Marvel Reveals Loki’s Escape In ‘Endgame’ Wasn't Intended To Create a Spin-off

Despite his status as a fan-favorite Marvel antihero, demigod Loki has rarely had the opportunity to shed light on his own story. We know the basic beats: He’s the abandoned son of a Frost Giant, he’s power-hungry and deceptive, and he can’t ever quite decide if he loves or hates his adoptive brother, Thor. But otherwise, he’s operated chiefly as a chaos architect, the Tesseract thief who, however unintentionally, sets the Infinity War plot into motion. The Loki we know from The Avengers, Thor: Ragnarok, and the like ultimately gave his life for a higher cause, succumbing to death at the hands of Thanos. But, as is his custom, the God of Mischief has returned—though perhaps not in the form we expected.

Loki, the upcoming series from Disney+, follows in the footsteps of WandaVision and The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, promising a closer look at a side-character whose powers nevertheless hold huge implications for the future of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Here’s what we know about Tom Hiddleston’s sneering Son of Laufey.

Loki will premiere this summer.

Disney announced that the first episode of Loki will land on Disney+ on Wednesday, June 9, 2021—two days earlier than earlier reported. That gives you plenty of time to rewatch all the MCU films, in order, before we dive in. Don’t pretend you don't want to.

Episodes will release each Wednesday.

In a humorous segment released by Marvel on May 5, 2021, Hiddleston revealed he was feeling a bit left out by Loki’s absence in many of Marvel’s famous montages. “[Loki]’s incredibly heroic,” Hiddleston argues in the clip. “Cunning. Charming. I could go on, but maybe, why not I just prove it to you? Wednesdays are the new Fridays.”

The news was a classic play on the demigod’s deception, shifting the release date from the expected Friday, June 11, to Wednesday, June 9. Subsequent episodes will land each Wednesday, rather than on Friday, as was the schedule with other Marvel Disney+ shows including WandaVision and The Falcon and the Winter Soldier.

The show will follow a different version of the demigod.

And here’s where that MCU rewatch is really going to serve you, because things are getting a wee bit sticky. Let’s dive in.

First, remember the multiverse? Y’know, the one Jedi Tilda Swinton reveals to Bruce Banner in Avengers: Endgame?

“The Infinity Stones create what you experience as the flow of time,” she explains. “Remove one of the stones, and that flow splits,” creating a new, alternate reality.

Well, Steve Rogers might have returned to the past to put all the Infinity Stones back in their chronological timeline before prancing into wedded bliss with Peggy Carter, but there’s still one problem. When the Avengers travel back in time in Endgame to retrieve the Tesseract, they arrive at Avengers Tower moments after their doppelgängers finished defeating Loki and his Chitauri army. Their plan to nab the glowy blue block and quietly slip away doesn’t exactly pan out, and Loki circa 2012 grabs the Tesseract and escapes. Which means he’s created a new reality, one Loki will explore.

What does all that nonsense mean? To put it simply: Loki is about the 2012 version of Loki, the demigod who betrayed his brother and family, and unleashed hell on New York City. He hasn’t exactly redeemed himself, to say the least, and he certainly has yet to reckon with Thanos. It's possible the Loki we know is still dead, and this Loki “variant” has an entirely different path set before him.

The show will introduce the Time Variance Authority.

Because Loki running off with the Tesseract “broke reality,” as Owen Wilson’s character Mobius M. Mobius puts it, the Time Variance Authority is none too happy. First appearing in a Thor comic in 1986, these mysterious folks protect what they call “the proper flow of time,” much in the way Stephen Strange and his cohort protect the multiverse. Mobius needs Loki’s help to set things right—but as we know, goodwill doesn’t come naturally to the slippery trickster. There’s no guarantee he won't make an even bigger mess of this new reality.

In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Hiddleston said the inclusion of the TVA originally sold him on the show's concept, as it forces his character out of his comfort zone. "[That] was very exciting because in the other films, there was always something about Loki that was very controlled," he said. "He seemed to know exactly what the cards in his hand were and how he was going to play them…. And Loki versus the TVA is Loki out of control immediately, and in an environment in which he's completely behind the pace, out of his comfort zone, destabilized, and acting out."

The Marvel creators didn't originally have a plan for a Loki series.

In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige revealed that Loki’s escape in Avengers: Endgame wasn’t originally meant to spin off into a whole new show. It was just a plot device to roll the film forward.

“[That scene] was really more of a wrinkle so that one of the missions that the Avengers went on in Endgame could get screwed up and not go well, which is what required Cap and Tony to go further back in time to the ‘70s,” Feige said.

But when former Disney CEO Bob Iger pulled Feige aside to talk Disney+, the Marvel president realized there was a real opportunity to use the “wrinkle.” Thus, Loki was born.

Hiddleston taught “Loki School” for the role.

In the cover story for EW, Loki director Kate Herron explained how she forced Hiddleston to teach “Loki School.” “I asked him to basically talk through his 10 years of the MCU—from costumes to stunts, to emotionally how he felt in each movie. It was fantastic.” The “class” gave her team and the other actors an opportunity to understand the character’s nuances, as well as the journey Hiddleston has been on for a decade.

“It will remain one of the absolute most intense, most rewarding experiences of my life,” Hiddleston said of the show, which was shot during the pandemic, at the end of 2020. “It’s a series about time, and the value of time, and what time is worth, and I suppose what the experience of being alive is worth. And I don’t quite know yet, and maybe I don’t have perspective on it, if all the thinking and the reflecting that we did during the lockdown ended up in the series. But in some way, it must have because everything we make is a snapshot of where we were in our lives at that time.”

We don’t know much about the rest of the cast yet.

In typical spoiler-fearing style, the creators have kept their lips sealed about exactly who will make an appearance in Loki. We know, of course, Tom Hiddleston will return as the God of Mischief, and I, for one, am ecstatic to see Lightning McQueen—erm, Owen Wilson—play a time guardian. Other confirmed cast members include Erika Coleman as Florence Schaffner—who could be the flight attendant from the tale of D.B. Cooper—as well as Sophia Di Martino, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Richard E. Grant, and Wunmi Mosaku.

We have a sneak preview of the chemistry between Wilson and Hiddleston.

In a new clip released during the MTV Movie & TV Awards, we get to see Loki adjust to his new TVA surroundings, as well as the concept that the flow of time is controlled “at the behest of three space lizards.” Wilson’s reaction is delightful. Check it out below.

Like the rest of the Disney+ shows, Loki will likely fit neatly into the rest of Marvel’s Phase Four.

If we’ve learned anything from the last decade of MCU films, it’s that ~everything is connected~, even if the threads seem loose at best. WandaVision set up a new story (and possibly villain) for Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness. The Falcon and the Winter Soldier could link indirectly to Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings. Loki seems poised to bring the multiverse again to the forefront, connecting it to the Doctor Strange sequel as well as the next Spider-Man movie, and Thor: Love and Thunder. Plus, if the trailer is any indication, Hiddleston looks to be at his best, which makes this next offering from our Marvel overlords yet another must-watch.

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