And though she be but little, she is fierce!

The filmmaker bids farewell to the hit Disney+ series and looks at some of the big swings she and the team took in the finale.

By Brian Davids, 17th July 2021

[This interview contains spoilers for Loki‘s season finale.]

When Kate Herron joined Loki as director, she knew she had an ace or two up her sleeve that would forever alter the Marvel Cinematic Universe as we know it. And in “For All Time. Always.” — the now season finale — Loki showed all its cards by revealing Jonathan Majors’ He Who Remains, a variant of Marvel supervillain Kang the Conqueror, who set the events in motion that would open up the multiverse. Since the character of Kang is a key player throughout phase four of the MCU, Marvel Studios boss Kevin Feige and his team, along with Herron, knew exactly what was at stake with this particular casting.

“Casting was a very surreal experience. When I joined the project, we always knew that Loki and Sylvie were going to go to He Who Remains, and the multiverse would be released,” Herron tells The Hollywood Reporter. “So I already knew when I got the job that it was going to be a massive undertaking to do that and a big responsibility for Marvel to get it right. And Jonathan Majors is an actor that we were all just blown away by; I think everyone who knows his work is blown away by him. And when I knew we had Jonathan, he and I were solely focused on He Who Remains and this version of the character, this variant.”

At last December’s Disney Investor Day, Feige confirmed earlier reports that Majors would play Kang the Conqueror in Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania. But since Majors ultimately appeared first in Loki, Herron further clarified the timing of his casting.

“[The Quantumania casting] happened at the same time,” Herron shares. “So basically, [Ant-Man director] Peyton [Reed] and I were in that discussion with Kevin Feige and the team at Marvel. We knew he was gonna be in [Quantumania], and we knew that a version of him was going to be in [Loki].”

As Loki (Tom Hiddleston) and Sylvie’s (Sophia Di Martino) doomed love story culminated in a passionate kiss, the latter repositioned Loki so she could grab He Who Remains’ futuristic TemPad and send the God of Mischief back to the TVA. Despite Sylvie’s guile, Herron still considers her side of the kiss to be authentic.

“Sylvie is sort of where our Loki was in Thor. She’s driven by revenge, pain and anger, and that’s what he’s saying to her,” Herron explains. “He’s like, ‘I’ve been where you are, and I just want you to be OK. You’re not going to get what you want.’ But on her journey of self-healing, she’s not where he is. So she’s not going to see it that way. So there was a sense that she was turning to get the TemPad, but I don’t think it meant the kiss wasn’t genuine. In my head, it was always a horrible goodbye, really, but the feelings were real.”

In a recent conversation with THR, Herron also discusses her own shocking goodbye to Loki following the surprise season-two announcement. She then offers her take on the final scene and the subsequent questions she hopes are answered in season two.

Brava, Kate. Loki season one was top-tier MCU as far as I’m concerned.

In a complete tonal shift, Friday morning’s news about you not returning for season two makes this victory lap rather bittersweet. After one of Marvel Studios’ best pieces of storytelling, you’d think that getting the band back together would be automatic. So what else can you say about this?

Jonathan Majors’ He Who Remains. How did this go down from casting to filming?

So even though Jonathan’s Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania casting was announced first, your team technically cast him first, right?

So once a big movie or show is finally released, fans like to comb through trailers for any unused footage. So was that “King Loki” moment supposed to be a quick insert for when Loki is tempted with a throne by Miss Minutes (Tara Strong) and He Who Remains?

Did He Who Remains put a Time Twister on the edge of his desk, or a TemPad? Sylvie (Sophia Di Martino) called it a TemPad even though it looked like a Time Twister.

As Loki and Sylvie kissed, she repositioned him so she could grab the futuristic TemPad and eject him back to the TVA. So do you consider the kiss to be genuine on Sylvie’s part despite her calculation during it?

Since the TVA resides outside of time, what can you say about the mechanics of the final scene?

We have to wrap, but is Eugene Cordero’s Casey OK? He went missing after episode two.

