The God of Mischief returns in the first-look trailer for Disney+ series Loki, which stars Tom Hiddleston as Thor’s (adopted) brother. The trailer is packed with exciting story reveals, as well as many nods to the pages of Marvel Comics, and introduces the characters played by Owen Wilson and Gugu Mbatha-Raw.
Loki was killed by Thanos towards the start of Avengers: Infinity War, but a time travel mishap in Avengers: Endgame led to a past version of Loki escaping from custody at the end of the first Avengers movie and using the Tesseract to teleport away. Loki will follow that version of the magical trickster as he finds himself a prisoner of a different organization: the Time Variance Authority, which monitors the many different possible timelines and universes across the Marvel multiverse.
Thematically, Loki ties into other upcoming Marvel Studios released like Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, WandaVision and Spider-Man 3 (which will bring in characters from previous Spider-Man movie franchises as part of an exploration of the multiverse). With infinite possibilities, things are bound to get very weird. Here are the biggest reveals and most intriguing clues from the Loki trailer.
If, as the Loki trailer suggests, this scene in the desert takes place immediately after Loki teleports away from New York City using the Tesseract, then it appears that somewhere along the way he lost his grip on the Infinity Stone. The status of the Infinity Stones in the MCU is a little confusing. They were reduced to atoms by Thanos after he successfully wiped out half of all life in the universe, but the Avengers then went back to different points in time to “borrow” the past versions of the Infinity Stones so that they could use them to undo The Snap. Captain America then went back in time again to return all of the Infinity Stones to the point at which they were taken. However, he had no way of returning the Tesseract that Loki stole. Did the Tesseract in Loki’s possession cease to exist after he used it? Or was it lost somewhere along the way – along with the muzzle he had on his mouth before teleporting?
Based on the desert surroundings and these strangers sporting Mongolian clothing, it appears that Loki ends up in the Gobi Desert, which spans parts of Southern Mongolia and Northern China. It could be the case that this is elsewhere in the Nine Realms, in a world that’s based on the people and clothing of Mongolia, but a landing on the other side of the world seems more likely. That still leaves open, however, the question of which Earth Loki has ended up on – whether it’s the MCU’s original Earth, or elsewhere in the multiverse.
Some time apparently not long after his rough landing, Loki ends up in the custody of the Time Variance Authority, or TVA: a vast bureaucratic organization that has the daunting task of keeping track of the many, many, many realities across the multiverse. Rather than killing Loki or throwing him in a cell, it appears that the TVA is interested in recruiting him as an agent.
The subtitles for the Loki trailer confirm that Owen Wilson is playing Mobius M. Mobius, a middle-ranking bureaucrat of the Time Variance Authority who also appears in the comics. Mobius’s appearance, like that of the many clones at the TVA, is based on Marvel comic book writer and editor Mark Gruenwald, who died of a heart attack in 1996 at just 43 years old. Mr. Mobius gives Loki his first introduction to the TVA, and he’s already very familiar with the God of Mischief, noting that he’s a habitual liar and “we both know that you love to talk.” Loki’s accidental scrambling of the timeline may be what gets him arrested by the TVA, but it seems they’ve been keeping an eye on him for some time.
This mysterious hooded figure appears several times throughout the Loki trailer, and is first seen here, standing in long grass amid an eerie blue fog. The figure drops the lantern that they are holding and attacks TVA operatives. They also appear later in the trailer, watching over a TVA mission in a supermarket via a wall of CCTV monitors. There’s every indication that this is the main villain of Loki, but given the twisted nature of the multiverse it could also be an alternate version of Loki. There’s a long-running observation that MCU villains tend to be mirrors of the heroes (like Abomination being an evil Hulk, Iron Monger being an evil Iron Man, and Yellow Jacket being an evil Ant-Man), so having the antagonist literally be Loki’s mirror image could be a fun, tongue-in-cheek way of addressing that trend.
The Loki trailer offers a first look at the character played by Gugu Mbatha-Raw, who is known for her roles in Belle, Black Mirror and The Cloverfield Paradox. Mbatha-Raw is playing a high-ranking executive at the TVA, who presides over a courtroom that Loki is taken to and later fights him during an apparent escape attempt.
The feature film-level budgets and scope of Marvel Studios’ Disney+ TV shows mean that almost anything is possible – including appearances by other franchise stars like Scarlett Johansson. This shot of a woman with short, reddish hair and a black outfit sitting with her back turned is almost certainly intended to invite speculation that Black Widow, who will be starring in her first solo movie next year, will also make an appearance in Loki. It would certainly work as cross-promotion, given that both Black Widow and Loki release in May 2021. However, this could also be a fake-out.
This shot of a wrecked New York City, with the destroyed Stark/Avengers Tower standing out on the skyline, is possibly a glimpse of a universe where the Avengers failed to stop Loki’s Chitauri army in The Avengers – though the uneven ground indicates that this apocalypse is the result of seismic disaster rather than an alien attack. Whatever version of Earth this might be, it firmly establishes that there is a wide multiverse out there that’s full of worlds where events played out differently. Loki is shown landing in this post-apocalyptic New York wearing a grey shirt and tie that he wears in several other scenes.
There’s considerable synergy in the Loki trailer arriving so soon after HBO documentary The Mystery of D.B. Cooper reignited interest in one of the boldest as-yet unsolved crimes in recent history. In 1971, a man who came to be known by the pseudonym D.B. Cooper hijacked a Boeing 747 flight from Portland to Seattle and held its passengers hostage for a ransom of $200,000. He received his money and jumped out of the plane with a parachute, but was never seen again. Loki reveals that D.B. Cooper was none other than Loki himself, and explains away the hijacker’s mysterious disappearance with an intervention from the Bifrost.
Loki’s final appearance in the trailer is a nod to the 2016 four-issue comic story Vote Loki, in which the God of Mischief runs for President of the United States. He runs on a surprisingly successful pro-lying platform, pledging to lie blatantly and shamelessly right to the face of the American people (rather than indirectly, like most politicians). If the series is exploring alternate universes then it could easily bring in offshoot comics stories like this. The outfits of the people surrounding Loki suggest that this may take place in the post-apocalyptic New York glimpsed previously in the trailer.
Originally from https://screenrant.com/loki-trailer-breakdown-story-details-easter-eggs/