Marvel's Loki showrunner Michael Waldron says the trickster god will struggle with his identity and control on the upcoming Disney+ series. During his first appearance in the MCU in 2011's Thor, Tom Hiddleston's Loki was a tragic figure still wrestling with the truth about his birthright. He returned a year later as the villain in The Avengers, using the Tesseract to lead the Chitauri army's invasion of earth on Thanos' orders. Many fans took issue with Loki's transformation from complicated antihero to two-dimensional bad guy in that movie, but it's since been confirmed he was under the control of the Mind Stone.
Loki would go on to continue evolving in subsequent MCU films before dying a noble, if unceremonious, death at Thanos' hands in Avengers: Infinity War. However, the version of Loki featured in the upcoming Disney+ series is the one who'd only just been defeated in The Avengers when he managed to escape with the Tesseract thanks to Earth's Mightiest Heroes' time-traveling shenanigans in last year's Endgame. As such, it makes sense for Hiddleston's Loki to be struggling with his old identity issues on the show, as Waldron says will be the case.
Speaking on the Forever Dogs Podcast, Waldron said Loki's arc on the show will be informed by his journey in the MCU over the last decade, especially his personal crisis with his identity and control of who he is. You can read his full quote below.
"I think it's the struggle with identity, who you are, who you want to be. I'm really drawn to characters who are fighting for control. Certainly you see that with Loki over the first ten years of movies, he's out of control at pivotal parts of his life, he was adopted and everything and that manifests itself through anger and spite towards his family."
Outside of The Avengers, Loki has typically been one of the MCU's most fascinating characters. It's never entirely clear what he wants and his allegiances can shift in the blink of an eye, much to his brother Thor's disgruntlement. The version of Loki on the Disney+ series should be all the more of a wildcard; he's only just been defeated by Earth's Mightiest Heroes and hasn't gone through everything that happened in Thor: The Dark World and Ragnarok, so even he's probably uncertain of who he really wants to be. Plot-wise, the show will follow this iteration of Loki in the aftermath of Endgame, as he travels thorough time and "resumes his role as the God of Mischief." As a result, he won't be battling Thor or Odin for control over his life, but the agents of the Time Variance Authority (who, understandably, don't take kindly to him messing with history).
With a premise that brings to mind DC's Legends of Tomorrow, Loki has the makings of one of the zanier installments in the MCU to date, in addition to being a great character piece for its star. Production has halted on the show over concerns about the coronavirus outbreak for the time being, but the hope is the series will be able to resume filming soon enough to still make a 2021 release date (even if it's delayed from its original early 2021 launchpad). Having six episodes to fill, the Loki show has the potential to really dive deeply into the trickster god's psychology and get to the heart of what makes him tick. So far, it sounds like Waldron and his team have every intention of doing exactly that.
Source: Forever Dogs Podcast [via CBR]