Journey Into Mystery #645 *Spoilers*

[DebkoX]

Are there any nods to Sif in this?

[Clea]

Are there any nods to Sif in this?

Not in this issue, DebkoX. This issue was the big reveal about the true nature and fate of kid!Loki. There was no setup for the upcoming Sif-focussed storyline.

[Rosebunse]

Oh no doubt Loki will milk the cute innocent little guy act for all its worth, and the YA have certainly never been opposed to giving people a second chance. But I do think they will be VERY skeptical about him. Remember, they never knew Kid Loki and they probably don't know about any of his achievements. What they are more likely to know about is Loki's long history of being a complete villain, not to mention the fact the one of his abilities is shape shifting. They would be pretty daft to just take him at face value (although knowing Loki he probably does have some scheme set up to make himself look good)

My bet is that he's going to almost "sacrifice" himself to save the rest of the team. After that, they almost have to trust him...

See that's what would make a chaotic neutral Loki potentially far more interesting and even dangerous than an all out evil one. Things could get to the point where Loki doesn't have to make an effort to cause trouble- just show up at the right time and sit back while everyone else fights over whether they can trust him or not haha. Oh well- what ever they do end up doing with the character, I feel sorry for Thor

I feel so bad for Thor...he really does love Loki, and for the first time in who knows how long, he thinks he can trust him and that everything's going to be OK for his little brother. To make things worse, if the Avengers do meet with the YA, he'll probably be the one to vouch for Loki and let everyone know that he helped save the multiverse.

And if/when Loki does go bad, I just can't see Thor actually being able to kill him, especially this time, since he knows Loki can do better...

Poor Thor...

[ryochan]

I feel so bad for Thor...he really does love Loki, and for the first time in who knows how long, he thinks he can trust him and that everything's going to be OK for his little brother. To make things worse, if the Avengers do meet with the YA, he'll probably be the one to vouch for Loki and let everyone know that he helped save the multiverse.

And if/when Loki does go bad, I just can't see Thor actually being able to kill him, especially this time, since he knows Loki can do better...

Poor Thor...

"... Have faith in yourself..."

"You really are the biggest, sweetest idiot in the whole Nine Realms."

This part was particularly tragic to me, because of course KidLoki can't explain that he /can't/ have faith in himself, that himself is the whole problem... and that having faith in Loki is the last thing anyone should be doing, really. Even if OldLoki were to change, even !evil he's still a trickster and all you can really have faith in a trickster to do is the unexpected.

[Rosebunse]

"... Have faith in yourself..."

"You really are the biggest, sweetest idiot in the whole Nine Realms."

This part was particularly tragic to me, because of course KidLoki can't explain that he /can't/ have faith in himself, that himself is the whole problem... and that having faith in Loki is the last thing anyone should be doing, really. Even if OldLoki were to change, even !evil he's still a trickster and all you can really have faith in a trickster to do is the unexpected.

The sad thing is, if Loki does go bad, I really don't see Thor actually killing him, especially if he's still in that body.

[plushbug]

The sad thing is, if Loki does go bad, I really don't see Thor actually killing him, especially if he's still in that body.

No hope of that, unfortunately. Probably less hope now, than ever before.

I've been lovin' the discussion in this thread this past week, without having time to respond/comment/anything regarding it, but throwing in a few thoughts on the fly:

Count me in as another voter in favour of never going back to the view of Loki as any kind of simplistic or even complex evil villain. He needs to stay a force for chaos, change, and the ill-considered new. Murphy's Law in action, a god with an off-centre, creatively destructive point of view and a sense of humour no one necessarily gets. Inconvenient as hell! but the sort of character who, confronted with perils to the world(s) and people he loves, can be counted on to step up as a hero capable of saving the day (even if his methods and style leave most of those he helps going or )...who only flips over to effective villainy, in terms of stirring up all his own flavours of upheaval, when things stay too quiet for too long, or anyone provokes him personally.

As such, I'd like to see him find, in his own fictional world, more of a home and "family" than he's had to date. More people. At least his own small community of friends fairly regularly present and available for support when needed, who GET him. Who won't think twice about calling him out on not just the things he does, but his reasoning for doing them. Who'll be capable of valuing him for his strengths, seeing through his manipulations at least some of the time, and understanding his better intentions regularly enough to be willing to stick with him on the grounds of his being someone worth having as part of the community. Don't know yet what opportunities the YA may offer there, but seeing Miss America Chavez punch him through a wall, I have some hope. Some days, that will undoubtedly be the level of reaction called for, to some of his tricks! Some sort of end to this nonsense of Thor being the only one reliably loving him enough, not to be willing to kill him...the value of unconditional love, with no understanding to go with it, is too limited. Not to mention tragic, painful...enough already, with that.

