Loki Appreciation 2018

[rpmaluki]

Just chalk it up to time paradox, Ragnarok cycle.

I mean, in Xmen. Shatter star and Longshot.
Shatter star was cloned to create Longshot and Longshot had a son who became shatterstar who was cloned to become Longshot who had a son...

I know it's a comic, but I can suspend my disbelief up to a point.

I'm not really referring to the time paradox. I'm talking about Loki birthing himself whether as the mother or father. That's not probable unless somehow Loki possess the natural ability to physically clone himself using a specific sperm/egg plus the required specific genetic material of the male or female donor to produce himself twice over first as parent and later as the offspring, thus creating a loop. It's a lot easier to digest that Hela is his daughter and she's thousands of years older than him than Loki being his own mother.

[juan678]

[juan678]

[Raye]

hehehe!

and about the myth, the way I read the myth (I am sure there are some different versions out there) it was that Loki spent several years living on Midgard as a woman, married to a man, had children and everything. Odin was not keen on this, and he mocked Loki for it. Though Loki bit right back. This was during his big "y'all suck!" speech.

[Rosebunse]

hehehe!

and about the myth, the way I read the myth (I am sure there are some different versions out there) it was that Loki spent several years living on Midgard as a woman, married to a man, had children and everything. Odin was not keen on this, and he mocked Loki for it. Though Loki bit right back. This was during his big "y'all suck!" speech.

Fun myth lol

OK, for Loki's mother, we now have Farbauti, one of the Norns, Freya, Odin, and Loki himself. Are there any other entities we can think of?

I'm also going to throw out, potentially, the Celestial Host. Why? Those things experiment on everything else, why not Frost Giants?

[Raye]

I know I was (I think?) the first in this thread to say something about his mother, but it's not really his mother that's the potential mystery, I dunno what I was thinking the other day when I said that, it makes no sense, it was a brain fart. It's his father that is the potential mystery here. The only way his mother could be a mystery is if Laufey lied about her, and made up Farbauti, which is a possibility but seems far less likely than the alternative. If Laufey lied, if he was certain he was Loki's father, but was for some reason keeping the mother a secret by lying about her identity, then he has less reason to hate Loki, Loki is still his son in that case, and even if she wasn't a giant, he still chose to sleep with the mother, so his hatred of Loki's possible non-giantness would make less sense. And also, just, generally maternity is really difficult to call into question, there is usually no question there because she gave birth, if the kid squirted out of her, then yeah, it's hers, no doubt about it. (barring surrogate pregnancies, but that wasn't a thing back then) But the father can be anyone she had sex with, and even she may not be sure which one it was if there were several guys in the right general window of time. I mean, we have all those 'who's the father?' episodes of Maury but no 'who's the mother?' ones for a reason. All Farbauti had to do was lie, or simply be unsure of who the father was, while Laufey would have to do a whole lot more to pull it off, and he had no real reason to.


But like i said, anyone other than Odin... meh, just not terribly interesting to me, because it would make no difference as far as Loki is concerned. so he has a father who is not Laufey... ok. but how does that change a thing about his life? Laufey wasn't even a feature in his life for the vast majority of it, so swapping one father he barely knew for another isn't a big change for him. And if they are something other than a frost giant or maybe even not an Asgaridan, like, he's not going to suddenly gain new powers upon learning it, or anything. That is why only Odin (or maybe Freyja, though less likely) is of much interest to me, because of the family drama it creates. Also, I went looking for this panel just now, because I think it is relevant:



Odin is the only one who can address that particular mope.

[Rosebunse]

Well, the question of maternity isn't often asked because there are normally witnesses. Multiple people have normally seen that the mother is pregnant or there were witnesses to the birth. So, given Loki's small size and the normal size of Frost Giants, Faubauti might not have even of looked pregnant. Or those other Frost Giants might believe that she could be pregnant and not have looked pregnant. Laufey might have murdered the other witnesses to the birth or it might have just been him and Faubauti present at Loki's birth.

And perhaps this was some sort of "magical" surrogate pregnancy and that's why Laufey killed her? Or why she killed herself?

The question is, if Faubauti did cheat on Laufey and he evens suspects it, then why is he dealing with Loki at all? He didn't disown Loki because he believed that he wasn't his son, he disowned him because he didn't like Loki and thought he was a disgrace. Especially if Laufey thought that Odin was the father, why bother with Loki at all?

