, though the fact that Loki looks less smart than Doom and Val is his own book is not good as well. Just, I really don't like it. Fine, if don't see a problem here, but it's a problem for me.

[Rosebunse]

Current Loki does definitely have something of Kid Loki, he totally rubbed off on him, or the copy was an imperfect one, or something. Because no, he is NOT just the exact same as he was before he died in Siege. But at the same time, I think a lot of what he said in Young Avengers and now when he refers to himself in the third person is a way to try and distance himself from his past actions and doesn't necessarily mean he's not still old Loki in a fairly substantial way. He is building a wall between his past and his present, finding ways to distance himself from it, and disavow responsibility. While I can understand why he does that, it doesn't necessarily mean he's right to do it, or that it means he should feel no connection or responsibility for things he did before his death. But I am sure it's much easier for him to go on with things if he does believe that a different person did those things, so as I said, I totally understand it. There are definitely aspects of the old Loki there, though, including all his memories and experiences, as well as some personality flaws like a big selfish streak and disregard for others needs. I think he was and STILL IS a psychopath, just... not a murderous and intentionally cruel one. But he does still manipulate people, even people he is close to, to get what he wants, sometimes without even realizing he is doing it. Even his desire to be a better person is driven more by what HE gains from it than any form of altruism. This is classic psychopathic behaviour. It's just balanced out by more of an awareness of his own actions, and he has more lines that he is not willing to cross.

Anyway. The point they were making is that if this is Kid Loki plus Old Loki, shouldn't he be more effective than Kid Loki alone?

Well, I mean, kidLoki and old Loki are two different people, which is why kidLoki had to die. So, if our current Loki is like a combo of kidLoki and old Loki, then you essentially have two different people trying to pilot and control current Loki. They have two different motivations, needs, wants, and in the end it won't work unless they work together.

Well, I'll again compare it with JiM because theme of Loki trying to be a hero is exactly the same there. And Kid Loki was also failing quite a lot there. And made mistakes. But he wasn't an archetypal hero and that's what Loki shouldn't be. He is a master manipulator, his main trait is smarts and manipulation. Despite Kid Loki failing a lot of times, you could still feel like he was the smartest guy in the room. And that's how it should be. Currently, Loki seems like the least smartest guy in the room. With Verity being in that room, though the fact that Loki looks less smart than Doom and Val is his own book is not good as well. Just, I really don't like it. I'm ok if don't see a problem here, but it's a problem for me.

Maybe he's failing because he wants to be that traditional hero deep down? It's not just someone he can be. He can't be the hero, and I imagine part of the inversion will be showing to readers just how big of a failure a totally good, hero Loki would be.

[Raye]

Well, I mean, kidLoki and old Loki are two different people, which is why kidLoki had to die. So, if our current Loki is like a combo of kidLoki and old Loki, then you essentially have two different people trying to pilot and control current Loki. They have two different motivations, needs, wants, and in the end it won't work unless they work together.

Maybe he's failing because he wants to be that traditional hero deep down? It's not just someone he can be. He can't be the hero, and I imagine part of the inversion will be showing to readers just how big of a failure a totally good, hero Loki would be.

I really don't think he does want to be a hero at the moment, all he wants is to not be the villain, there is a difference. Maybe after inversion and he gets more of a taste of real selfless heroism, that may change a bit, but at the moment, I don't think so.

Siege Loki wanted to change BEFORE he died, so there doesn't need to be an utterly drastic change for him to not want to be evil anymore. He has changed some, as i said, Kid Loki definitely had an impact, he is an amalgam of the two to a degree, but it's not in a 2 pilots fighting for control sense. But mostly it's just in a new package, and with some new things learned (and an appreciation for some new things, like bacon and cell phones) from his time watching Kid Loki. I think the only thing that is different that couldn't have been learned just from watching Kid Loki is a new increased capacity for guilt. Crippling guilt at times. I think this may have been a flaw in the copy, I just can't decide if it was intentionally added or not. Or maybe something fundamentally different about the new body, in Young Avengers he did say something along the lines of the new body confounding his nature, or something like that. I was talking to a friend of mine and he put it this way: "Siege Loki decided he didn't want to be evil anymore, but needed to prove that it could be done, a proof of concept. Siege was scrapping the old model, so R&D could happen, once the proof of concept succeeded, time to do it for real. Kid Loki proved that Loki could change, but if he hadn't he may have just doubled down on the evil, or there would be no Loki at all. (he did say he would rather die than not change) So even though this is old, evil Loki, the one who did all the prior evil and died in Siege, he now knows that he CAN choose to not be an evil jerk. And he learned a lot from Kid Loki on HOW to not be an evil jerk, and is now attempting to act on what he has learned." But he is not a totally different character, even though it may seem that way at times. It is still a continuation, he is still very deeply flawed with some tendencies that could easily lead to backsliding if he does not watch himself. and that's why he is interesting. If his attempts to be a better person were EASY, it wouldn't be nearly as compelling. I have said at times that they kinda are different characters, but I'm kinda exaggerating a bit when I do, for clarity when talking with people who do not understand that he is trying to change.

