Thor: Ragnarok Sets Up A Solo Loki Movie

WARNING: The following article contains major spoilers for Thor: Ragnarok, in theaters now.

One of the greatest things about the Marvel Cinematic Universe is that it does truly move its characters forward with shocking twists and revelations that actually remain in place by the film’s conclusion. The Thor that we meet at the beginning of his first movie is worlds away a different character from the man he is at the end of Ragnarok. With the loss of his hammer, the loss of his eye and the destruction of Asgard, Thor’s status quo has well and truly been shaken up in a big way.

However, the film also does an excellent — and much more subtle — job of setting up big changes in Loki’s life. In fact, the changes are so big, they may have massive repercussions for future movies, including a possible starring role of his own.

Ch-Ch-Changes

When Thor first returns to Asgard to find his brother impersonating their father, he makes the point of saying that Loki has been doing this their entire lives -- Thor gives Loki a chance at redemption, Loki stabs him in the back. In the most recent instance, Thor thought his brother died on Svartleheim following their clash with Malekith and the Dark Elves, but was dismayed to discover that he had instead led to the events of their father’s death and the return of their sister Hela. Later, when they meet up again on Sakaar, Loki chooses to sit back and exploit the favor of The Grandmaster instead of helping his brother escape and return to save Asgard, even though that’s exactly what Thor would do given the opportunity.

Loki only ends up helping Thor, Hulk and Valkyrie escape Sakaar when he realizes they’ll leave him behind if he doesn’t, and even then he attempts to betray Thor at the last minute. However, for perhaps the first time in their relationship, Thor managed to outthink his brother and slipped one of the Sakaarian control disks onto Loki, immobilizing him. What Thor says next to his brother is perhaps the most important conversation in the film, if you’re considering Loki’s growth as a character. He points out that throughout their lives, Thor has matured and changed; he used to be brash, headstrong and reckless, whereas now he’s more level-headed and mature. Loki on the other hand, has always been Loki, and if he wants to survive, he, too, needs to change.

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Agent of Asgard

This small but important conversation recalls the past decade of Loki stories in Thor comics, which saw the character go from the vicious schemer to someone more noble before ultimately landing somewhere in between. In the comics, Loki set loose a plan to remove his brother and return Asgard to what he viewed as its rightful place in the cosmos. His scheming did eventually lead to the exile of Thor and saw Loki join The Cabal, an anti-Illuminati of villains led by Norman Osborn, whose Dark Reign fell over the Marvel Universe. Loki manipulated Osborn by appearing to him in the form of the voice inside his head, the Green Goblin. He convinced Osborn to concoct a reason to invade Asgard in order to force his people to abandon Earth, but at the same time, recognized that it might backfire on him. And, so, he arranged a back-up plan for the future.

A conversation with Doctor Doom led to Loki realizing that while Asgard had escaped the cycle of Ragnarok, he, himself, remained stuck in a cycle. In Doom’s words “You remain Loki, Loki.” The thought of not being in control of his own destinty and not being able to change offended Loki deeply and so he sought to rewrite his destiny by making deals with Hela and Mephisto that would remove his name from the books of Hel. Shortly afterwards, Loki was killed by The Void though mourned by his brother, he wasn’t gone for long. Eventually, he reappeared as a child, a more innocent but still as precocious Loki that sought to help his brother despite the judgement he faced from the people of Asgard. Unfortunately, Kid Loki was just part of his deceased self’s longer plan which resulted in Kid Loki sacrificing himself to allow his former self to return in his place.

This new new Loki, however, wasn’t the old Loki -- and he wasn’t Kid Loki, either. He was something entirely new, who felt remorse for the death of his previous self and described his role in Kid Loki’s death as the murder weapon, but not the murderer. This new Loki forged his own path in the Marvel Universe by saving all reality from the Mother parasite alongside the Young Avengers and aging up to something around the equivalent of early-twenties in appearance. This Loki was a Loki unbound by prophecy and unbound by the future that Asgard expected of him, and that frustrated some very important people including the All-Mother and his future self. As the Agent of Asgard, Loki was tasked with bringing about the prophecied end of Asgard, but instead he worked to preserve everything that he’d worked so hard to build and evolved from the God of Mischief to the God of Stories.

The Hero Within

That’s a lot to take in; a lot of moving parts involving a lot of Lokis. No-one expects the movies to do much, if any of that, but it certainly feels like the MCU is poised to follow the spirit of it. Loki is one of the breakout characters of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. People like him, and, more importantly, they want to like him. A face turn just makes sense for him right now and by tapping into the well of stories set up by the likes of J. Michael Straczynski, Kieron Gillen and Al Ewing, Marvel Studios has a deep well of Loki-as-hero stories from the last decade to pull from.

Tom Hiddleston obviously adores playing the character and his performance is more than enough to carry a feature film, so why not give Loki a heroic moment in Avengers: Infinity War and spin him off into his own franchise come Phase 4?