Ahead of Loki's premiere this week on Disney+, the first reactions to the latest Marvel show are now out. Following in the steps of WandaVision and The Falcon and The Winter Soldier, the third of Marvel's original series for Disney+ takes an in depth look at an MCU character who hasn't been as thoroughly explored as say Iron Man or Captain America. Loki is the God of Mischief's show, but it's not following the version of the character seen across the Thor movies and elsewhere in the MCU.
Rather, Loki is the adventure of a new version of Loki (Tom Hiddleston) created in Avengers: Endgame when the Loki seen during 2012's Battle of New York steals the Tesseract and escapes. This creates a branched timeline and it's this branched timeline version of Loki who is arrested by the Time Variance Authority for the crime of messing up the timeline and creating a variant of himself. However, the TVA has a bigger problem on their hands as it appears someone else, some new mystery villain is also changing the MCU's timeline. This leads Agent Mobius M. Mobius (Owen Wilson) to recruit Loki to help him solve the case, recognizing that while the God of Mischief is a handful, he may also be their best shot at catching the culprit.
Loki is set to debut this Wednesday, June 9 on Disney+, moving away from the service's usual Friday premieres. With its release date so near, the embargo has now lifted for those who've seen the first episodes to share their initial thoughts and reactions. Needless to say, the hype for Loki has been very high given the popularity of the character and Hiddleston's portrayal, plus the frenetic and often hilarious trailers. Read on below for what the early reactions are to Marvel's Loki:
That the early reactions to Loki are positive isn't too surprising given Marvel's track record, but that so much praise is given to the performances is heartening all the same. Hiddleston, obviously, is no stranger to the role of Loki, but these early reactions imply he's in top form and has an excellent rapport with Wilson's Agent Mobius. As Loki appears to largely hinge on the odd coupling of the chaotic god working with a straight-laced time agent, it's certainly good news Hiddleston and Wilson are a highlight. While WandaVision is a wacky show and was a real departure for the MCU, Loki sounds as if it too breaks new ground both conceptually and tonally, drawing comparisons to Men in Black, The Good Place, Rick and Morty, David Fincher's Zodiac and Se7en, Terry Gilliam's Brazil, and even Beetlejuice.
Of course, being a building block within Phase 4, Loki will also deliver setup for the MCU's multiverse. Already, the introduction of time variants - alternate versions of already existing characters - is prime material for leading into true multiverse stories, but as these first reactions indicate, Loki promises to be what will deliver the groundwork to properly introduce the multiverse. Endgame already introduced time travel, but in a pretty messy fashion and with explanations that tend to contradict. Loki, too, is dealing with time travel and it seems to be better at making sense of it. The mystery at the heart of Loki is sure to be crucial for where the MCU goes next, so hopefully, the series continues to build on these promising first episodes.
Sources: Various (see links above)