[Rosebunse]

So confusing...and yet we really don't know if he is a copy or not. He still killed kidLoki, but the idea that he used kidLoki as more of a test run is interesting, and deserves some investigation. It also explains why he had to kill him, as a test run is never meant to go on forever and Loki just didn't see kidLoki as being himself. He still doesn't. He doesn't lament the death of himself, he laments the killing of a child.

Now, I think it should be mentioned that Loki has felt guilt before. He's guilt over making taking Siege too far, over what he did to Kelda...sorta...over what he did to his wives and lovers to some extent. We must also remember that old Loki wasn't really all right in the head. He was vindictive, occasionally crazy, and at least some of the reason Odin and Thor let him off was because of this.

I guess I'm just waiting to see some of that in our current Loki.

[jackolover]

We learn that Doom has an affection for his people I don't see very often. We also see when Loki escapes and Valeria unleashes the Truth wave, that Doom rejects the truth of all of it. It is quite the traumatic moment for Victor, because he has to face the truth of what he's done.

There was even mention of ice cream for Valeria later in the afternoon, and Doom will consider it, so Val knows that’s a yes.

But this issue was a good lead up to why Loki was in Latveria at the time Magneto went there, so Mags could kill two birds with one stone, and leads directly into the end of AXIS #2.

The curios thing is the dialogue at the start of the issue between Freya and Odin. Odin begins to hear old Loki talking from the future, but we see later on Freya has removed the bricks from Lokis cell in the basement. There is some disquiet that Loki will be Loki, and its all going on the head of Freya if it all goes wrong. Freya hits back with "Isn't Cul the Serpent walking around the Asgardia now?" Touche'

We see Valeria knows that the invisible Verity is in the room all the time, because she has a mother whose invisible. What I don't understand is that Victor knows this, because he's not that stupid to have not detected someone else in the room. If Victor knows, and Val knows, how come Victor let this person in the same room as Val?

[jackolover]

And why did Doom release Loki to go and fight in AXIS? Was it purely because it was an end of the world scenario with Onslaught, so to hell with the future Doom fought Old Loki for in issue #6? Yes Verity or Valeria released Loki, but why is Doom not putting Loki back in the box, after Latveria is saved?

[jackolover]

I personally could buy either Doom or Loki outsmarting the other.

But I do think to some degree Doom is a protected character... protected more than a lot of heroes even. In part because I think a lot of people love the character. But also because he's one of the few villains with actual credibility left. And that's hard to pull off considering that villains, Doom included, are essentially designed to lose 99% of the time.

But Doom still somehow has managed to salvage a pretty good rep for himself despite coming up short, and that has value which I think marvel to some degree actually does want to actively protect. Even if it means an occasional good guy taking a hit to do it. Starlin does the same thing with Thanos, which is why Thanos like Doom is a villain which still has credibility.

That said, Loki's star (in large part due to the Avengers movie) is definately on the rise.

They came to Doom to save Susan and Valeria at Vals birth. Doom gains respect from Reed Richards, even though Doom sent Reeds son Franklyn to hell. Doom saves Counter Earth. Val comes to Doom to heroically confront and distract the Evil Celestials and gets an Infinity Gauntlet as a reward.

[jackolover]

This series is still excellent, and really well written. It's just been interrupted by a couple of event tie in's, and the series was obviously decided as the entry point to get Doom into Axis (since he doesn't have his own series, heh). I'd have liked to see Loki actually fight Doom. Instead he just sort of stood passively by and let Doom beat him. But with that said, Loki still continues to be massively loveable and dynamic as a character. You really feel for him in a way you couldn't for other characters, even many titular hero's.

