#loki: agent of asgard (2014)

[avengerscompound]

Clint Barton & Natasha Romanoff Loki: Agent of Asgard (2014) #1

[beakerhoneydew]

That post from earlier reminded me I haven’t been on my “everyone everywhere needs to read Agent of Asgard” grind in a little while. So hey I’m making a post.

Do you like Loki? Did you watch the MCU Loki show and go “man that was almost good but I wish it was better and an exploration of identity and trauma and actually portrayed Loki as queer ”? Do you like that trope in Avengers fanfic where Loki is just like living in an apartment in New York and hanging out doing stuff and causing mild mischief? Do you like queer stories with genderfuild and aroace characters? BOY do I have a comic for you!

Loki: Agent of Asgard is a 2014 series by Al Ewing that follows Loki’s attempt to prove he’s changed - by completing errands for Asgard in return for the memories of his crimes being erased. Why does he need to prove he’s changed? Because he’s consumed with guilt for killing his reborn child self. Normal comic book stuff yknow.

Ultimately it’s a story about identity, forgiveness, magic, trauma, queerness, and guilt.

Also about what if the God of Lies had a best friend who could see through all lies.

Also about what if Loki lived in Manhattan and could use the internet.

Intrigued? Here’s some of my favorite panels and moments. Shirtless Loki singing Wicked above the cut to entice you further.

[vertigoartgore]

2014's Loki: Agent of Asgard Vol.1 #1 variant cover by Olivier Coipel & Marte Gracia.

[nerdby]

🏳️‍⚧️Happy Trans Day Of Visibility🏳️‍⚧️

Please be good friends to the trans people in your life. It's what Loki would want❣️

Stills from Loki: Agent Of Asgard (2014)

[percheduphere]

I’m a new follower and wanted to say that I really enjoy reading your Lokius content. They are really well thought out and written. I was wondering if you have any headcanons on Loki’s time in Asgard like his relationships, any events you think could’ve happened, etc.

Hi Anon!

Sorry for the late reply and thank you for your patience. I have several headcanons about Loki's Asgardian relationships based on comics canon and MCU canon.

I'm going to focus on characters outside of Thor, Odin, and Frigga, as I believe those relationships have been discussed at length by many other fans.

FANDRAL - Back in 2014/2015, I used to ship them together romantically. I'd like to think I added some depth to his character, but the truth is the canon leaves much to be desired with ONE exception. Comics canon reveals that Fandral fell into a portal that landed him in medieval Midgard where he became Robin Hood, married Maid Marion, stayed with her despite her aging while he remained young, mourned her death, and couldn't have a serious romantic affair since. I used this to flesh him out and create a healthier relationship with Loki, but I digress. I think at the very least, Loki and Fandral slept together, perhaps on more than one occasion. At the very least, they are somewhat friendly with each other. Loki saves his life in Thor 1 by throwing a dagger at a Jotun that's about to attack him; Fandral's the least hostile to Loki of the Warriors Three and Sif; in comics canon, he's the smartest/most cunning of the Warriors Three; he is the only character among Thor's closest friends to not threaten to kill Loki upon their encounter in Thor 2, and quite simply their temperaments when it comes to style, pleasure, and poetics are compatible. I think they suit each other quite well and could have made a good couple canonically if not for the fact that they are both flighty when it comes serious relationships (both due to trauma, if you take Fandral's Robin Hood backstory seriously). At any rate, Mobius surpasses him in many ways and is a wonderful character in his own right, for which I am eternally grateful.

SIF - While I don't think Loki hates Sif, I feel the same cannot be said about Sif for Loki. In Norse mythology, Loki cuts Sif's hair as a prank and is forced by Thor to magically create for Sif hair of gold. In the comics canon, Sif's hair was originally gold and Loki cutting it resulted in it turning dark brown or black. In multiple iterations of the comics canon, Loki's motivation has near-consistently been his jealousy of his brother's attention for her. Now, Sif in the MCU versus Sif in comics reads as a "girl friend" as opposed to a "girlfriend". However, Sif has a strong sense of honor and integrity, neither of which she is willing to compromise. I therefore see her constantly clashing with Loki's morally gray (at best) and outright malicious (at worst) intentions. The most traumatic comics canon experience Sif has been through with Loki was his taking over her body to become Lady Loki. That trauma left her completely untrusting of Loki's motivations even after he is reborn in the Journey into Mystery/Agent of Asgard/God of Stories arcs, despite Thor, Fandral, and Volstagg's advocating for Loki's innocence as a child. They may have been friends as children, but that friendship has long been broken. Whenever they are in the same room, it is tense.