Well, congratulations once again, Kate. And if you do return to the MCU someday, please make a Miss Minutes slasher movie since she’s utterly terrifying.

Loki's Purple Bird Creatures And Giant Stone Heads Explained By Production Designer 

Nick Venable, 10th July 2021

Spoilers below for anyone who hasn't yet watched Loki's mindblowing fifth episode, "Journey Into Mystery." Be warned!

As enjoyable and exciting and madcap as Loki's first four episodes were on Disney+, the ante went up tenfold with the penultimate Season 1 instalment "Journey Into Mystery," whose own title was a huge connection to the character's history on the page. The episode was packed to Tadpole Thor's gills with references to both MCU canon and Marvel Comics lore, but there were a few visual details that had fans curiously scratching their heads: those giant stone heads and the ball-headed bird creatures that were running around. Thankfully, we now have something of an explanation for both.

CinemaBlend spoke with Loki's head of production design, the talented Kasra Farahani, about a bunch of details seen in Episode 5's The Void, and when I asked about those massive heads that Loki and his merry band of variants stood near during their first argument, he confirmed that neither the heads nor the purple quasi-birds were lifted from Marvel Comics. In his words:

The big giant hands, they were... I don't have a clear story for that one. [Laughs.] That was really just a visual thing, because we were trying to find moments to infuse The Void with surrealism. So that was the point of the giant heads, and also of the little Void creatures that look like the little peacocks. Originally, at some point, I was proposing a far more Salvador Dali-esque, Dada-esque version of The Void, and it evolved over time. But those bird creatures and heads made it through from the Dada-esque version to the English moors version of The Void.

Oh man, oh man. I so wish that I was privy to all of the ideas that were being thrown around during that point when Loki's creative team was leaning more into The Void's surrealism, not to mention all the other things we didn't see. It was already bizarre enough as it is, mind you, as a landscape riddled with alt-universe MCU locations and vehicles and even costumes, considering that giant Yellowjacket helmet. I'm sure I'm not the only one who had theories that Yellowjacket or Ant-Man might have been connected to the giant cracked heads in some way. But no, we can instead thank the influence of Salvador Dali and the highly imaginative Dadaism art movement. However, it's still interesting to think about how those big ol' domes would have broken TVA rules in order to get pruned into The Void.

And while Kasra Farahani didn't explicitly say that those bird creatures were organic to The Void, it's not so hard to infer that from how he worded things, combined with the idea that the bird-like creatures are purple and are only shown to be running around excitedly whenever the gigantic monster Alioth is on its feeding frenzy. It's also very, very easy to believe that these animals - who are somehow kind of cute despite not having a face - were born out of surrealism-infused designs. They're almost like T-ball toys that hold the balls aloft with water or compressed air, though I'm loathe to think of what would happen if someone tried to remove their ball-heads. [Shudders.]

While the bird creatures obviously weren't real-life creatures whose heads were supplanted with floating inanimate objects, which I'm sure PETA wouldn't have been hyped for, it turns out those heads were definitely physical and tangible background objects on the set. When I asked Kasra Farahani how much of the Void was physical sets, and how much was created through CG, he explained:

“Yeah, so we built a really large chunk of Void terrain inspired by the moors in England. We built a chunk of this on stage, and if I remember correctly, it's in the area of like a 150ftx200ft space of terrain that we built. Then we brought in different elements to make it feel like different parts of The Void. So for example, the bus stop that he arrives on was one set-up. The giant heads were another set-up. The drive-in movie theater, where Sylvie wakes up, is another set. There's a total of seven or so different set-ups; we shot this over seven days. So that was all built, and then of course the barber shop was another one. We built that barber shop on that same terrain. And finally, the Loki Palace, which was another set entirely, but that was entirely built as a full 360-degree environment; no set extension in that.”

I suppose it's understandable that they didn't build a massive recreation of Asgard for Classic Loki, only to have it immediately get destroyed by Alioth. But I love that so much of The Void was created as physical set pieces, as opposed to most backgrounds being digitally composed, as it goes with shows like The Mandalorian that film in front of LED screens. Now how long will it be until I can buy a Loki-branded giant stone head paperweight, or a Funko Pop figure of the bird creature? Take my money, Disney and Marvel!