I thought one of Loki's secret weapons was getting caught so people underestimate him, and Loki pounces? It's just that Verity didn't let that play out and forced the issue. One wonders why Loki didn't punch Doom in the nose after he was released, though. You don't imprison Loki and think that is the end of it.

[jackolover]

Can we talk about this part for a second? I find it disturbing that Frigga (while she does seem more regretful of what she's doing) just assumes that Loki will "come to his senses" with time. I mean, it's one thing to try and force him down a path he's trying not to go down, but she's trying to make it seem like she's doing this for his own good.

And going back to Old Loki in issue 6, could it be possible that he wanted Doom to attack present Loki? I mean, from their interaction in issue 6, Old Loki seemed pretty calm about finding Doom at the end of the world, and even still, he riled Doom up to the point where Doom went to "deal" with present day Loki. Was this some kind of evil!Loki plan from the get-go? And if so, to what end?

Regardless of Loki's lack of agency in these past two issues, there have been some HUGE changes in his attitude. If he were old Loki, he would have just sat and watched Latveria burn, in fact, he probably would have found ways to make the situation worse. He willingly used his truth sword, even though he knew the effect it would have on him (mad respect right there), and he's doing everything he can to not fall back into old habits.

Up thread, someone mentioned Loki not using his magic as much. And I agree with that, but wasn't it explained in the first issue? Something about using his magic too much would mean he'd go back to "burning?" (I can't find the page online at the moment)

Frankly, I love Verity because she's the only person who actually believes Loki can change, and that's something he needs right now. I mean, it's like Loki's a recovering alcoholic and EVERYONE around him (even Thor to some extent) is trying to forcibly shove alcohol down his throat.

"No...you're evil because that's who you are. It's easier for us if you're evil so stay that way."

It really reminds me of the stop motion comic "Thor and Loki: Blood Brothers"

One final note: Ego Death (which was back in issue 6).
When Doom found old Loki in the future with Skully, he said "That which is called Ego Death is coming to you. Be not weak"

Well, at first read I though "Ego Death" was some Marvel tie-in, but it means the death of the active Ego (or identity). The way a person sees themselves shifts and they are able to become a different person (at least that's what it sounds like from the very miniscule research I did). What if Skully was talking to/about Loki?

Sorry, I hope this post wasn't too long winded. I just think it's interesting the way metafiction works within this book, it's actually one of my favorites at the moment.

No, not too long at all, and all good points.

The point that Old future Loki "summoned" Doom to the future, to make Doom go back and encase kid Loki, does seem to ring true, by the attitude Old Loki had as Doom was fighting him. And when the Skully said that thing about "ego death", it was talking to Doom, so old Loki already knew a truth spell was coming and that Doom was going to have to cope with the loss of himself.

[jackolover]

I think it was plainly obvious that King Loki wanted Doom to go after his younger self, probably because of AXIS. the sheer coincidence of him even being at the same time and place as Doom kind of indicates the meeting was planned on Loki's part. I mean... Magneto was recruiting Doom, Loki is just along for the ride because he happened to be at the castle right then, because Doom captured him. It's possible that in King Loki's time, AXIS went differently because Loki did not participate in the battle for Genosha, and on a more personal level, did not get inverted.

It could also be that Old Loki wanted to make Doom go back to capture kid Loki, so the Truth sword would shock Doom into confronting his ego as a sort of death of Dooms conceit.

I think this is another hint about AXIS. 'Ego' can mean a couple different things in this context, especially when referring to Doom. So it is a little hard to say exactly what was meant... but the message took the form of a skull (Red Skull) and 'ego death' could relate to the upcoming inversion, which presumably will affect Doom pretty strongly. One of Doom's most defining traits is his overwhelming ego, so if that trait gets flipped in the inversion so he is humble, then 'ego death' kinda has a double meaning, the more psychological meaning of the death of his identity, and the more common meaning of just stopping being such an egomaniac. And I mean, it could only have been a warning to Doom, Loki was controlling the illusion, it was just a magical puppet, and Doom was the only other person there...

This is my take of Skully's advice, too. Old Loki already knows what goes on in this arc about AXIS, and what happens to Doom, so Loki's advice, through Skully, is a spoiler to Doom of what was coming. Doom could not but have realised he was played masterfully the whole time from Issue #6 -7, by old Loki.

