Loki Appreciation 2018

[Raye]

Okay, the main plot of Avengers Academy is starting to worry me a bit for Loki. Ares told him he is going to bring war and he wants that to happen so he's making him stronger, also using his feelings for Natasha as an incentive. Meanwhile, Janet and Scott find out the vaults on Pym's lab are from other dimensions (616, 1601, etc) and that Hank is visiting them. Janet fights Ares and he reveals to her that they are from an alternate universe and something horrible happened in their old universe and got it destroyed. He also tells them to visit Heimdall. Janet tries to tell Natasha what she found, but she dismisses her and tells her she's a distraction. Janet gets angry that Nat is hanging out with Loki and Taskmaster and not taking her seriously, so she goes visit Heimdall with Scott. After they return, Scott tells Janet that they need to keep an eye on Loki because everything bad seems to begin with him. Janet gets mad that Natasha can't see it, but Scott tells her that maybe she does see it and she's playing Loki. Janet gets angrier and tells him if that's not the case, they will need to take them both out.

Alright, I get that Janet is angry and jealous at Nat, but she's really starting to piss me off. At first, she was one of the only people in the Academy that showed Loki a bit of kindness, but now she acts like he stole her bestie and treats him like dirt. Also, Ares motives seem suspicious, he wants the war to happen and seems to be pushing Loki in that direction. This doesn't look good.

Also, don't get me started on Thor and Janet suddenly in love and already planning their wedding. It was out of nowhere.

Yeah, it is a bit worrying. but I really don't think Loki's INTENT is bad here. He seemed as surprised as anyone that Ares said he was destined to bring War to the Academy. Ares also didn't seem to think this was a bad thing, but... he IS the god of war, so... I think the intent makes all the difference. This version of Loki is mostly bluster, a lot of big talk but rarely following through. And if Nat is playing Loki, then really, she's the bad guy here and Loki is a red herring. Also, Loki kind of has a history of going 'screw destiny' so he may fight it.

[kaimaciel]

I hope you're right. I don't think I'll be able to finish the game if they go with full-villain Loki. I'd rather quit.

By the way, you wanna know why Loki was even invited to the Academy in the first place:

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Wow!

[L0ki]

They're riding a fine line with this All new, All different Loki.

Aaron is doing a good job, as far as a remedy goes, in combining Loki's history into one story.

The thing is, at times it appears a lot like the Loki in the "Loki" Esad Ribic book, where he's trying to carve a different destiny for himself.

They even did that with the kid Loki.

Still, overall it's a cool story. They're knocking it out of the park in the Thor run.

[Raye]

I hope you're right. I don't think I'll be able to finish the game if they go with full-villain Loki. I'd rather quit.

By the way, you wanna know why Loki was even invited to the Academy in the first place:

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Wow!

I don't think we have to worry much, there was an interview with the writer on the game David Warner, and he said that there were very few characters in the MU that he felt were irredeemable (he named dropped Red Skull and Carnage as irredeemable, which I'd agree with) and that one of the things he liked about the premise was that all sorts of villains could be given a new chance without their history of bad deeds dragging them down. He seemed very big on this, and used Loki as an example. So I think that even if it takes a dark durn, he'll be ok in the end.

They're riding a fine line with this All new, All different Loki.

Aaron is doing a good job, as far as a remedy goes, in combining Loki's history into one story.

The thing is, at times it appears a lot like the Loki in the "Loki" Esad Ribic book, where he's trying to carve a different destiny for himself.

They even did that with the kid Loki.

Still, overall it's a cool story. They're knocking it out of the park in the Thor run.

I'm a little bit confused, when you say Aaron's run is the remedy, in which way do you mean? Do you think he was being too good in Agent of Asgard? Because that's my favorite part, I love face turns. Though, I do like that Aaron's Loki has a bit more bite and badassery to him.