The only real hope I've got at this point, is that he will be continuing on in YA, with Gillen writing him. I'll definitely be picking that up to see where the story goes (it doesn't hurt that most of the rest of the team interests me, as well as the premise of watching them at that point where they're working out who they're going to be--which is as nearly where Loki is himself, as any of them) though oddly, yeah, I still think I'll leave JIM #645 off the bookshelf for now. The fact that I've no trouble understanding why Gillen would take kid!Loki out of play in the way he has, and think it's been a brilliant move, doesn't make it any more something I'm really willing to have in my face for prolonged contemplation right now. Not at this time of year when (where I live) the days are getting shorter and darker, and there's too much depressive just in the shutting down of regular daylight, to really invite additional sources of grief through the door. This one can wait until spring, or that omnibus so many of us would like to see.

Because, returning to point about his continuing on in YA, with Gillen writing him...while I'd still like to say it's helped move us away from the simplistic evil view of the character, to have everything we've had in Tom Hiddleston's movie version, and damn, yes, I'd like to hope, too, that the movie Loki doesn't end up painted into that corner, either. I'm less optimistic about that, than I was. Logical as it was given a view of humans as ants, I found his having stepped up to being a cheerfully willing killer and a conventional wannabe-world-dominating-ruler (eh, taking up ant farming as a hobby?) in Avengers depressing, and his explicitly now presenting himself as having been cast out, when no, sorry, he had the option not to exit as he did at the end of the first movie, even more so. He might be the one who needs to get nailed down on Earth for a while this time, as a human, for a character reset! but unless or until something lilke that happens, I suspect YA is going to be the more interesting ride.

[wolfbird]

I still think I'll leave JIM #645 off the bookshelf for now.

Did you read it or are you just relying on spoilers? I'm not sure I understand what you mean here when you talk about your hopes for Loki in YA yet describe kid Loki as "taken out".

I'll reiterate: Older Loki's not getting a redemption arc. Older Loki's dead. The magpie was Ikol and Ikol was a construct. How can kid Loki be overwritten by a figment of his own imagination?

[plushbug]

Did you read it or are you just relying on spoilers? I'm not sure I understand what you mean here when you talk about your hopes for Loki in YA yet describe kid Loki as "taken out".

I'll reiterate: Older Loki's not getting a redemption arc. Older Loki's dead. The magpie was Ikol and Ikol was a construct. How can kid Loki be overwritten by a figment of his own imagination?

Relying on spoilers, discussion threads, and things like Gillen's response on Tumblr, in which he writes about having to find a way to prevent kid!Loki, (if he'd been allowed to survive) simply being heel turned by the Nth next writer down the line. The whole "better to die than to live as bad fiction" thing. My sense of it at this point is that liking it or not, the overwrite of kid!Loki by Ikol--whatever exactly we define him as being*--has happened, and we're back to an original, undivided, "there is only Loki" Loki. A character who presumably retains the core of the boy within him (kid!Loki being the boy he was originally, after all) and full knowledge of everything kid!Loki learned and accomplished after he was set loose to run, but one who's also back to knowing and owning everything he's been and done before, along with the fact that it had brought him to a place he didn't want to be. Able to start by saying "Damn me," this time, which I'd agree with Gillen's commentary, is a very interesting place for him to have arrived. I'm hopeful we'll see him carry on from there as someone who's learned the same things from experience, as kid!Loki had...and, as he's still a 13-14-year-old kid again, being a position to finally, oh, please, re-do growing up from teens, and get a life at the end of it that doesn't include reversion to simple-minded villainy.

*My own bias is to see Older Loki as having split off kid!Loki as an alternate persona--essentially re-inventing himself as a multiple personality, the more complete original (shape-changer!) retreating into the persona of a magpie (single magpie, symbol of sorrow?) within his restored child's body, splitting off the alternate persona of a child and putting that in charge as an experiment in starting over.

[Mr. Nox]

The sad thing is, if Loki does go bad, I really don't see Thor actually killing him, especially if he's still in that body.

I'm actually wondering how long we'll have Loki looking like this. Might we actually see him get older physically or are we going to have something silly happen and age him up?

[Rosebunse]

I'm actually wondering how long we'll have Loki looking like this. Might we actually see him get older physically or are we going to have something silly happen and age him up?

Hm, my guess is something silly will happen...well, it won't be "silly", probably very, very sad, but Gillen does have those clones he's been hiding from us. And anyway of him growing up using the clones doesn't sound very, um, "not-nasty" to me. I mean, really, you either just put his soul in one, or you remove the brain or something.

The other question becomes just who would do this and why. Loki himself might just because he gets sick of being a teenage boy, or it could be Doom, Osborn, or any one of the thousands of other poeple Loki has screwed over in the past.

Even if comic book teenagers did age normally, I think it would take a naturally long while for someone like Loki too. I would like him to stay like this, but I have a feeling it won't last.

[PatchMadripoor]

The other question becomes just who would do this and why. Loki himself might just because he gets sick of being a teenage boy, or it could be Doom, Osborn, or any one of the thousands of other poeple Loki has screwed over in the past.

