Thursday, May 13, 2010

Avengerspalooza #3--Loki Changes His Mind

For this and all posts today, SPOILER ALERT for Siege and the 95 Avengers titles released Wednesday...SPOILERS start after the Avengers logo...



In the one-shot Siege:Loki, Thor scribe Kieron Gillen gives us the story behind Loki's urging Norman Osborn to attack Asgard. Loki, it turns out, feels trapped by predestination...

...and sees but one way out for himself:

Yup, he's going to "burn clean" Asgard. And after egging on Osborn, Loki goes through incredibly elaborate machinations with the Disir, Mephisto and Hela to exempt himself from spending eternity with the Asgardians. As he witnesses Asgard in flames, he tells Mephisto:


So, yeah, he wanted Asgard to be destroyed. And he declares that mischief is a "toy" he's "discarded." Now he's interested in "mayhem."

Great story, well done, great motivation, everybody loved it.

But Bendis wasn't having any of that. Nope, from the first page of Siege #4, Loki is crying like a little baby, shocked--shocked, I tell you--that something has destroyed Asgard:

Ah, suddenly, Loki didn't mean to destroy Asgard. He was only interested in mischief. He wanted Asgard to be in glory.

None of which is consistent in the least, of course, with what Gillen told us in his Loki story. Unless you want to believe that Loki was so unhinged by the success of his plan he suddenly recanted. He's suddenly pissed that Sentry destroyed Asgard, when he started this whole plan to destroy Asgard in the first place.

Not that Bendis has a history of caring what any other writers do. But you think that someone at Marvel, some editor or something, could at least make sure their writers are telling the same story, especially when they're hyping it as the story of the half-decade.

Too bad. Loki deserved better than to be turned into a simpering fool.

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