The premiere of the Tom Hiddleston-starring Loki may be over two months away, but anticipation for the series is already tracking higher than Marvel’s other Disney+ projects. With the show’s second trailer having recently released, the excitement is only just getting started .
The series is going to be heavily focused on time travel, with the Loki variant seen escaping with the Tesseract in Avengers: Endgame at the center of it all. It appears as though he’s being set up as a sort of Doctor Who-style figure, only as more of an antihero than that particular Time Lord.
While the first trailer established the God of Mischief as working for the Time Variance Authority, the second provided more information on his actual task there. It reveals that Loki’s Tesseract-fueled escape broke reality, creating a bunch of branches in the timeline, and the TVA wants him to help fix it.
While most of the promotional footage thus far has been set at TVA headquarters, there are also a few brief clips of Tom Hiddleston's God of Mischief in a variety of different time periods and locations.
So, let’s take a look at where and when the TVA is in need of a dose of “unique Loki perspective.”
TVA HEADQUARTERS
It seems likely that the TVA is a location where a lot of time will be spent (metaphorically speaking, of course, since time doesn’t operate the same way there and may not exist at all in that space), presumably at the beginning of the show in particular.
This is where Loki will be captured and assigned his tasks in helping repair the timeline he ruptured and is likely going to be the location Loki mentioned in the 2020 Super Bowl spot when he says he’s going to “burn this place to the ground.”
ASGARD, 2011
Some fans have expressed concern that Loki will gloss over the original iteration of the character in the MCU since he died in Avengers: Infinity War , and the show will follow a “Loki variant” from another timeline. However, the trailers have not only shown that this new version of the character will likely be debriefed on his post- Avengers escapades in the MCU, but also that at least two time periods seen in past projects will be revisited during the series.
The first is Asgard circa 2011, specifically the throne room at the palace. This room looks different in each of the Thor movies and based on the shot of it and the design of the costume worn by Loki in the scene, it looks like the trickster will be heading to the time the first one took place or perhaps a little before that.
It’s also possible that Loki is visiting an alternate version of this era, as he is standing in front of the throne which may indicate he has obtained the title of King of Asgard in this version of events.
NEW YORK CITY, 2012
A shot of Loki with the hairstyle and garb he wore in The Avengers in a location that looks like Stark Tower in the movie can be seen in the series’ first trailer.
This could indicate that Loki returns to the time and place in which he damaged the timeline at some point, or it could simply be a flashback to events that happened during that time that Marvel fans haven’t seen before. It could even be part of the same timeline as the aforementioned Asgard scene.
NEW YORK CITY, UNKNOWN TIME PERIOD
A couple of shots show New York City in what appears to be a post-apocalyptic time period. It is unknown whether these scenes take place in the future (at least, relative to the rest of the MCU) or depict an alternate version of the past or present.
This could be the result of timeline ruptures caused by Loki fleeing with the Tesseract or potentially a mistake he makes in fixing another part of the timeline during the series. They could even indicate a timeline in which Loki successfully takes over New York (or maybe Earth as a whole).
Either way, this looks like a dire situation, and potentially a challenging one, to fix since this is seemingly a case of needing to “fix” a time period after something has gone terribly wrong, not beforehand like how other scenarios seem to be.
UNKNOWN EARTH-BASED LOCATION(S), 1970s
There are actually two different 1970s scenes seen in promotional material for Loki . The first is a piece of concept art shown at Disney’s April 2019 Investor Day event. The image depicts a busy city in 1975 (or 1976) as there is a billboard promoting the movie Jaws , which came out that year, in the background.
The other setting sees Loki taking on the appearance of D. B. Cooper, an unidentified man who hijacked a plane midair while flying above the northwestern United States and subsequently met an unknown fate after jumping out of the aircraft. Most of the footage of Loki with this look is from the first trailer, and he appears to be sucked into the Bifrost after jumping out of the plane.
Whether Loki is stepping in for Cooper or will turn out to have been him all along has yet to be revealed, as is whether this scene is related to the other one set in the 1970s. However, it is unlikely that it is, as the D. B. Cooper incident took place on November 24, 1971, several years before the release of Jaws .
It’s possible the series will have multiple sequences set in the 1970s, or that the scenario featured in the concept art was altered or scrapped before the show entered production.
POMPEII, YEAR 79
The oldest time period Loki appears to visit in the trailers is the ancient city of Pompeii, Italy. The city was infamously buried in several feet of ash after the eruption of Mount Vesuvius on August 24, 79.
Of course, it appears that the time period Loki is sent to in the series will be just before the eruption of Vesuvius, which poses the question of what his task is there. Does he need to make sure the volcano explodes when it is supposed to? Does he need to make sure people escape safely - or that they don’t ?
No matter what, this will certainly be an interesting situation as this is a time in history when a catastrophic event happened, and if maintaining the status quo is Loki’s job in the series, this may be a tough episode to watch if he needs to make sure something bad happens rather than that it doesn’t.
UNKNOWN LOCATION AND TIME PERIOD BASED ON VOTE LOKI COMIC RUN
Compared to other Marvel Studios projects, there aren’t many comic storylines Loki seems to be taking inspiration from so far. The one major exception is Vote Loki , a four-issue miniseries published in 2016 in which Loki runs for President of the United States.
Here, however, it is unclear where, when, and for what office he is campaigning for. His look is similar to that in the Vote Loki comics, and the button he is wearing sure does seem like a United States campaign button. However, he is surrounded by a group of human-like beings wearing clothing that definitely doesn’t appear to be from Earth.
OTHER UNKNOWN TIMES AND PLACES
A very brief scene in the second trailer shows two TVA guards stepping into a medieval-looking time period and Loki and Mobius following behind them.
Another involves Loki fighting some opponents covered in black garb, including their faces.
One or both of these could actually be part of one of the aforementioned scenarios. It’s hard to tell at the moment given how short these snippets in the trailers are.
It’s unlikely the trailers have given away every situation Loki finds himself in during the series (where would the fun in that be?), so there are probably even more locations that fans have no idea about yet.
Loki , starring Tom Hiddleston and Owen Wilson, premieres on Disney+ on June 11, 2021.
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