By Andrew A. Smith

Tribune Content Agency

June 17, 2021 — Loki has launched, and once again we are presented with a Disney+ show that could go in many different directions. Let’s consult the tea leaves — and the comics and myths on which the show is based — for what they suggest.

 

TIME VARIANCE AUTHORITY

Marvel’s TVA first appeared in 1980s Thor comics. It’s a little less severe than the TV version — it keeps time variations to a minimum and monitors the ones that exist, rather than pruning them altogether — but just as prone to paperwork and red tape. If nothing else, the TVA suggests that the one constant in the universe is bureaucracy.

 

TIME-KEEPERS

The Time-Keepers were created by He Who Remains, the last member of the TVA in a previous reality before that universe met its heat death. And no, I’m not going to explain that, because life is short.

The only things that are pertinent to Loki the TV show is 1) there are three Time-Keepers in the present Marvel Comics reality, 2) they are not to be trusted, and 3) a fourth betrayed the others and was exiled to ancient Egypt. Hmmm. Wonder what he’s up to right now?

Anyway, just don’t call them Time Lords. That’s Doctor Who territory.

 

KANG THE CONQUERER

The comics TVA is constantly in conflict with various temporal empires, one of which is the Kang Dynasty in Chronopolis, that was founded by the time-traveling supervillain Kang. Kang’s timeline is pretty complicated, but generally speaking he hails from the 31st century, although he began life in the 20th century as Nathaniel Richards (father of Reed Richards of the Fantastic Four).

I mention this because the anachronism the time cops found at the end of the first episode was from the “third millennium,” which says Kang to me. Especially since the conqueror is already scheduled to appear in the 2023 movie Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, played by Jonathan Majors (Lovecraft Country). Could he appear in Loki as a set-up for that film? I mean, time travel is his entire schtick, so he’d be on the TVA’s radar.

One more thing. Kang is in love with a chick named Ravonna Lexus Renslayer in most of his timelines, although in a few he’s at war with her. (Love is strange.) In what I assume is no coincidence, Ravonna appears in Loki as a judge, played by Gugu Mbatha-Raw.

Oh yeah. We’re gonna get us some Kang.

 

MOBIUS M. MOBIUS

Owen Wilson plays Mobius M. Mobius of the Time Variance Authority, who wants to use a Loki to catch a Loki. (Photo courtesy of Marvel Studios. ©Marvel Studios 2021. All Rights Reserved.)

Just like on TV, the bureaucrats of the TVA are born and bred — most are cloned, really — for their function in the organization. Agent Mobius (played by Owen Wilson) is one of these, introduced in 1990s Fantastic Four comics. Due to meticulous attention to detail, he was promoted to senior management, and served as a judge in the time-tampering trial of She-Hulk in 2006.

He is also, like the Owen Wilson character, mustachioed.

 

MISS MINUTES

When Loki receives an exposition dump about where he is, it’s from a cartoon character named Miss Minutes. That Southern drawl you hear is courtesy of legendary voice actor Tara Strong, a name all true fans should learn for her ubiquity in genre animation.

Part of the cartoon is of special interest, that being when Miss Minutes describes a “nexus event” that leads to “the madness of multiversal war.” That’s reallllly similar terminology to the movie title Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, coming in 2022. Also, there have been multiversal conflicts in Marvel Comics before, which usually threaten to collapse the multiverse (and one actually did in 2015).

Also, a “nexus event” is one where some human diverges from the Sacred Timeline (as our Loki variant did by escaping with the Tesseract in 2012). This brings up an interesting argument about free will vs. predestination, one that I will not indulge because it’s not 2 a.m. in a college dorm, and we are not stoned.

But I will note that we have seen the word “Nexus” in the Marvel Cinematic Universe before, in an advertisement for an antidepressant of that name in WandaVision. In the comics, Wanda (Elizabeth Olsen) is a “Nexus being.”

I don’t know what all this means either. But when it comes to Marvel, I don’t believe in coincidence. Something Nexus-y is on the way.

 

LOKI LAUFEYSON

Tom Hiddleston is the Norse God of Mischief in Marvel Studios' Loki, which launched June 9 on Disney+. (Photo courtesy of Marvel Studios. ©Marvel Studios 2021. All Rights Reserved.)

Speaking of free will vs. predestination, that’s more than a thought experiment for our God of Mischief variant (Tom Hiddleston). “You don’t get to dictate how my story will end!” he yells at Judge Renslayer, but Loki (and the audience) learns the Time-Keepers do exactly that. “It’s not your story,” the judge replies, “and it never was.”

Are Marvel characters all slaves, living out stories dictated by the Time-Keepers? If so, are we all fictional characters as well, destined to watch these stories?

Wait, I’m slipping into that dorm conversation. Never mind.

But I will note that Laufeyson is indeed Loki’s real surname, at least in the comics. That’s because his father was King Laufey of the Storm Giants, who was killed in a war with Asgard. Odin found the littlest giant on the battlefield and adopted him.

Oddly, in the Norse myths, Laufey was Loki’s mother. His father was the giant Fárbauti, so technically he’d be Loki Fárbautison. Although on occasion he is referred to as “son of Laufey,” who is believed to be an Aesir (what Asgardian gods are called in the Norse myths).

Both stories raise the question of whether or not what we see is Loki’s real appearance. He is a shapeshifter, so maybe he just shapeshifted into an Asgardian as a baby, but has really been a giant all along.

Unfortunately, there are no Vikings left to ask.Marvel will release its first Loki omnibus on Aug. 10, collecting the earliest appearances of Loki in Marvel Comics, when he was very much an old school supervillain. (Cover art by Jack Kirby, copyright Marvel Comics)

LADY LOKI

Speaking of shapeshifting, that goes back all the way to the myths. Among the ones that have survived, Loki has changed into a fly, an old lady, a salmon, a bridesmaid, a giantess and others. Once he became a mare, and got impregnated by a stallion. (He gave birth to Sleipnir, an eight-legged horse.) So Loki is not only a transgender shapeshifter, he is a trans-species one!

And despite being married to the Aesir Sigyn, Loki had three children with the giantess Angrboda. Those kids were the gigantic Fenrir Wolf (who is destined to eat Odin and the sun at Ragnarok); Jormungandr, the world-circling Midgard Serpent (who kills Thor in Ragnarok); and Hel, the Goddess of Death. Odin only knows what shapes he was in when he sired those (literal) monsters.

In the comics, Loki has become all kinds of things (even a tree) and once turned Thor into a frog. He’s been reincarnated as a woman (2007), and as a little boy (2010). In the movies he’s disguised himself as Captain America, Odin and more.

So when we have a well-known actress (Sophia Di Martino) listed in the Loki credits without saying who she’s going to play, and a Loki variant whose face we haven’t yet seen, what are the odds she’s going to be Lady Loki? (I think they’re pretty good.)

Or perhaps we really are all just fictional characters watching an illusion dictated by aliens. With the God of Mischief involved, you just never know.

Find Captain Comics by email (capncomics@aol.com), on his website (captaincomics.ning.com), on Facebook (Andrew Alan Smith) or on Twitter (@CaptainComics). 

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  • I always wondered - to what extent does Loki have free will?  If you're the God of mischief, do you even have the choice to not be mischievous?

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