‘Loki’: Sophia Di Martino on Fighting and Falling in Love

Sylvie and Loki are like “two teenagers who have never had these feelings before.”

By Rachel Paige, 7th July 2021

Have you ever met a female Loki? When Loki asks that of the group of Lokis he comes across in the Void, they all turn their nose up at the idea — Boastful Loki even goes so far as to say that a female Loki sounds terrifying. And honestly, for those who are unaware of who Sylvie is and what she’s capable of should be scared. Considering she grew up at the “ends of a thousand words,” she’s not afraid of anything...well, except maybe falling in love with Loki.

Introduced at the start of Marvel Studios’ Loki, viewers don’t realize it’s Sylvie — another Loki variant — under the hood who’s been traveling around on the timeline targeting the Time Variance Authority (TVA) and killing Minutemen. After the TVA enlists Loki to try and help stop the dangerous Loki Variant, Loki himself gets caught up in her mission and her personality. Sure, she might be difficult, irritating, and tries to hit him all the time, but she does start to grow on Loki.

Stepping into the role is Sophia Di Martino, a brand-new player for the Marvel Cinematic Universe. It’s a daunting task, but so far Martino has completely won over viewers with her brash, punch-now-ask-questions-later Sylvie. And just like Loki, she certainly has some tricks up her sleeve.

To get ready for the role, Martino first looked to the source material for the character: Tom Hiddleston’s performance as Loki.

“I watched all of Tom's stuff and I got to know as much about Loki as I could,” Martino tells Marvel.com. “Then I forgot all about that and tried to create something unique. Kate Herron, the director, was, ‘Soph, do whatever you want with it. Just play. Just have fun with it.’”

Viewers meet Sylvie mid-mission on her quest to take down the TVA. “She's so angry, she's so focused,” explains Di Martino. But there are more layers to her than just that, as she quickly gives Loki a run for his money.

“She's sarcastic,” Di Martino adds. “She's sort of cutting to Loki, which is so fun to play. And she's got this fighting style, which is rough around the edges. She's not an elegant fighter.”

Sylvie is not scared to throw punches or wield her machete; her fighting style on full display throughout Episodes 3, 4, and 5. First, she’s going to try and disarm Loki with her bare hands, next she’s going to decapitate the Time Keepers with her blade, and then she’s going to try to fight off the TVA on her own.

“She's not trained like Loki is,” Di Martino continues. “She can't do some of the flourishes that he would, but she's figured out how to brawl. She's a street fighter and she loves it. That was a really great key to unlocking part of Sylvie for me, was how much she just loves a fight. She knows that she's either going to win, or if she isn't going to win, she'll survive. She's that damaged character who's dangerous because she knows she can survive.”

One moment that speaks to Sylvie’s mindset more than anything else is in Episode 5 when she finds herself in the Void, too. Waking up in a deserted school bus, instead of opening the door and exiting, Sylvie breaks the windshield.

“There's literally a door that's open right there, but she'd rather kick the window out because why not?” Di Martino says with a laugh. “It's definitely a Sylvie trait, isn't it? That she just wants to kick stuff and break stuff.”

This mindset comes from the fact that Sylvie was plucked from her timeline as a child and brought before the TVA. But, she managed to avoid a pruning by stealing Judge Renslayer’s TemPad and disappears — and then spends the next few decades evading the TVA at every turn.

“[Her life] was taken away from her,” she reflects. “It really explains why Sylvie's so bitter and jealous of Loki and his charmed life, when she's been on the run from the TVA for as long as she can remember. She's this wild cat who's just on a survival mission.”

The only thing — or, well person – who gives Sylvie pause is Loki himself. After the two share a moment on Lamentis-1 that’s so powerful it causes a straight up and down spike on the timeline, it’s clear that there’s something more brewing between them. Di Martino herself likens the pair to “two teenagers who have never had these feelings before.”

