WARNING: The following contains spoilers for Loki Episode 1, "Glorious Purpose," streaming now on Disney+.
Loki always loves to put his own spin on a story, and that fact doesn't change in his Disney+ series. In the first episode of Loki, the show goes back to the events of Avengers: Endgame, with the God of Mischief having a different take on why Earth's Mightiest Heroes were traveling through time.
The debut episode of Loki picks up just as the Avengers are attempting to steal the Tesseract from their past selves. Disguised as an agent of S.H.I.E.LD., Tony Stark successfully acquires the case holding the Infinity Stone, only to have it knocked out of his hand when the Hulk bursts through the doors on the bottom floor of Stark Tower. The Tesseract ends up at the feet of Loki, and he quickly makes his escape. He ends up being shot out of a portal in Mongolia, where the Time Variance Authority promptly apprehends him.
The God of Mischief is taken back to the TVA's headquarters and has to deal with bureaucratic processing as the higher-ups decide what to do with him. After that's finished, Loki stands trial for his crimes against the "sacred timeline" and is asked to plea. Of course, he tells the judge he's not guilty and says that the ones they should be going after are the Avengers. It appears that, during that brief moment in Endgame, he realized that multiple versions of the team were present and that they were time-traveling. But Loki doesn't stop there, as he goes on to explain why he believes the heroes went back in time.
Being that this Loki has yet to go through the character arc that will eventually lead to his death in Avengers: Infinity War, it's no surprise that this variant thinks so highly of himself. In fact, he believes himself to be so influential that he tells the judge the only reason the Avengers would travel through time in search of Infinity Stones was to stop his ascent. Before he can finish, though, the judge explains that they aren't interested in going after the Avengers because their actions were meant to happen to keep the sacred timeline intact. Of course, having not experienced any events after 2012's The Avengers, this version of Loki wouldn't know of Thanos' snap and the five years that passed with half of existence missing.
Later in the episode, however, Loki does have to come face-to-face with his death at the hands of the Mad Titan. After Agent Mobius steps in and saves the variant from death, believing he can help solve another case, the God of Mischief is shown his life in the past, present and future, including the moment he attempts to take out Thanos on the Asgardian ship. So, while Loki started his show off believing he was one of the most formidable beings in the universe, by the end of the first episode, he now understands the Avengers had even bigger fish to fry on their time-traveling mission.
Loki stars Tom Hiddleston as Loki, Owen Wilson as Mobius M. Mobius, Gugu Mbatha-Raw as Ravonna Lexus Renslayer, Wunmi Mosaku as Hunter B-15 and Sophia Di Martino, Richard E. Grant, Sasha Lane and Eugene Cordero in undisclosed roles. The series premieres June 9 on Disney+.