HEIMDALL - Through the Bifrost, he is a near-omniscient guardian being who is significantly older than Thor and his peers. For this reason, I think Heimdall is generally neutral towards Loki's behavior, having witnessed all sorts of behavior throughout the Nine Realms. That said, his friendship with Thor creates a strong sense of protectiveness for him and wariness towards Loki by Thor 2. I was of the belief that Heimdall is the most serious of Thor's friends and that his regard toward Loki was not too afar from the Warrior's Three. However, the Loki series suggests he has a playful side, at least when Thor and Loki were younger. I think he may have humored Loki's antics as he had Thor's, like an uncle who indulges his nephews with an air of amusement, mild exasperation, and reserved affection. I also think he appreciated Loki's intelligence. It is a lonely duty to guard the Bifrost. I think Loki's visits and conversations lifted his spirits from time to time. Unfortunately, Odin's penchant for war and conquest, his political machinations, his deceit, his manipulation, and his favoritism toward Thor all come to a head.

VOLSTAGG - Not much is shown about Volstagg. I can say he is the oldest of Thor's friends and the only father among them. He detests Loki's cunning, and Loki detests him for his boorishness. Their archetypes are the classic "jock's best friend" and "dramatic bookworm." I don't doubt they quarreled a lot when they were younger, if Thor 1 was any indication, and that they secretly enjoyed those quarrels as much as they were annoyed by them. Like the rest of Thor's friends, lines were drawn after Thor 1 and Avengers. However, in comics canon, Volstagg defends the reborn Loki, as a child, in Journey into Mystery. Volstagg has many children with his wife and loves children generally. He provided kid!Loki with warmth, protection, and affection when many refused to give him a chance. I think God of Stories Loki would have respect and even some fondess for Volstagg because Volstagg shares some of Mobius's quirks: his love of food, his a soft spot for the small and helpless, and his exceptional devotion to his spouse (in Mobius's case, his partnership with Loki rather than his wife).

HOGUN - Hogun is the most difficult character for me to get a read on because he is just as quiet in comics canon as, if not more so, MCU canon. I can say he and Sif are likely close in personality. In my opinion, they therefore would be best friends with one another after Thor. His doubt of Loki and anger towards him come across as more muted (still waters run deep) than the others, but that does not mean it is any less passionate. He is also the toughest of the Warriors Three, the last to die in Ragnarok. In their youth, I can see him putting Loki at a distance, carefully observing him, but actively not engaging with him unless absolutely necessary.

[have-you-read-this-comic]

[thenightling]

Now that Wicked is... Well... Popular, people might appreciate more that in Loki: Agent of Asgard (Marvel comics 2014) Loki sang a version of "The Wizard and I" while showering but the lyrics are slightly modified.

[crumpledroses]

Loki: Agent Of Asgard #4 (2014)

Avengers: Infinity War (2018)

[tin-can-iron-man]

New rule: to have any option about the Doctor Doom casting at ALL, you are required to read these comics:

Books of Doom (THE WHOLE THING, 1-6)

Triumph and Torment (still the most important character driven Doctor Doom story made to date)

Additional homework that will get brownie points from me, personally (not research or required reading, just I like Victor and I like these comics):

FF (FF, NOT Fantastic Four, FF, yes it's literally titled FF) (THE 2011 RUN, NOT THE 2014 ONE, THE 2014 ONE SUCKS FOR DOOM) (Victor shows up on about half the issues, and shits confusing because it's Hickman & supposed to be read an issue of Fantastic Four, an issue of FF, alternating. You don't have to do this just watch Victor be awesome)

The Loki Agent of Asgard issues with him in it, THAT fucked, I don't have the exact issue number off the top of my head tho

Also the new avengers issues with him and Nadia Van Dyne (don't quote me but I think it starts on issue 16) (infamous era)

Also the gwenpool issues (infamous era)

[gracefelldownaflightofstairs]

Hello There!!!

I’m Grace! Here’s a bit about me!!

18 • she/her • 🏳️‍🌈 • cosplayer • US based

I downloaded this app well bored working at a Chuck E. Cheese

I mostly post about Doctor Who! Main Gallifrey and Benny stuff. But also some other stuff here and there like cosplay and Buffy the vampire slayer!

Other places to find me:

Bluesky

Instagram

Fandom:

Doctor Who- I started watching around 2015 but stopped. Then got back into it end of 2023! I’ve seen all of nu who and some of classic who and the EU

Currently really in to the Gallifrey, Bernice Summerfield, and eight doctor audio series!

Fav Doctor: 8 and 13

Fav companion: Romana and Benny

Fav spin off/audio: Gallifrey

Buffy the vampire slayer- I started watching it recently and I’m midway through the 3rd season!

Fav character: Drusilla, Buffy

Star Wars- Been a fan since 2014! And have seen every movie and almost all the shows! As well as having read some of the comics

Fav movie: Rogue one

Fav show: Rebels

Fav characters: Doctor Aphra

Marvel- I’ve seen nearly every movie and show as well as quite a few comics!