“Obviously, Tom’s a super charming, very easy to fall-in-love-with guy. With Sylvie, I was really aware that she's never had feelings like this about anybody. This is a hugely vulnerable position for her to be in. I really wanted it to be not too easy for her to just sort of go there. It’s that moment where it's so awkward. They just don't know how to put it into words. They don't know how to behave around each other. It's all a bit too intense and a bit much.”

After the two wind up in the Void (wrapped up under a blanket together, no less), they try to discuss what’s going on between them. Mobius has informed them both about their connection, which caused the Nexus spike, so the only thing left to do is talk it out. But even knowing what’s going on, and trying to articulate it, is a brand new, difficult thing for Sylvie to handle.

“Sylvie still feels extremely uncomfortable showing that vulnerability and admitting that she likes someone in that way, or that she has feelings for someone in that way,” Di Martino says. “It's something that she's just never been able to do. Never have the opportunity, never met anyone that she's ever liked, let alone cared about. She's got a wall built up. She's not going to just let that down for anybody, and even if she wants to, it's difficult to get rid of.

Though the two try to chat about it, they don’t get far. “You know those people that are really awkward at hugging? I imagine it's almost like that [for Loki and Sylvie]. [The kind of] people that need a hug the most but kind of just don't know how to do it. It's a little bit like that. I just want to hug both of them and say, ‘It's all right, guys. It's all right. Let's have a group hug.’”

While we see the duo hold hands, will they actually get that calming hug? With only one episode left before the end of the season, anything could still happen on Loki.

Marvel Studios' Loki is now streaming exclusively on Disney+.

'Vote Loki' creator pitches a President Loki MCU spinoff [Exclusive]

LOKI 4 PRESIDENT! For a narcissist trickster sorcerer with the personality of a praying mantis, there are few occupations in the world that would suit Loki better than president of the United States. A few years ago, in the summer of 2016, comic book writer Christopher Hastings imagined just that in a satirical limited series for Marvel titled Vote Loki.

Five years later, Vote Loki has found its way to the Marvel Cinematic Universe. In the fifth episode of the Disney+ series, “Journey Into Mystery,” a variant Loki (still played by Tom Hiddleston) appears in the desolate “Void” surrounded by a Mad Max-esque posse. On Loki’s tattered blazer is a red, white, and blue “Loki” button, indicating this Loki was, uh, elected to lead. Turn on the subtitles on Disney+ and you’ll find this Loki is credited as “President Loki.”

In an email to Inverse, Christopher Hastings says he had no idea this was going to happen.

“I found out [they were doing Vote Loki] when a trailer for the show featured the campaign outfit from Vote Loki,” Hastings tells Inverse.

When Inverse exchanged emails with Hastings, it was prior to the episode’s premiere, to which Hastings said he was “very curious to see exactly what from the comic gets into the show.”

“I love time travel and multiverse material,” the writer says in praise of Loki. “I am a big fan of the TVA as a setting. I'm eager to see how it goes, and what it might mean for the next phase of MCU movies, especially since multiverse wackiness seems to be a major part of those upcoming movies.”

In 2004, while a student at the School of Visual Arts in New York City, Hastings wrote and illustrated The Adventures of Dr. McNinja, a serial webcomic about a doctor who is also a ninja. The series was a cult hit, at one point attracting 110,000 unique visitors a day. By 2011, Hastings was doing work for Marvel, writing single issues of A+X and Howard the Duck. With Chris Bachalo, he co-created Gwenpool — a bizarre blend of Spider-Man ex-girlfriend Gwen Stacy and Deadpool — and penned the 2016-2018 solo series The Unbelievable Gwenpool, teaming up with Japanese studio Gurihiru to create the character’s deeply unique comedic tone.

But during Gwenpool, Hastings spent the summer of 2016 playing with a different Marvel trickster: Loki. In the four-issue miniseries Vote Loki, Hastings spoofed the chaos that was the 2016 race between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. In Vote Loki, an ambitious Loki seeks the seat of the president with a very unique campaign strategy: being honest about lying.

With “President Loki” having a minor cameo in the MCU, Inverse caught up with Hastings to look back on his explicitly political riff that took place inside the Marvel Universe.

