It was Indifference Killed the Trickster: Does Anyone Want Another Season of Loki?
Thoughts on the eve of Loki: Season 2
Loki has famously become the character that will not die. I believe he’s been killed on-screen at least 3 times? There’s plot armor and then there’s whatever kompromat actor Tom Hiddleston is holding over Kevin Feige’s head.1 It was a cute trick the first few times. But at this point, I wish they’d put a fork in the god of mischief.
I’ve complained previously about the state of the MCU, so this is not exactly a new take. Marvel’s insistence on doubling-down on spectacle over sensible is second only to their sibling studio Lucasfilm. And I get it: Complaining about the size of the tentpole is irony itself. The MCU is meant to be bigger—it’s in the freaking name (Marvel Cinematic Universe). There was a time we celebrated the MCU almost entirely because of its scale. Avengers beget Civil War beget Infinity War beget Endgame. But as we continue to freshly discover with every subsequent release, bigger is no longer better.
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I finally got around to watching Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, which shall henceforth be known as Ant-Man 3 because I’m not typing that out again. Here’s my elevator pitch for the film, which I thought of during the proceedings because that’s how my mind works and also because the movie doesn’t demand much of the viewer other than a p…
There is a degree of been-there, seen-that, but the main thing lacking from the modern MCU is the writing itself. We only cared about Endgame because we were invested in the characters, and that is thanks entirely to the story Marvel spent 10 years creating. Recent entries have fallen short in that regard almost across the board. We’re coasting on the fumes of nostalgia, and eventually, that deep tank runs dry too.
Which brings us to Loki.
I recently published a season 1 recap at Fanfare. I thought I remembered the first season pretty well. I was wrong. (If you plan on watching season 2, I recommend taking a look at that article.) That first season released in 2021, which doesn’t sound that long ago. However, Marvel has released 9 movies since then. That’s crazy sauce.
The main thing that struck me about season one is just how gonzo it all sounds. We remember the multiverses. That’s hard to forget. Did you recall the robotic overlords? Or the place people go to when they die? Or that everyone working at the Time Authority is themselves a variant?
And as crazy as season 1 was, season 2 promises to be even more so. That’s not a good thing. Marvel’s crazy quotient is like global CO2 levels—already dangerously high and escalating at an alarming rate. The sensible thing would be to just take the damn foot off the accelerator. But sensible is in short supply in 2023.
It seems like the lesson Marvel took from Endgame is that bigger = better, always. The dust had barely settled from Endgame and we were again thrust into world-ending stakes in Spider-Man: No Way Home. Such fare is the soup du jour of the genre and is to be expected on some level. But I’d really love to see Marvel draw from a different well once in a while. How about a movie in which the friendly neighborhood Spider-Man just protects the neighborhood?
It’s not going to happen anytime soon. Marvel’s plans for the next batch of films culminates in a 2-film finale releasing in subsequent years, which has our heroes battle an all-powerful, genocidal warlord. Stop me if you’ve heard that one before.2
As for Loki, I’m just about tapped out on my capacity to care. I won’t be tuning in tomorrow and I’m making no plans to do so in the near future. Increasingly, I have reached the Randy Jackson stage of excitement when it comes to the MCU.
If you are excited for Loki: season 2, I’d love to hear about it. Judgement-free zone. I unironically love movies like The Ice Pirates and The Beastmaster, so I have no room to talk.
Feige is the head of Marvel Studios, for those of you who don’t have this sort of administrivia committed to memory.
Here’s a hint: Infinity War and Endgame released in 2018 and 2019, and featured the Avengers battling Thanos in both films.
Indifferent sums up my feelings about all things Marvel right now...and I hate that.
I just rewatched Loki S1 over three days. Not only did I think it was better than I remembered, it held together a lot better as a "binge" than it did watching it as they released it.So, I'm going to let at least a few episodes queue up before I start S2.
I'm looking forward to it, especially after the rewatch. I guess one man's "gonzo" is another's inventive and surprising. There's the Flash's approach to a multiverse and there's Loki's. Right off the bat, basing your multiverse jumping show on a character that died in the "main" continuity is bold. Using his learning about how he's "supposed" to die as part of a redemption arc is good, too. They've could have done a lot less to just reel in the Loki fans.
Marvel certainly doesn't get as me as excited as it did a few years ago and yeah, they've released a ton of stuff since Loki S1, but holding that up as a reason to skip the next season of something I enjoyed would feel like punishing myself for something someone else did.
One thing the MCU has done is bring in a diverse set of creators (in terms of both voice and background) give them what seems to me like very broad constraints on what they can do, and then let them go. This means that some things just will not be for me. So I either skip them altogether, or wait for when I've got nothing else to watch. I wasn't a fan of the Spider-man comics after around '83. It didn't stop me from reading the Hulk and the FF.
It looks like I saw Ant-Man 3 after you did. I thought it felt like a TV movie, lame CGI and all. But I also recently watched Guardians 3 and am sorry I skipped the theater.
To be honest, sometimes MCU fans almost sound like the Star Wars fans. That's too bad.