Originally Posted by
Raye
ah, so cute!
Yeah, I hope Loki defies the odds and manages to keep things going, I think he's far more interesting now than he ever has been before. He actually has something to strive for now, besides just revenge or causing chaos, which are motivations shared by tons of villains. It's been a shame to see some other face turns that have lasted less time than Loki's get undone one by one, Galactus, Doom, Sabretooth... all back to being villains for some stupid cheap nostalgia grab, it's disappointing. (and Magneto is, as always, a complicated case, straddling the line between anti-hero and anti-villain, constantly flipping back and forth) But Loki is coming up on 10 years since he was a bad guy, nearly 1/5th of his existence, so I think he can make it. And if Cates takes over Thor, I'm confident he'll continue with his current characterization of trying to better himself.
Well, Knull is... if not dead, nearly so. Or at least the form he was using to extend his influence to Earth, the Grendel, is. Got all burned up in a furnace, aside from a small sample. When it comes to the War of the Realms, Malekith is definitely the big bad, it's his idea, he's the one gathering and directing the resources to make it happen, Knull had zero to do with it. Knull may become a big bad in the future, but he's on the back burner at the moment. And Nyx seems to have stolen his motivation, too, so he may be on a back burner for quite a while longer, so as to not take away from her. If Knull happens, it likely won't be for many months yet. If Cates takes over Thor, i think he'll make a comeback then, and also cross over with Venom, but I don't think he's on the table just now. I am just saying, I wouldn't call him the big bad right now. He's a big threat, sure, and he may become the big bad in the future, but there's always a bigger bad guy on the horizon, after Knull, it will be something else. It doesn't mean the current baddies can't be the big bad of the story they are in.
And with the dupes, I REALLY hope that if that's the case, it is just one or two max at a time. It would just get absolutely absurd and hard to keep track of, not to mention insanely OP, if he had a bunch of them running around. Aside from Infinity Wars, and the odd guest appearance, like Spider-Man, I don't think his characterization was really all that different across books, not any more than any other character out there, they just kinda, focused on different aspects, so not like it's really needed to explain away inconsistencies. My hope is that IF it was a dupe that got offed, "Kid Loki" had to go in order to set up the assassination dummy, because he can only maintain one at a time.