Alright, Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) fans, the long wait since the end of The Falcon and The Winter Soldier wrapped up on April 23 is almost over. We hope you have made it through the last 6+ weeks without fresh MCU content without too much despair. We are only days away from the release of the brand new MCU and Disney Plus series Loki! Here is a quick primer to get you prepped for the show.
When does it come out?
Loki will release its first episode on June 9, at midnight PT. The series will follow the same weekly-release schedule as WandaVision and The Falcon and The Winter Soldier, but with the difference that episodes come out on Wednesday night, instead of the previous Friday. So, no binging this one, until all 6 episodes of the limited series are all released on July 14, 2021, when episode 6 debuts. All episodes are available only on Disney Plus.
Wait… Didn’t Loki Die in Avengers: Infinity War?
Yes, indeed. The Lokie viewers have come to know since his introduction in Thor (2011), was indeed killed by Thanos in the beginning of Avengers: Infinity War (2018). However, you may remember that in Avengers: Endgame (2019) our intrepid heroes traveled back in time to retrieve the Infinity Stones from various points in the timeline when and where they knew a stone’s location. In one of those missions, Iron Man and Captain America head back to the time just after the events of Avengers (2012) when Lokie was defeated and the Space Stone (aka the Tesseract) was in the custody of SHIELD (who we later learn is actually Hydra, but let’s not get lost in the details). When they travel back to this previous point in time, things don’t go exactly as planned and instead of retrieving the Space Stone, Loki uses it to escape, creating a new alternate timeline. So, it is this version of Loki that we will meet in the new series.
So, it’s Loki, but not 'our' Loki
This is where things may start to get particularly confusing for viewers who aren’t deeply involved with the MCU storyline. In the films, we got to watch Loki evolve as a character, from the fairly obvious villain of Thor and Avengers, to eventually joining forces with his brother by the end of Thor: Ragnarok (2017) and then facing down Thanos to kick off Avengers: Infinity War. At the time, fans were saddened for what we really thought was the end of the god of mischief and trickster supreme, after he had redeemed himself for many of his past misdeeds.
But, with the creation of the new timeline where Loki escapes capture following the end of Avengers, we are now going to have to get to know a new/old Loki. We can assume that the character we are about to meet in the new Loki series never experienced the story arc that followed through his eventual redemption. So, this Loki is still the unrepentant villain who just tried to help the Chitauri (and Thanos) take over the Earth in the Battle of New York. While fans already loved the character, we will have to forget his later redemption and remember that this version of Loki is less evolved than the one we came to know.
What’s the Series About?
We don’t know for certain, other than the new/old Loki apparently is captured by a previously unknown organization in the MCU, called the Time Variance Authority (TVA). This group apparently has a mission to keep reality and the timeline together and Loki’s escape in Avengers: Endgame has fractured reality in some serious way. From there, the various trailers and previews suggest that Loki will work with the TVA to put reality back together, or something along those lines. But, we’ll have to wait and see.
Just a bit longer until you can once again jump into the MCU with both feet! On the plus side, by the time Loki wraps up, we will actually get to watch the first MCU theatrical release movie since 2019, when Black Widow comes out on July 9, 2021!