This interview has been edited for clarity.

Take me back to the origins of Vote Loki. When did the seed for the story plant in your mind? What was going on in the world of culture/politics at that time?

Gosh, it's tough to come up with one thing specifically, because we were making the comic by the seat of our pants, and so many things got scrapped and rewritten along the way, often at the last second. But one of the core topics I wanted to cover had to do with narratives versus reality. It's kind of a given that in the world of politics, truth is this malleable thing, and now more than ever all you have to do to make people believe a lie is to repeat it enough times.

I liked the idea of Loki playing with narrative in a way that wasn't necessarily outright lying, more bending. (Except the bit about being born in Maryland. One outright lie there.) The other driving point I wanted to explore was how Americans can have a tendency to incorporate their national-level politics into part of their identity, and what that does to a person, particularly when a character like Loki is the one on the ticket.

What sort of conversations did you have with Marvel about a political satire starring Loki? What was the elevator pitch that got approval?

Like I said, things changed so many times, I'm not even entirely sure how many versions were kind of approved and then scrapped on the way to get to what was actually published. I think it was more that I assured editor Wil Moss that I could jump on the book (which Marvel was determined to make; they just hadn't decided who was writing it when I was pitching) after talking about the stuff about narrative and identity, and the basic idea that the viewpoint character shouldn't actually be Loki but a journalist covering Loki's campaign.

Vote Loki introduced the character of Nisa Contreras. What was the primary inspiration for her?

That would be my real-life friend, Nisa Contreras. She's not a journalist, but she’s someone I'm sure could take down Loki if he were a) real and b) got on her bad side. I wanted the story to be more about witnessing the tension and the comedy of Loki running for president, about not knowing what was up his sleeve. And so I came up with [a] journalist.

Vote Loki was published over the summer of 2016 when the election was ramping up in awkward ways. (“Pokémon Go to the polls!”) Did the real election influence the comic in any way, including any specific moments?

The comic was a direct response to things that were happening during the 2016 campaign, specifically that a “joke” candidate that was obviously terrible could get pretty far with enough media oxygen and a comfortable political system that ignored the disgust a lot of people had with it.

Vote Loki ran for four issues. Was there ever a possibility for more?

If it was a smash hit, I believe there would have been a President Loki to directly follow Vote Loki.

What do you think of Vote Loki's inclusion in the TV series?

Top five surreal moments of my life.

Do you think Vote Loki could be the focus of its own adapted series/movie?

Oh for sure. You wouldn't even have to take the material from our comic; there's so much more brand-new political madness that a new Vote Loki series or movie could tap into.

A lot has happened in the five years since Vote Loki was published. What are your feelings looking back now in 2021? Did your opinions on the book ever change?

There was a lot happening in American politics in 2016 I missed and wish I had been able to see to include. For example, how broken political polling has become. I had no idea, along with the rest of the country.

It was tricky to do a cohesive narrative amongst a shifting Marvel continuity we had to stay inside; a lot of feedback and demands from various sources within the company and an election that was changing every single day. It was truthfully (heh) a quite stressful book to write, but looking back on it I'm proud to see what we absolutely nailed about American culture. In particular, what we had to say about politics as entertainment and identity, and how a slippery enough politician can not only shake scandal [off] by speeding up an already fast news cycle but embrace and twist it to their advantage.

LOKI WILL AIR ITS FINAL EPISODE JULY 14 ON DISNEY+. VOTE LOKI IS AVAILABLE NOW.

By Josh Plainse, 9th July 2021

Warning: This post contains SPOILERS for Loki Episode 5

Loki head writer, Michael Waldron, explains why the other Lokis are more successful than Tom Hiddleston’s central variant. In Loki, Hiddleston plays the 2012 version of the God of Mischief who escaped with the Tesseract during Avengers: Endgame’s time heist and is then arrested by the Time Variance Authority (TVA). In episode 4 of the series, Loki is pruned right after he and Lady Loki, a.k.a. Sylvie (Sophia Di Martino) discover that the TVA’s figureheads, the Time-Keepers, are mindless androids.

