After some COVID-related schedule shuffling prevented Black Widow from kicking off Phase Four of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the post-Iron Man stage of the MCU finally made its debut earlier this year with the release of WandaVision on Disney Plus. After the conventional approach of Spider-Man: Far From Home had some fans worried that Marvel would settle into a familiar formula after Endgame’s immensely satisfying payoffs, WandaVision assured them that the studio still has a few tricks up its sleeve.
Opening in black-and-white and 4:3 aspect ratio with no explanation for why Wanda and Vision were suddenly 1950s newlyweds in the mold of the Ricardos, it would be an understatement to say that WandaVisionarrived as a breath of fresh air in a franchise known for aliens waging war on Earth and cities getting smashed up by monsters.
Marvel’s follow-up to WandaVision, however, The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, was described as a step back into more straightforward action-driven storytelling. The show was still a solid Marvel outing, thanks to Anthony Mackie and Sebastian Stan’s fantastic chemistry and a deeper dive into the story’s themes than perhaps any previous MCU effort, but it felt like a much more familiar superhero story than WandaVision, with heroes chasing villains around the world and getting into plenty of fights along the way.
The MCU tropes seemed more apparent in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier because WandaVision had upended all those tropes so flagrantly. With homages to sitcoms of all eras, a distinct lack of action, and mysteries that initially didn’t make any sense and required the audience to trust the writers, WandaVision marked a radical change of pace for the MCU. But, if the trailers for Marvel’s next streaming project are anything to go by, it might not be the craziest MCU output we see this year.
The next series that Marvel fans have to look forward to after The Falcon and the Winter Soldier’s riveting finale episode is Loki, which is set to premiere on June 11. With the series promising to explore the apex of the multiverse and the authorities in charge of the spacetime continuum – not to mention bringing in real-life historical elements like the disappearance of D.B. Cooper – it could be an even headier trip than WandaVision.
Set directly after Loki’s cameo appearance in Avengers: Endgame, Loki will explore the consequences of the God of Mischief stealing the Tesseract from one dimension and disappearing into another. Owen Wilson will co-star with Tom Hiddleston as Mobius M. Mobius, a member of the Time Variance Authority, the police force in charge of keeping the universe’s timeline in check. The TVA is going to task Loki with fixing all the timelines he broke with his theft of the Space Stone, which will include the bizarre revelation that Loki is the true identity of D.B. Cooper.
The pilot episode of WandaVision introduced Wanda and Vision as brand-new characters. There was initially no explanation for why Vision was alive, why they were newlyweds in the 1950s, and why the biggest conflict in the two Avengers’ lives was cooking dinner for Vision’s boss and his wife. Loki will at least begin with a familiar Loki, but it’s a Loki plucked from the middle of the MCU timeline. This version of the trickster god hasn’t been redeemed by the events of Thor: Ragnarok and Avengers: Infinity War; he’s the symbol of mustache-twirling villainy from the first Avengers movie (in other words, the most fun version of the character).
The head writer and executive producer of Loki is Michael Waldron, best known for his work on Rick and Morty, another series that deals with interdimensional travel. Given Rick and Morty’s attention to detail, it’s possible that the multiverse exploration in Loki will have more intellectual weight than Marvel’s usual method of cramming the word “quantum” into every line of dialogue. Hopefully, Waldron will bring the complex storytelling, thought-provoking sci-fi concepts, and blend of humor and emotional resonance found in Rick and Morty’s best episodes to the MCU.
In the trailers, Loki and his goons can be seen wearing campaign buttons from the “Vote Loki” storyline in the comics. This four-part series satirized the 2016 U.S. presidential election with the story of Loki launching a controversial bid for the White House. If the series is bringing in elements from this comic in one of its various timelines, then it could make Loki the most outlandish entry in the MCU to date. Loki running for president would be even more of a change of pace than the Guardians of the Galaxy making their debut or Thor getting recharacterized by Taika Waititi or, indeed, Wanda turning the desolate town of Westview into a TV-inspired fantasyland to bring Vision back to life.