‘Loki’ Season 2 May Already Be Saving the MCU
The trailer for Loki season 2 dropped yesterday morning, and Deadline now reports that it’s passed 80 million views—giving it the biggest debut for any Disney+ series, ever. That’s not just good news for Loki fans. It’s very good news for Marvel.
The trailer picks up where Loki season 1 left off, with Loki finding himself back at the Time Variance Authority after Sylvie kills He Who Remains. In the new trailer, Loki is afflicted with “timeslipping,” in which he’s yanked back and forth to different spots on the timeline. He and Mobius visit a new character named O.B., played by Ke Huy Quan, to try and help stabilize Loki. They then travel to multiple points in history, including the 1893 Chicago World Fair and a movie premiere in the 1970s, presumably to track down Kang. Sylvie also makes a return in the trailer, teaming up with Loki to fight off TVA agents.
Reactions to the trailer have been overwhelmingly positive, with fans on social media praising it, dissecting it for clues, and producing new fan art. The enthusiasm for Loki is a welcome turn after the tepid response to the series finale of Secret Invasion, which left many Marvel fans frustrated over the retconning of some of the MCU’s most important moments, the question of what to do with the new most powerful being in the universe, and plot holes that were never resolved.
Related: The 61 Celebrities Who Have Played Themselves In The MCU on We Got This Covered
Is Loki a course correction for the MCU?
I’ve previously written about why the current phase of the MCU doesn’t feel satisfying. We’re supposedly in the middle of The Multiverse Saga, yet the multiverse only seems to appear when it’s convenient to the plot of an individual film or series. Things are supposedly building up to Avengers: The Kang Dynasty, but there’s no trace of the Avengers yet. And unlike the movies of The Infinity Saga, nothing feels connected to anything else.
Compounding those problems is the fact that Marvel projects have been struggling against pervasive superhero fatigue. Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania was panned by critics, and earlier this year, Disney and Marvel executives decided to space out and delay several projects. Overall, the MCU has been plagued with uncertainty.
By picking up the threads of the multiverse and continuing a story arc that started way back in phase 4, Loki season 2 may help Marvel start building the momentum it so desperately needs. It’s clear that Loki’s mission is to prevent Kang’s multiversal war whatever it takes, and the end of season 2 may finally give us the clear path to Avengers 5 that we’ve been waiting for.
(via Deadline, featured image: Disney+)
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