Episode 5, “Journey Into Mystery,” picks up where the fourth episode left off: with Loki waking up in “The Void,” the TVA’s wasteland at the end of time, surrounded by pruned variants of himself; including Classic Loki, Kid Loki, Boastful Loki, and, of course, Alligator Loki. A handful of other green variants like President Loki (also played by Hiddleston) appear throughout the episode and share the trickster’s penchant for treachery, half-baked schemes, and fulfilling their “glorious purpose.” When the Loki variants end up in a room together, they inevitably and hilariously betray one another. Despite Loki’s protagonist (now) being one of the more reasonable Lokis, he wasn’t as successful, or at least didn’t avoid the TVA for as long as the others did on the timeline.

In Screen Rant’s interview with Loki’s head writer, Michael Waldron, he discusses this idea and Loki’s role on the Scared Timeline. Hearkening back to Mobius’ conversation with Loki in the pilot episode, Waldron talked about how Loki’s job is to lose so that others, like the Avengers, can win. Read what he had to say below:

In episode 5, Classic Loki says “we lie and we cheat, we cut the throat of every person who trusts us, and for what? Power. Glorious power. Glorious purpose!” to which Kid Loki replies, “we’re broken, every version of us. Forever. And whenever one of us dares try to fix themselves, they’re sent here to die.” Kid Loki’s Nexus Event was killing Thor and Classic Loki’s was surviving the events of Avengers: Infinity War. However, the TVA never took notice because Classic Loki went to a remote planet and spent (presumably) hundreds of years in solitude, so it wasn’t until he emerged that he was arrested. While Classic Loki’s lack of effect on the timeline explains his success, it’s still unclear how variants like President Loki were able to accomplish so much without being pruned at the first Nexus Event (did their pruning come after the founding of the TVA?).

Loki’s anti-hero wasn’t supposed to go on and die at the hands of Thanos in Infinity War. Instead, he survived; escaping with the Tesseract circa 2012. In episode 5, he says “nothing can change until the TVA is stopped” because the bureaucratic organization is determinism realized. Loki deals with the meta in that the God of Mischief is a character, draped in green to symbolize traits like greed, envy, and cowardice. Except Hiddleston’s Loki stopped wearing green episodes ago and he stopped being a coward when he met Sylvie— whose Nexus Event might have simply been being good (young Sylvie is seen playing out a heroic scenario with her toys in episode 4). Classic Loki shows them that they’re “more powerful than they realize” and together, hopefully, they’re becoming the best version of themselves as they confront the creator of the TVA in episode 6.

Nothing to see here... just me, being boastful because Boastful Loki actor DeObia Oparei used my gif in his Instagram stories 😊

‘Loki’: The Glorious Debut of Alligator Loki

He’s overly sensitive, just like the rest of the Lokis.

By Rachel Paige, 7th July 2021

What makes a Loki a Loki? It all might boil down to one simple thing: what color are they?

Take Alligator Loki, for example. He has horns, hangs out with all the other Lokis, and furthermore, is green. So...that makes him a Loki, right?

“The question is, ‘Is he really Loki? Or is he just green?’” Tom Hiddleston tells Marvel.com with a laugh. “It's such a funny question that [the Lokis] all bicker about. One thing about Loki is that Loki loves to be right. And they all have a different opinion about this alligator.”

Though he appears briefly at the end of Episode 4 of Marvel Studios’ Loki, “The Nexus Event,” Alligator Loki makes his grand debut in Episode 5, “Journey Into Mystery.” As Loki travels through the Void, along the way he’s aided by other Lokis, including Classic Loki, Boastful Loki, Kid Loki, and the crocodilian du jour, Alligator Loki. While all the former are obvious 100% Lokis, the jury’s still out on the latter who may or may not actually be an Alligator of Mischief.

A completely original Loki for the series, you won’t find Alligator Loki anywhere in the comic pages, so don’t bother looking. The idea to include the gator came from an early pitch meeting between Loki head writer Michael Waldron, and producers Steven Broussard and Kevin Wright.