[Del torro]

Thor 700 question
spoilers:

Did Aaron kill Thori? Is he dead?

end of spoilers

[Rosebunse]

Thor 700 question
spoilers:

Did Aaron kill Thori? Is he dead?

end of spoilers

This is a good question! I think he's just tired, but...

[Raye]

yeah, I think if he had killed Thori, it would be a lot more dramatic, like the goat...

New interview!

https://news.marvel.com/comics/78513...cerer-supreme/

And again, Donny Cates inspires confidence in me that he will handle Loki well. He seems to really get him. He does say that it is very much Strange's story, still, but i was expecting that, it should still be fun. I just hope that if Loki gets to keep the title beyond the first arc, he gets a book to explore that in. but if they do that, i can understand why it has to be delayed, give Loki a book of him doing Sorcerer Supreme stuff, then it spoils Doctor Strange. so if it happens, it may not even appear in until a few months after the first Strange arc.

[Rosebunse]

yeah, I think if he had killed Thori, it would be a lot more dramatic, like the goat...

New interview!

https://news.marvel.com/comics/78513...cerer-supreme/

And again, Donny Cates inspires confidence in me that he will handle Loki well. He seems to really get him. He does say that it is very much Strange's story, still, but i was expecting that, it should still be fun. I just hope that if Loki gets to keep the title beyond the first arc, he gets a book to explore that in. but if they do that, i can understand why it has to be delayed, give Loki a book of him doing Sorcerer Supreme stuff, then it spoils Doctor Strange. so if it happens, it may not even appear in until a few months after the first Strange arc.

It does sound like the real thing here is more the lengths to which Strange will go to be Sorcerer Supreme again, which is awesome! Especially since it confirms that who we were seeing in that cover was the Chaos King. That's really the worst thing Strange could summon or make a deal with. There's really no one worse for Loki. You can't make a deal with it, you can't even really trick it or tell it a scary story. You can't even really punch it or stab it.

Strange has done some bad things before, but this takes the cake.

And it might bring up some perspective among certain characters. Loki isn't good and can't be trusted, but he's not really done anything bad enough to deserve this.

[Riimi]

Does anyone else think it's funny that the interviewers basically went from "Well, Loki's a bad guy" (and then Cates was all like "well, actually") to "maybe he's totes a double agent" to "Loki's not all that bad of a dude" in the time leading up to this? I think it's hilarious, but I'm also hopeful that it indicates the direction editorial in general (not just Cates) are taking with him moving forward (now if they would only give Duggan the memo >>).

As far as it mostly focusing on Steven, as has been said, not that surprising. However, I think the chances of it spinning off into it's own thing (or at least having Loki remain as Sorcerer Supreme) are pretty good, since I can't see Steven going back to being Sorcerer Supreme after what we're guessing he's doing.

[Rosebunse]

Does anyone else think it's funny that the interviewers basically went from "Well, Loki's a bad guy" (and then Cates was all like "well, actually") to "maybe he's totes a double agent" to "Loki's not all that bad of a dude" in the time leading up to this? I think it's hilarious, but I'm also hopeful that it indicates the direction editorial in general (not just Cates) are taking with him moving forward (now if they would only give Duggan the memo >>).

As far as it mostly focusing on Steven, as has been said, not that surprising. However, I think the chances of it spinning off into it's own thing (or at least having Loki remain as Sorcerer Supreme) are pretty good, since I can't see Steven going back to being Sorcerer Supreme after what we're guessing he's doing.

I think Marvel editorial knows what they're doing with Loki. They have to given that he's now a major character in at least three different books. And to be fair, I'm sure that Duggan knows what he's doing. He's a proven writer with a proven track record of creating interesting and dimensional villains. I know people are hating on him and Aaron for Loki's current and more negative portrayals, but we're not done with this. We still don't even know what Loki wants the Gems for?

I mean, really, what does he want them for? If it was all for true evil, then OK, but what could he want? He can't really die, he really has no extra need for money, and power wise he's pretty damn powerful. What else is there? Control of the universe? Has this Loki really ever given much indication that he wants to have that much control and power over anyone or anything? OK, so maybe he wants the Gems to remake his destiny or universal role? Well, OK, sure, but even he has to realize how counter-productive that is when he's doing so many evil things to get it.

And as Cates said, even if Loki isn't exactly good, that doesn't mean he isn't trying to be helpful and altruistic in the greater scheme of things.