[jackolover]

I think this issue gives us some good insight into the new Thor story. Odin knows that Freya is playing with fire by trusting Old Loki, and I believe he also believes one of two things will happen; either Loki will fail and he will be a villain again, or he won't and he won't be a threat to Asgardia. In option one, things will stay the way they are, and in another, Odin doesn't have to deal with Loki as a threat. Neither would be really bad from Odin's point of view. Of course, Freya is right here too. Odin has brought Cul back, so it all evens out.

Now, if Old Loki did need to manipulate events so that Loki would be with Doom when Magneto came to ask for help, the question is why would he want Loki to be there when the inversion happens? Since we know Loki will be a "good guy" because of it, why would that need to happen at all? Something very, very traumatic is going to come of this, but why would it need to happen if it didn't happen the last time and Old Loki still turned out to be the bad guy? I really think this is enforcing the idea that Old Loki may not be a complete agent of evil after all, but then again...

You hit on something I never really considered. The only other persons who could travel to the Moon after Thor tried to lift the hammer for weeks on end, is a god. Why not have it be kid Loki who picks up the hammer and turns into a girl, who gets to have redemption after being Inverted, to throw it in the face of Odin, who now has to admit his son Thor has turned evil? Remember the Allmother staring at the hammer the last time they were on the moon. Maybe Freya suggests to Loki to lift it now that Loki becomes worthy and Thor not?

Maybe he's failing because he wants to be that traditional hero deep down? It's not just someone he can be. He can't be the hero, and I imagine part of the inversion will be showing to readers just how big of a failure a totally good, hero Loki would be.

And this just strengthens that idea. If She Thor (Kid Loki) tries to be that hero and fails at it, that's the vehicle for that story?

[jackolover]

I really don't think he does want to be a hero at the moment, all he wants is to not be the villain, there is a difference. Maybe after inversion and he gets more of a taste of real selfless heroism, that may change a bit, but at the moment, I don't think so.

Siege Loki wanted to change BEFORE he died, so there doesn't need to be an utterly drastic change for him to not want to be evil anymore. He has changed some, as i said, Kid Loki definitely had an impact, he is an amalgam of the two to a degree, but it's not in a 2 pilots fighting for control sense. But mostly it's just in a new package, and with some new things learned (and an appreciation for some new things, like bacon and cell phones) from his time watching Kid Loki. I think the only thing that is different that couldn't have been learned just from watching Kid Loki is a new increased capacity for guilt. Crippling guilt at times. I think this may have been a flaw in the copy, I just can't decide if it was intentionally added or not. Or maybe something fundamentally different about the new body, in Young Avengers he did say something along the lines of the new body confounding his nature, or something like that. I was talking to a friend of mine and he put it this way: "Siege Loki decided he didn't want to be evil anymore, but needed to prove that it could be done, a proof of concept. Siege was scrapping the old model, so R&D could happen, once the proof of concept succeeded, time to do it for real. Kid Loki proved that Loki could change, but if he hadn't he may have just doubled down on the evil, or there would be no Loki at all. (he did say he would rather die than not change) So even though this is old, evil Loki, the one who did all the prior evil and died in Siege, he now knows that he CAN choose to not be an evil jerk. And he learned a lot from Kid Loki on HOW to not be an evil jerk, and is now attempting to act on what he has learned." But he is not a totally different character, even though it may seem that way at times. It is still a continuation, he is still very deeply flawed with some tendencies that could easily lead to backsliding if he does not watch himself. and that's why he is interesting. If his attempts to be a better person were EASY, it wouldn't be nearly as compelling. I have said at times that they kinda are different characters, but I'm kinda exaggerating a bit when I do, for clarity when talking with people who do not understand that he is trying to change.

There is a chance that by the end of Time Runs Out, the Loki story will have come it's full circle, and the R&D will have formed the old Loki into what he wants, and the New Universe will have it's primordial Loki for the new Age. All the preamble of Siege Loki, Kid Loki, and now amalgam Loki, will eventually lead to the Loki aged up to where he needs to be to start harassing Midgard and Thor like he did in JIM those many years ago. In fact many of the super heroes in the MU will have gone through this birthing process like Loki and will come out the other end as rejuvenated, and full of confidence in the New Universe. Here's hoping

[Post Monster]

Odin has brought Cul back, so it all evens out.

Can we talk about this, BTW. Cul being brought back is just huge, and I get the feeling that the pantheon needs an antagonistic god to dump on. That has been Loki, but this might be the clue that Loki is going to stay neutral pretty much forever.

And I really, really want to see Asgard try the crap they pulled with Loki on Cul, because Cul seems like a much stronger, more dangerous character.