“We were talking about [how] we want to meet many different versions of Loki in this show,” Waldron explains. “I was just like, there should be an Alligator Loki. And it's like, well, why? Because he's green.”

If Alligator Loki doesn’t immediately become your favorite Loki, he more than likely wins you over by episode’s end, considering he bites off President Loki’s hand and then prays (in alligator) before the group heads off to find Alioth. All the while, though, the Lokis aren’t sure he’s even really a Loki — but he’s been with them long enough that they all just accept his status as a trickster. He has horns, after all! Besides, as Mobius points out in the episode, maybe lying about being a Loki is the most Loki-thing of all?

“It's so stupid, but it also makes total sense,” Waldron continues. “You almost have to take it seriously, like maybe he is [a Loki]? Why shouldn't there be an alligator version of Loki? For all we know, that's an alligator universe or whatever. It's just the sort of irreverent thing that, in this show, we play straight and make the audience take it seriously.”

And after a beat, Waldron adds: “I love that little guy.” Even Hiddleston has been bewitched by him too, commenting, “Very, very, very cute. I'm sure a cuddly companion for those lost Lokis.”

Bringing him to life on-screen was done via CGI, which meant that while filming, the cast and crew needed to use an alligator stand-in, which came in the form of a stuffed animal. As Loki director Kate Herron adds, “We tragically didn't have Sean Gunn crawling around on the floor.”

Jokingly calling the stuffed alligator a “real diva” on set, Herron explains that the series’ first AD “actually stuck googly eyes on it. It was like a Muppet character on set.” But Alligator Loki wasn’t all just fun and games, as he was useful for the actors who had to interact with him, especially Jack Veal (Kid Loki), who frequently carries Alligator Loki from location to location.

“You put [the stuffed alligator] in there, and the actors can interact with it and get a sense of how heavy or how large the alligator would be,” notes Herron. “[It was filmed] in the world of imagination with our cast because sometimes they were acting to a blade of grass.”

Like all characters, Alligator Loki also went through a few different looks before settling on the version viewers see on-screen.

“We had some early versions when we were doing visual effects that probably were a bit too cute, in the sense of it was a bit more like a cartoony kind of alligator,” Herron explains. “But it just became funnier and funnier the more it looked like a real alligator that just happened to be wearing the horns. That was the sweet spot. Once we landed in that spot where it felt like a real alligator, but with a kind of slightly jaunty horns on, that's where we were like, ‘Oh, there he is.’”

However, this doesn’t answer the most pressing question: Is Alligator Loki really a Loki? “I know, but I want people to wonder,” Waldron finishes. “I want that to be the next great Marvel debate. Is Alligator Loki really a Loki or not?” 

As Mobius says himself, “It’s always the long game with these Lokis.”

Marvel Studios' Loki is now streaming exclusively on Disney+.

I refuse to believe anyone but Ghostbusters fanboy, Tom Hiddleston, was responsible for this Easter egg, so don’t even bother trying to change my mind.

‘Loki’: That Episode 4 Post-Credits Scene Explained

Episode 4 is here to shake things up, and we can’t say Tom Hiddleston himself didn’t warn us. In the post-credits scene of episode 4, “The Nexus Event,” the recently pruned Loki comes face to face with … more Loki Variants.

In the ruins of New York, with what looks like Avengers Tower destroyed behind them, Loki meets what appears to be three Variants of himself. Comic fans will recognize two very quickly — traditional comic Loki, the first Loki, sometimes referred to as Old Loki, and the beloved Kid Loki from Journey Into Mystery and Young Avengers. The third Variant appears to be a “Thor Loki” Variant, and teasers show him putting up quite a fight in future episodes. Also, a crocodile wearing Loki horns … stay tuned for that one.

Old Loki, played by Richard E. Grant, is straight from the pages of the Golden Age comics. In his classic green and yellow attire, Old Loki was much more sinister than the toned future reincarnations of the character. Old Loki does end up dying in the comics, reincarnating into Kid Loki. It gets messy, with the old soul of Loki inhabiting a magpie named Ikol (read Journey Into Mystery for the full story), but eventually Kid Loki grows into a much more decent God of Mischief.