Mephisto.

Mephisto was about to ascend the Throne of Hell, and with his actions Loki screwed him over royally, and humiliated him. The Lord of Demons will want his pound of flesh.

[Post Monster]

I think we'll get a dose of accelerated growth at some point. Enough to make him an older teen anyway. However, Loki really doesn't need to appear older than an old teen anyway, as most older teens are fairly adult looking anyway. There's still a lot that hasn't been done with a young Loki.

[xerosere]

No hope of that, unfortunately. Probably less hope now, than ever before.


Count me in as another voter in favour of never going back to the view of Loki as any kind of simplistic or even complex evil villain. He needs to stay a force for chaos, change, and the ill-considered new. Murphy's Law in action, a god with an off-centre, creatively destructive point of view and a sense of humour no one necessarily gets. Inconvenient as hell! but the sort of character who, confronted with perils to the world(s) and people he loves, can be counted on to step up as a hero capable of saving the day (even if his methods and style leave most of those he helps going or )...who only flips over to effective villainy, in terms of stirring up all his own flavours of upheaval, when things stay too quiet for too long, or anyone provokes him personally.

Agree with this so much.... haha, also can anyone else see Loki having a really really black twisted sense of humor after what he's just been through/done to himself? Like if everyone is caught in some sort of dire world ending situation and hes just sitting there like "LOL this is nothing! Did I you guys about the time I ate myself?" ..... at which point the day was saved as everyone got creeped out and went home.

[Rosebunse]

Agree with this so much.... haha, also can anyone else see Loki having a really really black twisted sense of humor after what he's just been through/done to himself? Like if everyone is caught in some sort of dire world ending situation and hes just sitting there like "LOL this is nothing! Did I you guys about the time I ate myself?" ..... at which point the day was saved as everyone got creeped out and went home.

Oh, I'm sure there's worse he could say!

[wolfbird]

Relying on spoilers, discussion threads, and things like Gillen's response on Tumblr, in which he writes about having to find a way to prevent kid!Loki, (if he'd been allowed to survive) simply being heel turned by the Nth next writer down the line. The whole "better to die than to live as bad fiction" thing. My sense of it at this point is that liking it or not, the overwrite of kid!Loki by Ikol--whatever exactly we define him as being*--has happened, and we're back to an original, undivided, "there is only Loki" Loki. A character who presumably retains the core of the boy within him (kid!Loki being the boy he was originally, after all) and full knowledge of everything kid!Loki learned and accomplished after he was set loose to run, but one who's also back to knowing and owning everything he's been and done before, along with the fact that it had brought him to a place he didn't want to be. Able to start by saying "Damn me," this time, which I'd agree with Gillen's commentary, is a very interesting place for him to have arrived. I'm hopeful we'll see him carry on from there as someone who's learned the same things from experience, as kid!Loki had...and, as he's still a 13-14-year-old kid again, being a position to finally, oh, please, re-do growing up from teens, and get a life at the end of it that doesn't include reversion to simple-minded villainy.

The problem is that we haven't actually been told what exactly happened.

We know:

1. The Fear Crown is no longer a threat
2. Ikol as an entity no longer exists
3. Loki found the process a traumatic ordeal

*My own bias is to see Older Loki as having split off kid!Loki as an alternate persona--essentially re-inventing himself as a multiple personality, the more complete original (shape-changer!) retreating into the persona of a magpie (single magpie, symbol of sorrow?) within his restored child's body, splitting off the alternate persona of a child and putting that in charge as an experiment in starting over.

From the end of TMT 22:

Leah: Oh Loki, stop. Enough with the pretense.
Loki: What pretense?
Leah: Ikol. The bird. You know he doesn't exist outside your head.
Loki: I'm not insane. Yet he's in my head, a part of me... an idea I was carrying, a story? Yes, that sounds like it. A parasitic little story...

Kid Loki created Ikol. Not vice versa. And Ikol is a story. At best, he can become a self-aware yet static entity like Herald Leah originally was. At worst, he is Kid Loki's imaginary frenemy. But he is not Older Loki.

Remember the Exiled arc? Ikol turned into a toy. The only Loki alive was very much a kid.

To be honest, this whole thing about Gillen wanting to "save" Kid Loki from going evil under a different writer sounds suspect. Do you really think Marvel's editors would really let him do that? He's a comic book writer, he does not have the ultimate authority over the characters he writes. What if Fraction turned around and said "I don't want anyone else writing Thor differently to the way I do, so I'm going to kill him off permanently"? It wouldn't fly.

And it's meaningless anyway because a) Kid Loki was not innocent (just ask the Disir) and Kid Loki's amnesia wasn't dealt with, so you're implying Loki was only good because he couldn't remember his past.

So what's going on?

I'm on the "Kid Loki got his memories back" bandwagon myself. Kid Loki was always the real Loki. Ikol was just a lie.