As for being similar to Blood Brothers, Loki feeling trapped by destiny and trying to change his fate has been a pretty common theme with the character across most adaptations. It took a bit longer for the main version to get there due to a lot of baggage and character momentum that the adaptations didn't have to deal with, but I suspect the reasons are the same. Characters with understandable motivations are just more interesting. It's also harder to keep them truly villainous once that happens, because you can see where they're coming from. It's kinda like Magneto, or Poison Ivy or Mr Freeze or Clayface in DC who have also been becoming progressively less villainous as time goes on. The more they fleshed out their motivations, the more sympathetic they became, to the point where it's a bit hard to want to see them just do it for the evulz, which progresses to wanting to see them get better. Loki in several adaptations was given more solid motivations and a sympathetic treatment which eventually leaked back into the source material to an extent. (same thing with Freeze. His TAS origins and motivations with Nora and all that were so well received that his original comics back story was just flat out dropped in favor of it with little to no explanation, and I don't think most people cared at all, cus the more sympathetic version was just a far more interesting character)

[Raye]

so, I was in Hot Topic today to get my exclusive Jareth Pop figure (I got the last one! yaaaay!) and saw these lanyard things: http://funko.com/blogs/news/coming-s...d-party-lights



The Loki one isn't out yet, he's out in October. don't give a **** about the lanyard, (though, if i go to the Calgary comic con next year i may use it i guess) but i may get it just to get the little Loki to hang off my purse. Already have the bobblehead and keychain.

*edit: continued to browse their blog and there is also this in September (so like, day after tomorrow i guess ):

[Shura]

It´s very cute but I wonder why they use the yellow-scale design that much, I know it´s iconic but the one from the 80´s, the Simonson one, was way more used in the comics.

The other days I was about to pick the Loki funko figure, but it was from the Dark World, so he didn´t have the helmet, I´ll look for the one from the Avengers better (btw, Didn´t know there was a Funko of Jareth, it´s so cute! ... I think I need one)

Also my Avac game is finally working! Sadly I missed the chance to get Squirrel girl but at least my game wasn´t erased. Probably I´ll get the lawyer outfit tomorrow.
About Natasha´s dialogue, given that it was Matt Murdock the one she was talking to, it not possible to think she was just being defensive, too bad I like them <I hope she regrets later, but not because Loki has done something crazy after taking it badly.
Anyway, I don´t think they´ll go too far with him being the villain in this game, he may take it badly, specially if he ends up beign the one who caused the timefog, certainly Fury and Ares don´t seem to have much faith on him.

[Raye]

There is a whole line of Labyrinth ones released just recently, and there are 2 of Jareth, the regular one in his Magic Dance costume, and one in the white costume exclusive to Hot Topic, the closest of which is like 45 minutes from my house. He apparently is quite popular, they had multiples of their other exclusive figures, but they had to pull mine out of the front window, as it was the last one in the store. But he was worth it. The Ludo one is oversized and super cool. I will get him from the mall much closer to my house next week probably, as i continue to search for Thor, who stores keep selling out of on me. I don't even care which version at this point, I just need a Thor to go with my Loki. But I would really love a comic book version of each, and yeah, in recent costumes. Loki in his Agent of Asgard or Mighty Thor cotume would be great, and I'd love Thor in his God of Thunder costume, but Unworthy would be cool too.

And yay for getting your game fixed in time to get Lawki! They should have given you some shards to make up for lost time. But yeah, I don't think he'll do more than throw a temper tantrum which gets fixed and at least mostly forgiven. And I dunno if Ares was disappointed, he seemed to be TRYING to get Loki to get this war started. As usual with Loki, he's being herded towards a destiny I suspect he may not be all that eager to fulfill.

[Shura]

I have a Kotobukiya Thor and I really want a Loki figure figure to go with him, the disney infinity one and the funko pop don´t count for obvious reasons The Lady Loki figure that was posted a few pages ago would be nice but I´m sure it would be very expensive, also I prefer the male version, the current one would be perfect but the Siege or Simonson version would be great too.

Also, here´s a pic of the new movie costume (or at least part of it) it´s very similar to the previous one but it looks more simple and les black, I like it, but given that it doesnñt look very armour-ish I don´t know if he´ll wear the helmet.