Kid Loki is a character many readers were hoping to see and he does not disappoint. Kid Loki fights alongside the Young Avengers before aging up in Volume 2 ahead of the Loki: Agent of Asgard run. He’s still his same mischievous self, but not as evil as his first incarnation.

After he lands, Loki asks if he’s in Hel, the final resting place for the dead, but his Variant selves tell him not yet. And we all breathed a collective sigh of relief knowing that Loki isn’t actually gone.

Where these Lokis actually are remains to be seen. We know Loki Variants have been pruned in the past, even prior to Loki and Sylvie being captured, but where they’ve ended up has been a mystery. Is there some Multiverse dumping ground for Loki Variants? Clearly these Lokis have been around and know the lay of the land, and how to survive.

Will we see an entire team of Lokis band together to take down the now-villainous TVA? We hope so.

Be sure to keep up with our ongoing coverage of Loki including episodic recaps, deep dives, analyses and more!

WARNING: This article contains major spoilers for Loki episode 4.

A surprising Loki credits scene, which includes a "Boastful Loki" variant wielding an alternative Mjolnir, may reveal some insight about the new Marvel weapon. Mjolnir has had an interesting journey in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. In Thor, Odin (Anthony Hopkins) puts an enchantment on the magic hammer after Thor (Chris Hemsworth) defies his orders, allowing only the worthy to hold it. Through self-sacrifice, Thor eventually proves himself worthy of the weapon once again and wields the hammer until Hela (Cate Blanchett) destroys Mjolnir in Thor: Ragnarok. Though the main hammer is gone, an alternate version of Mjolnir, which Thor takes from an earlier point in the MCU timeline, is used by Steve Rogers (Chris Evans) in Avengers: Endgame.

In Loki episode 4, both Tom Hiddleston's Loki and Sophia Di Martino's Lady Loki are saved by the Time Variance Authority from destruction on Lamentis-1. Back at TVA headquarters, the Loki variants are brought before the Time-Keepers to be pruned, but the pair manage to fight their way free. After discovering the Time-Keepers are all animatronics and someone else is pulling the strings at the TVA, Loki gets pruned by Gugu Mbatha-Raw's Ravonna Renslayer and disappears. But instead of dying, a post-credits scene shows the God of Mischief waking up in another world.

In the Loki credits scene, Loki is surrounded by other Loki variants who have presumably also been pruned, and one is holding a peculiar version of Thor's hammer. Listed in the credits as "Boastful Loki," DeObia Oparei's character isn't dressed in the usual Loki garb and holds a hammer that doesn't look quite like Mjolnir. Instead, it has a wrench-like handle and the head of the hammer seems to be forged from a gold-colored steel beam. It's a strange amalgamation of parts, and its distinctive look gives hints about the new Marvel weapon.

The return of Mjolnir may have its origins in previous Marvel stories. When Odin replaced Thor with Red Norvell in the Marvel comics, he also replaced Mjolnir with a copy. This new hammer, which had a slightly different look from Mjolnir, was known as Crusher. Though the hammer in the comics has a longer handle than Boastful Loki's weapon, the new hammer could similarly be a Mjolnir copy that holds the exact same powers. Since Odin only placed a worthiness enchantment on Thor's Mjolnir for his son's defiance, it's reasonable to believe that this copy may not have the same restrictions. Without the worthiness restriction, anyone (including a Loki) could use the hammer.

If not a take on Red Norvell's hammer, the new Mjolnir may indicate Boastful Loki isn't exactly what he seems. The new variant Loki may be a combination of the God of Mischief and Thor. If so, the hammer he holds is simply a variant Mjolnir from his timeline. Its look is distinctly different from the Mjolnir of the MCU, but that doesn't seem to be an issue. After all, the credits scene includes a Crocodile Loki, so variants can clearly be drastically different from one another. The new design may just reflect the person it was designed for. And a weapon made for a combination of Thor and Loki would be anything but normal.

Dir. Kate Herron