The God of Mischief is dead, long live the god of Mischief!
As always, consider this to be your spoiler alert if you've not seen the first episode yet.
Loki has finally been released on Disney + with Marvel's Stage 4 taking a leap into the multiverse as everyone's favourite villain comes face-to-face with the awesome powers of the Time Variance Authority (TVA) and their nightmarish bureaucracy.
We now know that the TVA need Loki's help because they're hunting a nefarious variant that's killing their Minutemen through various timelines and histories.
However, there's a twist, the rogue variant that's hunting the TVA agents is Loki.
We wait to see how this will play out and can the 'rogue' version of Loki be tracked down?
In an interview with the Irish Mirror, the show's creators Kate Herron (director) and Michael Waldron (writer/creator) answered some of the big questions about the first episode.
Ok, here's what they had to say about multiverses, timelines, Infinity Stones and more.
Loki's death
After disappearing with the Tesseract at the end of Avengers: Endgame, the Loki that audiences are introduced to in the Disney + show is a vastly different character than the one they saw in Avengers: Infinity War.
To begin with, he's alive!
After dying at the hands of Thanos in Infinity War, it looked like the end for Loki Odinson but fate intervened.
However, in the first episode of the Disney + show, the '2012 Loki' - the one that vanished after The Avengers saved the world from the God of Mischief and the Chitauri -was forced to view the consequences of his real timeline as he witnessed the suffering and chaos he caused in New York, the role he played in the death of his mother, the destruction of Asgard, and ultimately, his own death.
Here's what the show's creators had to say on that powerful scene....
Waldron: "I think what it did was it allowed something that we discovered on day one in the writer's room. Just this idea of, 'oh my God, what a powerful moment it would be for Loki to get to watch his own death and watch that play out.' What other piece of pop culture can you do that? Like, you could do that in a self-contained sci-fi story but in this case, it's a callback to a movie from several years ago, with a character that we've invested in over 10 years.
It just felt so rich dramatically and when you know you've got Tom Hiddleston and he's gonna perform the hell out of it, I was just like, 'oh, man, I'm so glad that he could do that.' Compared to when I watched Infinity War as a fan and he died, I just wanted to walk out of the theatre. I was so pissed off.
Now, I was just so grateful that he died so violently and almost casually. Because at that point, our Loki of the series is at his lowest and now, he could really go anywhere. I think that became a really interesting pivot point for our series."
Herron: "Something that was really important to us was that Tom always talks about Loki's personality as keys on the piano, you've seen certain keys and chords in other films.
We do have six hours too, so I think, honestly, it was like managing with Tom to get these new shades to Loki, which I think was quite fun.
Something we always spoke about a lot was in that first episode, it's 'Avengers Loki.' It was having to forget all of everything else that happened to him because he's not there and then it's like make sure it's definitely the guy from Avengers we're seeing in this first episode.
That was quite a fun challenge and honestly, I think beyond, it was just pushing him to new places. I think the really nice thing was that it's quite something for an actor that's been working on a character for a decade now to put their trust in a director. I do think that he's done really some really cool stuff with the character and I'm excited to see his already brilliant performance be expanded upon."
Multiple timelines and crossovers
With WandaVision already toying with the idea of multiverses and Loki set to cause chaos across various timelines, the MCU is about to veer into some very interesting territory.
Aside from this, the next Spider-Man film is heavily rumoured to be featuring a host of different actors that have played the wall-crawler, Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania is set to feature the time-travelling villain Kang the Conqueror and to top things off, Loki writer Michael Waldron is also writing Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness.
With all these different timelines about to come into play, did Kevin Feige tell the creators of Loki what's coming down the tracks or what they might not be able to delve into yet on the show?
Waldron: "There's really no cap on your imagination with these guys, that's the amazing thing. The charge is if you're making the Loki show, make the Loki show as awesome as it can possibly be and don't worry about what's coming down the pipeline because if we don't make this show awesome, there might not be a movie in five years.
In a lot of ways, I think part of what made the MCU successful is they're still operating with the same point of view they had when they made the first Iron Man, which is that we've just got to make this thing great. That gave me a lot of freedom to leave it all on the field. The mentality is like fire all your bullets, give them all your best ideas and then trust that it will organically lead into some next chapter.
Herron: Honestly, for us, Kevin Feige always said 'if it's good for the story, we'll work it out.' I don't think we ever felt restricted as creators.
For us, I think it was more about managing the rules of time and how we're managing time within the TVA. Michael has this really fun drawing of this. When I first joined, I had questions obviously and he drew the drawing of the timeline with the branches coming off.
I was like, 'Oh, that's so good' and it's in the show now because, for me, that was so clear coming in with fresh eyes. I think honestly though, it was really just us both managing and making sure that the world-building stuff was done in a way so people aren't necessarily having to think about it every second.
We kind of set up the rules very clearly in the first episode, as people see in the Miss Minutes video. But then beyond that, hopefully, it's just you're enjoying the story through Loki's eyes."
The Infinity Stones
Make no mistake about it, the Loki in this show has well and truly been humbled.
Case in point, the very flippant and jaw-dropping scene when the TVA employees nonchalantly dismiss the awesome power of the Infinity Stones as insignificant paperweights.
The entire life pursuit of Thanos and the sacrifice, heroism and jaw-dropping history of the MCU was just flippantly cast aside in a game-changing moment.
Infinity Stones are out, the TVA is in.
We're definitely in new territory here, as the show's creators explain.
Waldron: At least for that moment in the first episode, we always knew we wanted to use that moment with the Infinity Stones. What better way to show just how formidable the TVA is than to show a mat of Infinity Stones that just thrown into the junk drawer!
Also, I think it signals that's the past - the Infinity saga is the past - this is the future. We're in phase four now and so, there's other stuff and other nods. I think just keep your eyes peeled, most of everything we wanted to get in there we did, one way or another."
Herron: "I think the TVA are a really exciting new corner of the MCU and like everyone, when I first read the script and I saw the bit with the Infinity Stones, I was like 'what!'
I was very surprised but at the same time, I was like 'Okay, this is really interesting.' This is like a new power in the Marvel world and I hope people are excited for where we kind of take the TVA because we learn more about them.
The first episode of Loki is now available to watch on Disney + with new episodes being added each Wednesday.
