Some MCU Fans Want Loki to ‘Stay Dead’
Telling a Marvel character to stay dead is sort of like asking water not be wet. Marvel characters cheat death. That’s what they do.
Seemingly half of the cast of the Marvel Cinematic Universe returned in Avengers: Endgame to fight the big battle against Thanos. By now, heroes and villains come back so often, that one begins to wonder if the characters that stay dead, like say Peter Parker’s Uncle Ben, can be brought back to life.
So who better to challenge that notion than Marvel’s ultimate trickster, Loki. He should be pretty much the last character to stay dead – and he’s alive and kicking enough that he’s got his own series coming eventually.
What happened to Loki in the MCU?
Thor’s half-brother Loki is widely considered to be one of the best villains in spite of and even because of the fact that Loki’s loyalties keep switching sides. In one movie he’s a completely odious villain. And then in another movie down the line, you feel bad when he pays the ultimate price. Or does he?
The short version of Loki’s history goes like this: After butting heads with Thor in the first movie, Loki takes possession of that glowing blue cube called the Tesseract. In The Avengers, he leads a giant alien invasion, but it ends rather badly for him. Not only do the Avengers defeat him, but Thor thrashes him like a rag doll. Puny god.
In Thor: The Dark World, Thor retrieves Loki from prison to fight a new threat. The brothers reach an uneasy truce, and from here on out, Loki is more or less on the good guys’ side, even though he still loves to play both ends against the middle. Finally, he meets his match in Thanos, who kills him.
However, that ultimate savior, time travel, brings him back in Avengers: Endgame in an alternate Avengers. Once again, Loki gets hold of the Tesseract and disappears. Kevin Feige only knows where he might be.
Why do some fans want Loki to stay dead?
Of course, fans know that a fourth Thor movie, Love and Thunder, is coming up, and fans on Reddit would like to see Loki return. Other fans point out that he’s supposed to be dead, which prompted the reply “Is he though?”
One fan carps that the whole resurrection thing is passe, prompting someone else to respond,”I think the Loki we saw die in Infinity War might’ve been the Loki who escaped with the tesseract in Endgame.”
A third fan elaborated: “Dude, something I noticed was Loki is always scared of hulk after avengers 1 (until end of Ragnarok). BUT in endgame Loki has a smirk and waves at hulk when he can’t use the elevator provoking hulk to be mad. Can’t just be a coincidence. That and every time Loki ‘dies’ he holds the tesseract shortly after”
Clearly some kind of shenanigans are afoot. After all, Marvel fans have known for about a year that Loki will be getting his own series, but of all the series announced so far, it’s the one that people arguably seem to know least about.
What’s the status of the TV show?
Loki is expected to appear on Disney+ probably sometime in early 2021, although the TV schedules are in flux no thanks to the pandemic. The basic idea is that we see what happened to Loki after he grabbed the Tesseract in Endgame. The official synopsis via Comicbook.com goes like this
“In Marvel Studios’ Loki, the mercurial villain Loki (Tom Hiddleston) resumes his role as the God of Mischief in a new series that takes place after the events of “Avengers: Endgame.” Kate Herron directs and Michael Waldron is head writer. Debuts on Disney+ next year—2021.”
That’s the story of synopsis that tells you everything and nothing at the same time. And who knows if the coronavirus, which has already stalled production, might necessitate a change in the story? One thing’s for sure: Loki would only smile at all this confusion.