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Bonus:

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Even if I think the previous one is pretty good, it looked a bit too.... futuristic?, this one looks a bit more like a viking (even if the first thing that came to my mind was the Hercules and Xena series, I still haveto think if that´s good or bad) I only miss the six metal circles.

[Raye]

Nice! Loki's looks a fair bit simpler from before. actually, both of them do. Thor's costume seems to be taking some design cues from Esad Ribic's design in God of Thunder. Odin's seems to have a sort of Asian feel to it, kinda bizarrely.

With Doctor Strange hitting, they may be moving away from the tech angle of the MCU Asgard stuff. It was always kinda weird in regards to that, tho. They went to some length to explain away a lot of stuff as tech dressed up to look medieval or magical, but then some things, such as Odin enchanting Mjolnir, were straight up magic. So like, why did they have to do the whole 'sufficiently advanced technology' thing in the first place?

In other news, just read the latest issue of Deadpool v Gambit, and... turns out Loki's been in that since issue 1. But it's pretty disappointing. I mean, to be honest the writing on this thing has been pretty bad from the start, i was just kinda keeping up with it because I like Gambit. But anyway, Loki reveals that he's been this guy Chalmers the whole time, but he's in some weird take on his Siege costume, he's back to talking in the old shakesperian talk even though he hasn't been talking like that for YEARS now, and he is in full on villain mode. And it's not even for anything important, he's just getting LAND out of this. i mean, why?

but yeah, anyway. Deadpool v Gambit, he's in it.

[Shura]

Really? someone didn´t do his homeworks, I read the first issue but thought it was a bit meh (with Gambit and Deadpool I expected the whole thing to have more... energy? idk) now I´m glad I didn´t pick the rest. also land? could you explain that?

About the costumes, honestly if they just decide to ignore the "magic is science" bullshit I won´t complain, maybe they realized that the word "magic" doens´t make your story less credible(c´mon is a movie about superheroes and norse gods!), if you create a solid world with solid rules is in fact better because you don´t have to made up technological explanations that are almost as fantasized as magic but much more boring to hear. Also as you said I can´t believe Mjolnir enchantment is anything but magic, the same goes to Loki´s illusions.
If they go full magic, it would also explain plot holes like nobody knowing that Loki is a frost giant and a bad guy BUT then there are books about mythology that explain who are Thor and the rest of the nine worlds, it could be explainED so easily with "that was the previous Ragnarok cycle, this time Odin tried to keeps thing more controlled so they can´t use the bifrost whenever they want" it would also explain why Hela and Fenris can be Loki´s children and be older than him.
This is the best explanation I found to make the concept of Ragnarok have a bit more sense, also try to explain Hela with science.

[Raye]

If they are doing the whole Ragnarok Cycle (as an aside, does the tone we've been seeing so far seem a bit... light for the subject matter? I mean the director they hired is mainly a comedy guy, and everything I've heard has suggested it's a pretty funny movie. Man, i wish I had kept in touch with Yost I used to talk to him all the time as he was doing X-Men Evolution and a bit after that. but we lost contact when the site we talked at got.... weird.) we could be looking at a reboot of the Thor side of things with an in-continuity explanation. though Hemsworth has said that though he's only contracted for up through Ragnarok, he would be willing to do more. so who knows.

ok, for Deadpool v Gambit, it is a bit more complicated than that. Since I am guessing most here haven't been reading it, recap:
spoilers:

I went back and skimmed through the issues to refresh myself on what's going in (it can be a little hard to follow) so. Gambit and Deadpool, it turns out, have worked together before, for Chalmers (Loki) who double crossed them back in the day, and he wants their help again. They are skeptical but he throws a ton of money at them to sway them. And looking back at the first issue, I see now that Chalmers is wearing a green and gold ring, so a teeny tiny little clue beyond him being generally untrustworthy. He wants them to steal a magical artifact called the Dragon's Tongue from a crime boss, Fat Cobra. This artifact basically gives it's owner a lot of power, makes them very tough to kill. Chalmers tries to steal it without actually paying them though, but Deadpool interrupts him. reading this the first time, it was easy to understand why a middle aged perfectly ordinary man may want this talisman, especially after he says (now revealed to be a lie) that he has cancer, and this artifact can save him from dying but... Loki is already immortal, so I dunno why HE would want it. (... may need it for Jane...? but I do not have much faith remaining that it will actually tie into anything going on with Loki in Mighty Thor) anyway, they steal it, and Deadpool takes Chalmers back to the safehouse to get his money, but they are interrupted by the crime boss they stole it from and Chalmers disappears somehow (at the time it didn't make sense how he could just vanish into thin air, but I guess it does now) and so Fat Cobra beats the **** out of Deadpool, who as we will learn next issue has had his powers fucked with by Scrambler, formerly of the Reavers, who is in the employ of 'Chalmers'. Gambit's powers have also gone haywire for the same reason, which delayed him from getting to the safehouse on time. And this is where the land comes in. Gambit, Deadpool and Chalmers back in the day had conned him out of some money selling him worthless swampland. anyway, Gambit and Deadpool go after him to fix their powers, and there is a villain BBQ and they fight and Fat Cobra seems to have gained some respect for them due to their tenacity and... somehow, gives Deadpool Iron Fist powers. Then issue 4 is mostly flashback with Scrambler who it turns out that after he had his hands lopped off by Wolverine during the Mutant Massacre tried to go straight, and was pretty much successful. He got married, had a normal life, used his powers to animate some prosthetic hands so he was doing pretty good. and then the swampland thing happened, and the Reavers kept coming after him, and basically things went all wrong for him. and then a couple years later, Loki/Kahn/Chalmers contacts him. In hindsight, his specific words to get Scrambler back on his side may be relevant to Agent of Asgard/JIM (keep in mind he's 'in character' here so no Asgard talk "I don't expect you to believe me, but I'm sorry. I'm not responsible for what happened. I don't expect you to believe that either, but it's true." so that may be some sort of reference to Loki believing himself to be a different person now not responsible for his past misdeeds. BUT... then he lies and tries to pin it all on Gambit, Deadpool and Fat Cobra. Turns out that he did all this to Deadpool and Gambit at Loki's request and in return for the worthless swamp land they conned him into buying in the first place, Loki gives him his happy life back. And then we get back to Deadpool and Gambit who are out to find 'Chalmers' for double crossing them, and... end of issue.

end of spoilers

Having written that all out, I can see that the actual plot isn't actually that bad. but the execution is making it kind of confusing to follow and the dialogue is bad. But yeah, if i was being generous, I would say that in light of Scrambler being unburdened of the worthless land Loki had tricked him into buying in the first place and then being granted his happy life again by Loki, that maybe Loki is trying to undo some of his past misdeeds. But the WAY in which Loki is written (see below) seems very at odds with that, and he also royally fucked over Gambit and Deadpool in the process. so...

Here is the most relevant page at least as far as this thread goes:

[Shura]

Uh...weird, I guess it could work with the current Loki with a few tweaks in the story, without the shakesperian talk and a more updated design (I mean, wtf is that design? it´s like a mix between Siege, 80´s and blood brothers , it´s the first time I see the horns and the wings at the same time) but yeah, it´s weird I think I´m going to ignore this little appaearance unless something interesting and more coherent happens at the end.

About the movie, yeah everything sounds a bit too light for being Ragnarok, I don´t have problems with the humour in superheroes movies, the problem that in the Thor movies it came from secondary filler characters when it just doesn´t fit, it feels very forced, specially in the Dark World where in one scene you´re watching Freyja´s funeral (which was a beutiful scene) and the next scene is Selvig explaining some cientific bullshit with a shoe, Then you hace scenes like the ones with Thor and Loki escaping from prison were fun to watch and didn´t felt forced or out of place so it can be done right.
I hope the movie to be funny but well balance, from the director I´ve seen "what we do in the shadows" which was very good and the video of what was Thor doing during Civil war which was hilarious, so I expect the humour part to be good. Also, given how many things they want to use in this movie I also expect it to be very crazy but yeah, not a lot of apocalyptic drama as one usually expecst from the word Ragnarok.

