When it comes to Loki, you can’t trust anything…even the show’s title.
Tom Hiddleston says that the new Disney+ series featuring the God of Mischief will explore Loki’s unique facets. That includes how the shifting title font is meant to show Loki’s own ever-changing nature.
Loki’s return
It appeared that Loki had finally met his end at the hands of Thanos in Avengers: Infinity War. But in Avengers: Endgame, the team went back to the first Avengers movie’s events to try and get the Tesseract to save those lost to Thanos.
In the ensuing confusion, the Loki of the past grabbed the Tesseract and escaped, thus creating a brand-new alternate timeline.
The new series has Loki being captured by the Time Variance Authority, a cosmic organization that monitors time and forces him to be their agent cleaning up messes across history.
While Loki seems willing to help, the trailers indicate that he has his own plans that include anything from just having fun running for President of the United States.
The Loki logo
A notable bit at the end of the trailer is the show’s title logo constantly changing in size, colors, and font design. As Hiddleston explained to Empire Magazine, that’s not just a late addition to spark up the trailer but a deeper meaning to Loki’s own nature.
“I want to preserve the freshness of the show for when it emerges, but something to think about is the [show’s] logo, which seems to refresh and restore. The font of how Loki is spelled out seems to keep changing shape. Loki is the quintessential shapeshifter.”
“His mercurial nature is that you don’t know whether, across the MCU, he’s a hero or a villain or an anti-hero. You don’t know whether you can trust him. He literally and physically changes shape into an Asgardian guard, or into Captain America repeatedly. Thor talks about how he could change into a snake.”
“I think that shapeshifting logo might give you an idea that Loki, the show, is about identity, and about integrating the disparate fragments of the many selves that he can be, and perhaps the many selves that we are. I thought it was very exciting because I’ve always found Loki a very complex construct. Who is this character who can wear so many masks, and changes shape, and seems to change his external feeling on a sixpence?”
Hiddleston’s words indicate the series will show more of Loki’s shape-changing and illusion powers while also keeping the audience off-balance as to which Loki they’re watching.
Loki as a hero?
The major question from fans is whether the show turns Loki into a hero, reverts back to a villain or if he is something in-between.
In the comics, the character had long been a pure evil force for decades but later shifted into an anti-hero role. Likewise, Hiddleston’s performance turned Loki from a clear villain into actually aiding Thor and, in his own way, truly loving Asgard.
At the same time, Thor knows there’s no way he can ever truly trust Loki. Given this is the Loki from a time period where he was obsessed with ruling Asgard, now free and with the ability to travel across time, he can be more dangerous.
Yet it can also be that Loki wants to remake himself and that being a hero might downright amuse him enough to try.
Whichever Loki ends up becoming the final version, fans will no doubt enjoy watching the Trickster pulling off his grandest scheme yet.
Loki premieres on Disney+ on June 11.