[Raye]

We do (probablly) know what he wants the gems for. It's just not stated in GotG, because it's not relevant to GotG beyond the fact that the Infinity Gems are a cosmic sort of thing and Gamora is linked to one of them at the moment. He wants them for saving the world against the whole Final Host thing, he seems to be just amassing as much raw power as possible, and the gems are an obvious source of power.

My problem with Duggan's take isn't so much what he is going, but the way he goes about it. he just oozes the old disdain and disregard for everyone else that was much more typical of his old characterization.

It does sound like the real thing here is more the lengths to which Strange will go to be Sorcerer Supreme again, which is awesome! Especially since it confirms that who we were seeing in that cover was the Chaos King. That's really the worst thing Strange could summon or make a deal with. There's really no one worse for Loki. You can't make a deal with it, you can't even really trick it or tell it a scary story. You can't even really punch it or stab it.

Strange has done some bad things before, but this takes the cake.

And it might bring up some perspective among certain characters. Loki isn't good and can't be trusted, but he's not really done anything bad enough to deserve this.

Well, Loki hasn't done all that much bad... Recently, anyway... ok... at least nothing Strange would likely be aware of. Though even at Loki's worst, I don't think conjuring up a demon/god that seeks to destroy everything in existence could be considered a good idea. But though more extreme than the past, this isn't without precedent. I fucking called this, if you recall. Not the specific being he would summon, of course, (I am not even familiar with them aside from what I could learn from some wikis) but it was his past actions where he had once allowed himself to be possessed by a demon during World War Hulk and nearly killed a bunch of people, and then sold his soul for power during the incursions, that made me think he could do something like this.

Does anyone else think it's funny that the interviewers basically went from "Well, Loki's a bad guy" (and then Cates was all like "well, actually") to "maybe he's totes a double agent" to "Loki's not all that bad of a dude" in the time leading up to this? I think it's hilarious, but I'm also hopeful that it indicates the direction editorial in general (not just Cates) are taking with him moving forward (now if they would only give Duggan the memo >>).

As far as it mostly focusing on Steven, as has been said, not that surprising. However, I think the chances of it spinning off into it's own thing (or at least having Loki remain as Sorcerer Supreme) are pretty good, since I can't see Steven going back to being Sorcerer Supreme after what we're guessing he's doing.

Yeah, but they aren't the SAME interviewers. So it's kinda like, there are fans like us who know Loki's recent history and know he's doing the anti-hero thing right now, but there are others who just aren't aware of it and think he's still the same old villain from up until Siege. But it is weird how they coincidentally released them in a sort of sequential order, yeah. I presume the ones on Marvel's site are done by like, interns or something, so they may be privy to a bit of advanced knowledge, but probably not all that much. The ones on other sites they only have as much information as we do.

And yeah, like, on the one hand, the solicits seem to indicate the arc is coming to a close pretty quick. Which is a bit surprising because it seems like such a BIG story, the more we learn about it, (though, as I think i have mentioned before, Donny Cates stuff tends to happen at a pretty rapid pace, he is good at fitting a lot into a short space) which could mean Strange gets the title back. But as you mention, how could they justify him getting the title back after doing something so vile? I mean, as the preview states, the title doesn't much care for concepts of good and evil, but... you'd think him doing something like this would call into question whether he would perform the duties that come with the title in a way that doesn't do more harm than good. the purpose of the Sorcerer Supreme is to PROTECT the dimension from magical threats, not unleash them. But what would the Doctor Strange book be after something like that?

[Rosebunse]

OK, you did call it. I assumed that he would team up with Mephisto or one of Loki's more normal enemies. The Chaos King is totally unexpected. This is pretty bad and I'm interested in seeing how he redeems himself.

Actually, given Loki's powers, I'm not sure how the Chaos King would attack him. Loki can quite simply walk himself out of a story. And given Loki's status as Sorcerer Supreme, if the Chaos King does want to end all of existence, then he will have to take out Lokind sooner rather than later. That'll be fun!

On the Duggan note, I'm still not sure I buy that his portrayal is all that bad. The worst thing he's done is corrupting the Gardner, which was truly horrifying. But the thing is, Loki is someone for whom the ends justify the means. Even Kid Loki had shades of this, though not quite so bad. He thinks that Gauntlet is worth ruining the lives of a few people, then so be it if it does the job and saves countless others.

I also questimate how the Incursions are effecting this. Loki is seemingly one of only a few people who know or remember them. Does this give him any sort of special insight into this whole thing?