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If Marvel is going to bring Loki back for Secret Wars, it's time to give him an upgrade

All we're saying is, it almost makes sense to let Tom Hiddleston's MCU alter-ego go... Beyond

Features by Graeme McMillan, Editor

Published on Mon Nov 25 2024

In the last week or so, a rumor has started flying around the areas of the internet where Marvel Studios fans tend to congregate — one that is, in one sense, so straightforward and common sense that it seems less a rumor or prediction, and more a statement of fact. After all, given the current state of play, it only makes sense that Tom Hiddleston’s Loki will return as part of the conclusion of The Multiverse Saga… but the complication we’re raising in this week’s Marvel Matters is suggesting, what if he didn’t come back as Loki?

No, really, it makes sense, kind of. I promise.

Loki’s Happy Ending as was, his Glorious Purpose

When audiences last saw Loki at the end of his Disney+ series, he surrendered himself to becoming the new figure overseeing the multiverse and the center of all reality as we know it. It was a selfless act, and a sign that Loki had grown in a way that might have seemed impossible at the start of the series, never mind the first time he appeared in the MCU — and it was also a very clear dramatic feint in terms of the larger MCU storyline.

After all, Loki being the one thing that holds all reality together, without whom it all collapses and turns into cosmic spaghetti — something we got multiple previews of in Loki season 2 — is an outcome that takes Loki off the playing field, simply because if we saw him again, something very bad would probably happen to… well, everything, but it’s also an outcome that virtually promises that Loki will return, because… well, the very existence of Avengers: Doomsday and Avengers; Secret Wars as the closing chapters of The Multiverse Saga suggest that something very bad is going to happen to everything, and Loki not being a part of that would feel very underwhelming indeed. Let the poor god out of his tree prison!

But why should anyone expect Loki to come back unchanged by his experience?

Loki, but Beyond

We know that Avengers: Secret Wars will be the final installment of The Multiverse Saga. We also know that, although Marvel Studios doesn’t do straight adaptations of its comic book source material even when movies are directly named after particular storylines, but instead pick and choose elements to include onscreen. Here’s the thing about Secret Wars as a Marvel comic book property: it’s a title that’s been used for two separate storylines, but both storylines share one central idea: Doctor Doom steals godlike power from an entity called the Beyonder in both. (Technically, it’s Beyonders plural in the second Secret Wars, but go with me here.)

The obvious question then becomes… if this follows in the MCU version of Secret Wars, who is the Beyonder in this scenario? Well, Loki, obviously.

I mean, sure — it’s possible that Marvel Studios could create an all-new, never-before-seen Beyonders to fill that narrative space if necessary; we’ve had Celestials and similar entities dropped into movies wholesale in the past for similar purposes, after all. (I’m looking at you, Eternals.) But at the same time, Loki is right there with godlike power over reality and everyone knows that the audience will get more of an emotional charge seeing Robert Downey Jr.’s Victor Von Doom do the dirty to a familiar face rather than a complete stranger. Considering that Downey is returning to the MCU to play an entirely different character, it’s clear that Marvel is not above tugging on audiences’ nostalgia for effect… so why not make Loki into the Beyonder in Doomsday or Secret Wars to set the story in motion and let Loki’s story come to some kind of conclusion?

And one more thing…

Beyond the potential to tug on fans’ heartstrings one more time with Tom Hiddleston’s impressive ability to look pained and heartbroken, there’s another reason to bring Loki back one more time to the MCU and in an altered form: Thor is still around in the MCU, and he’s already going to be shocked to see a villain that looks like his old friend Tony Stark. Wouldn’t it be fun to torture him by letting him see his a very different version of his dead brother, as well…?

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Graeme McMillan: Popverse Editor Graeme McMillan (he/him) has been writing about comics, culture, and comics culture on the internet for close to two decades at this point, which is terrifying to admit. He completely understands if you have problems understanding his accent.