So, following the review of the first two episodes of Loki (The Gloriousness of Loki, published June 27, 2011), here’s a recap of what’s happening in the rest of the series, and beyond, with as few spoilers as possible:

In episode three, Lamentis, Loki (Tom Hiddleston) and Sylvie (Sophia Di Martino), his female variant (an alternate version from another timeline), find themselves stranded in a moon called Lamentis-1 while evading the Time Variance Authority (TVA) — a sort of time police that protects the “sacred timeline” (the main timeline for the Avengers films) by “pruning” (ie. eliminating) realities that diverge from their predestined futures. The two Lokis, who are the same yet different people, connect on an emotional level.

By episode four, The Nexus Event, Loki and Sylvie are apprehended by the TVA. Loki is imprisoned in a time-loop where Sif (Jaimie Alexander, Thor’s elite soldier from the movies) berates him, and then kicks him in the manhood every following minute. Mobius and Ravonna Renslayer (Owen Wilson, Gugu Mbatha-Raw) are allowed an audience with the Time Keepers — the three human-lizard hybrids who rule the TVA. Startling secrets are uncovered.

The next episode, Journey into Mystery — a cleaver tip of the hat to the old Marvel comic book that premiered Thor in its 82nd issue, August 1962, and Loki in issue 85 — finds Loki in “The Void”, a dumping ground at the end of time where everything gets eaten by Alioth (a cloud that eats remnants from realities). Here, the god of mischief finds variants of himself, including presidential candidate Loki (Hiddleston, in a reference to Vote Loki comic mini-series), a Kid Loki (Jack Veal), Classic Loki (Richard E. Grant, excellent) and an Alligator Loki. By the end of the episode, our hero takes the last step towards the culmination of his “Journey into Mystery”.

With Loki, Marvel demonstrates that you can still do a fresh cinematic take on comic book characters, without sullying the audience’s tastes

In For All Time, Always, the powerful, nail-biting last episode of this season — Loki will return in the second season, and perhaps Doctor Strange: Multiverse of Madness — Loki and Sylvie come face to face with ‘He Who Remains’, a man of science from the 31st century who knows everything and wants to balance realities.

In my last review of Loki’s first two episodes, I had deliberately decided against talking about two key people from the series: director, Kate Herron and the character Ravonna Renslayer.

Let’s talk about Herron first. Her direction is a bit too restrained. At times the series lacked kinetic touch and maybe played out exactly as it’s written by scribes Biksha A. Ali, Eric Martin, Tom Kaufman and series creator Michael Waldron (creator of the hit animated series Rick and Morty). For the most part, the directorial pizazz, or a signature style, was missing, and it became the characters’ and the actors’ job to compensate for the lacks — which they did (the writing and acting is excellent; Wilson, Grant and Hiddleston make the series unmissable).

Now, about Ravonna: although the series says that she’s a former hunter, who we learn is directly responsible for Sylvie’s revenge spree, the name kept bugging me: where have I read the name before?

And then, by the fifth episode. it hit me: the character, in the comics books, was the lover of Kang the Conqueror — a name who was written and edited out by this writer when Icon carried a piece of time travel in movies (Turning Back the Clock, published May 30, 2021) and the reviews of Loki’s first two episodes.

At that time, mentioning Kang — with his confusing time-jumping backstory — was premature. Now, it’s perfect timing. Mostly.

Kang is as big a threat as Thanos. With the Fantastic Four villain Doctor Doom and the planet-devouring celestial giant Galactus primed to make their debuts in the next few years, the scale of the stories featuring these three villains may make Avengers: Infinity War and Endgame seem trivial.

So, for a paragraph or two, let’s talk about Kang, and why he’s important in the long run.

Best explained in the 12-issue series Avengers Forever (1998-1999) — written by Kurt Busiek and Roger Stern, penciled by Carlos Pacheco, the brilliant artist who, at the time, had drawn the excellently scripted X-Men issue 70 in 1997 — Kang, also referred to as Nathaniel Richards (from the Fantastic Four character Reed Richard’s family), is a scientist and explorer from 31st century, who lies a lot.

Fascinated by history, Nathaniel traveled back in time and ruled ancient Egypt as King Rama-Tut, and clashed with the Fantastic Four and Avengers. This is where he meets and falls in love with Ravonna. Eventually becoming bored with the Rama-Tut identity, he took on the guise of Kang and began subjugating dimensions, gaining the title of conqueror.

Kang, cantankerous and power-hungry, comes into direct conflict with Immortus — a mature version of himself, who has turned into a wise old philosopher with plans grander than mere universal and multi-dimensional dominion.

Kang, cursing his own future self for what he will become, defies himself, and starts an all-out war to make sure that he doesn’t become who he is destined to become; the future version, Immortus, having experienced it all before, fights off his young self. The stories Kang featured in, especially Avengers Forever, are excellent and mind-boggling.

Kang is set-up as the next great villain by the end of Loki. He is played by Jonathan Majors in the last episode, but not as Kang; for all intents and purposes, he is Immortus. As Kang, the character will make his film debut in Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania.

As we keep reiterating, Marvel Studios has excellent quality control of their productions and stories. Drawing from the wealth of backstories, most of their eye-opening creative decisions stem from acclaimed comic book arcs. With Loki (and the recently released Black Widow), Marvel demonstrates that you can still do a fresh cinematic take on comic book characters, without sullying the audience’s tastes. Now that’s good cinema…and OTT.

Released on Disney+, Loki is rated PG-13 or TV-14. There’s a slightly uncomfortable moment when one Loki develops romantic feelings for another Loki. Thankfully though, the series remains family-friendly throughout

Published in Dawn, ICON, July 25th, 2021

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