By the way, from the pictures of them in Midgard and the costume (much more green than black unlike the previous one) I have the feeling that Loki might not be the main villain, at least not the same way he was in the Avengers, so his role would more similar to the one he has in TDW, which I´m sure is that his relation with Thor won´t be very friendly even if they have to work together, maybe I think all this because is what I want to see

[Raye]

Yeah. Appearance wise this definitely does not fit AT ALL with his more recent depictions. I dunno if the artist didn't get the memo that he's changed quite quite a bit recently, (though that's what editors are for! They're supposed to tell the artists and writers what the characters current looks and personalities are etc.) or what. But it just doesn't fit unless it's revealed to be an illusion but I mean, why? When Loki was in Deadpool's Art of War they made made a point of saying 'yeah, Kid Loki won't work here' so they tossed it aside for a more classic version on panel using Deadpool's fouth wall breaking. And at least Deadpool's involvement here makes it easy to ignore for similar reasons. Still, super sloppy. Similar thing happened recently in Squirrel Girl (which I do normally like like a lot) where she fought Doc Ock despite him being, y'know, dead and all. (Ok, mostly dead. But still, he wasn't able to fight her) and I do appreciate the editors giving writers creative freedom, but there are limits, it is still a shared universe and you can't just be going around actively contradicting other books. It is ok to say to a writer 'look, this won't work with how this character is currently being used'

For the movie. I would not mind funny, except Ragnarok does seem an odd choice to make 'the funny one' of the Thor movies to date. I do hope we get more of Thor and Loki bickering like they did in Dark World, though. I was afraid given the reveal at the end that it would not be possible because they seemed to be setting Loki up to be extra villainous in the next movie because he appeared to have probably done SOMETHING terrible to Odin. But looks like that may not be the case. Or at least he's not dead. The one dressed all nice in the robe there may be actually Loki, but the one in hobo clothes probably is really Odin, and in scenes filmed in the same location, Thor and Loki seemed to be working together. So that's something. Also, that Thor's costume there has some pretty heavy influences from Ribic's design kinda says to me that they may be taking more of a lead from the recent comics. In which case they may be playing up the Loki face turn angle.

[Rc1ca]

I think that when he unscrambled the codicil he triggered an imprint of Loki left behind when the contract was written . After all Loki has showed he can do stuff like that , it was how Ikol should up in JIM .

Therefore the next chapter might have the newer Loki , who may not have any memory of it. This was showen in the squirrel girl issue which gives us Loki with a cat head . Loki himself said his plan with the world tree squirrel was one his previous iteration and there are probably a lot more of old loki's mischief left to pester are currant Loki

Using this idea would let marvel have there current Loki as well as an old style one who does evil . As to why he might want land is probably too build his church as mentioned in TMT

[Maven]

If they are doing the whole Ragnarok Cycle (as an aside, does the tone we've been seeing so far seem a bit... light for the subject matter? I mean the director they hired is mainly a comedy guy, and everything I've heard has suggested it's a pretty funny movie.

First time on the thread, so let me state that although I've predominantly been and am a Fantastic Four aficionado, I have always liked Thor, Loki, and Asgard quite a bit as well. Love, love, LOVE the first two movies (yes, even The Dark World) and they fight constantly with Guardians Of The Galaxy and Ant-Man for my top MCU favorites. That said, I am not feeling it for Thor: Ragnarok based on what I've seen and read thus far. I can't say I am keen on them looking to make it a What We Do In The Shadows-esque comedy between getting the director/writer/producer/star of that movie as the director of Ragnarok and the "What Thor was doing during the Civil War." snippet that recently made the rounds. The snippet was alright, but I can't say it was the funniest thing I've ever seen. I hope Tom Hiddleston/Loki will be in the movie, because if Ragnarok is going to be an all-out comedy, Hiddleston's Loki may very well be what saves it.

I am also super disappointed that Enchantress will not be a featured villain(ess) in Ragnarok, but that's another discussion...