Of all of the announcements by Marvel Studios over the past year, the announcement that the Loki TV series had a firm start date in June 2021 was one that fans had been anticipating the most.
Ever since the iconic character made famous by Tom Hiddleston was choked to his demise by Thanos in the beginning of Avengers: Infinity War, fans have been waiting for definitive news of the return of the God of Mischief.
Slowly, a few details have begun to emerge about the show, which takes up Loki’s story after he absconds with the Tesseract.
It’s About Loki The Magical Shapeshifting Villain
Actor Tom Hiddleston heard about the fact that Loki was being killed off in Avengers: Infinity War in person during a meeting with Kevin Feige to talk about Thor: Ragnarok, as he told Empire Online in a recent interview.
“It was the very first scene the Russos, Joe and Anthony, had [come up with],” Hiddleston said.
The Loki of 2012, of course, who grabbed the Tesseract just in time in Endgame, was still villain Loki. That means he could still presumably be on the path to transformation and redemption, as in the way he ended up in the MCU – or not.
In the comics, Loki was unequivocally a villain, the Trickster God, God of Mischief. He lies and schemes, and has a huge chip on his shoulder when it comes to Thor and his Asgardian family. The latter aspect doesn’t seem to enter into the story, at least not as yet.
In the interview, Hiddleston mentioned that the ever-changing logo of the show reflected the emphasis on Loki’s identity as a shapeshifter.
“The font of how Loki is spelled out seems to keep changing shape,” he explained. “Loki is the quintessential shapeshifter. His mercurial nature is that you don’t know whether, across the MCU, he’s a hero or a villain or an anti-hero. You don’t know whether you can trust him. He literally and physically changes shape into an Asgardian guard, or into Captain America repeatedly. Thor talks about how he could change into a snake.”
Story Details Revealed So Far
Owen Wilson plays Mobius M. Mobius, a bureaucrat from Marvel Comics history, and it’s the first time he’s been seen in live-action. Wilson changes Mobius’ signature look from dark hair and moustache to gray, but his role seems to be the same – a bureaucrat in the Time Variance Authority. Mobius first appeared in a 1986 issue of Thor. The Time Variance Authority or TVA is the organization that tries to make sure the multiverse and all its timelines function properly.
Mobius doesn't cross paths with Loki in the source comics. Still, the comics point to the way the Time Variance Authority functions. There, Mobius is seen as an antagonist of superheroes. He prosecutes The Fantastic Four for violations of the laws of time use, but they escape. He's also one of the judges (and the only one to survive) in the trial of She-Hulk, when she's apprehended for trying to warn Hawkeye about his looming death.
In the comics, Mobius is a genetically engineered clone. The lower-level employees of the TVA are faceless drones, and they only display more human characteristics as the levels of management get higher. As a senior executive, Mobius is indistinguishable from a human. Is Owen Wilson’s Mobius also a clone? That has yet to be seen.
Since Loki is clearly going to be transporting himself between timelines to fix things – and probably get into his trademark mischief as well – literally anything and anyone could pop up in the story.
Without (naturally) giving away any plot details, Tom Hiddleston says that the show will focus on Loki’s mercurial nature. What is the concept of identity to a shapeshifter? Who is Loki, at the end of the day – part Frost Giant by birth, Asgardian by upbringing, shapeshifting sorcerer by nature?
“I think that shapeshifting logo might give you an idea that Loki, the show, is about identity, and about integrating the disparate fragments of the many selves that he can be, and perhaps the many selves that we are,” he said. “I thought it was very exciting because I’ve always found Loki a very complex construct. Who is this character who can wear so many masks, and changes shape, and seems to change his external feeling on a sixpence?”
With the emphasis on shapeshifting, maybe Loki will even impersonate Mobius, as many fans seem to want.
The cast also includes Gugu Mbatha-Raw (The Morning Show), Sophia Di Martino (Flowers), Sasha Lane (Utopia), Wunmi Mosaku (Lovecraft Country), and Richard E. Grant (Downton Abbey, Rise of Skywalker).
Loki will be streaming exclusively on Disney+ starting June 11.