Fav movie: The Avengers

Fav comic: Loki Agent of Asgard

Fav show: Agents of Shield/ Moonknight

Fav character: Kate Bishop, Loki

Other stuff

I’m just as big a nerd offline as I am online. I’ve been cosplaying since 2019 and going to conventions since 2017!

[dbot456]

Al Ewing may be my favourite writer working in comics...

Loki: Agent of Asgard (2014) #12

[avengerscompound]

Loki & Verity Willis

Loki: Agent of Asgard (2014) #2

[lokiinmediasideblog]

On "Lady Loki" PSA: You mean Loki being Femme?

“Lady Loki” is NOT Loki being genderfluid. The name is a mixture of “Lady Sif” (because Sif’s title is “Lady” like “Lord”) and “Loki” because Loki stole Sif’s body after Ragnarok ensued, and trapped her in a dying old lady’s body. Loki first shows up possessing Sif’s body in Thor Vol. 3 # 5 back in 2007. Loki continued to use male pronouns in Sif’s body, but just gets misgendered by everyone else. And as much as I love aspects of Loki’s characterization in that era, having that plotline in this political climate would be awful, incredibly damaging, and way more problematic than anything the Loki show gets accused of. I need people to know what the fuck they’re talking about before they refer to wanting "Lady Loki" in the Loki show because this is what you're talking about.

I will be open and say I am not a fan of much of the majority of Thor comics. They are fucking annoying and read like some Gary Stu male fantasy because they’re always going off about how Thor is the fucking best and his plot armor makes him the only and best choice to be Asgard’s ruler despite there being other characters with similar qualities in Asgard but Thor’s “just better”. The misogyny is off the charts in these with all the ridiculously and impractically scantily clad “warrior” women that all want to fuck Thor and have little personality past that. I also loathe the “Loki’s just evil” crap. My fascination with them is more like gawking and wanting to be pissed off. Plus, I find pre-reincarnation Marvel comics!Loki to be a fascinating study of a Comics Code Authority/Hayes code era villain (and I kinda root for him because the narrative annoys me). He’s up there with all the Disney villains despite not originally being Disney.

In those pre-reincarnation comics that often piss me off, Loki is meant to evoke disgust and to “disturb” through his failure to be the epitome of manliness. Marvel has tried to distance themselves from that once they had their “Are we the baddies?” epiphany by retconning Asgard to be more progressive. It kinda annoys me because panels exist where they’re being queerphobic to Loki. To me, it’d feel more organic if Asgard was shown going through societal change rather than “We have always been progressive, what the fuck are you talking about?” But that's just me.

I remember when Loki was about to come out as bisexual in the comics on 2013 after becoming very popular largely due to Tom Hiddleston’s Loki (Young Avengers #13 where he flirts with Prodigy, followed by Agent of Asgard revealing he's a genderfluid shapeshifter in 2014), queer organizations expressed concern over the whole “queer-coded villain á la Buffalo Bill from Silence of the Lambs.” If you are not familiar with Buffalo Bill, he is the main antagonist from Thomas Harris’s very copagandic and transphobic book, Silence of The Lambs, the book with Hannibal Lecter (played by Anthony Hopkins who plays MCU!Odin lol) where he’s like “I ate his liver with some fava beans and a nice chianti. T-sss-tsss-tss.”

Buffalo Bill is said to not be a “real transgender”, whatever the fuck that means especially with all the policing around bodily autonomy, and some statistic about how transgenders are the least likely to be violent is shoehorned in, but everything about the character ends up being a queerphobic trope. The “difference” is that Jame Gumb “thinks” he wants to be a woman but doesn’t actually want to be (the transphobia in this book is off the charts).

I am glad Loki has gotten redemption arcs of sorts, because a lot of the tropes employed on comics!Loki just pissed me off. And I am glad MCU!Loki never went through the transphobic possession storyline in the name of being "comics-accurate".

The easiest way to represent genderfluidity in the MCU with a casting choice that predates Loki's coming out in comics would be through dialogue in the magic-less TVA. Have Loki say that her pronouns are she/her while looking the same because people can't shapeshift in real life.

I think if they ever adapt the Agent of Asgard thing (with a new actor), the casted actor should be genderqueer. Tom Hiddleston gets a pass because Loki was not genderqueer yet when he was casted and in 3 movies already (and he was playing the pre-JiM (2011) Loki), but the new one should be.

[lilydvoratrelundar]

do you have thor reading recs/guides/particular run or era to recommmend to get to know and appreciate the characters?

OOOH YES THANK YOU FOR ASKING

some thor fans and loki fans may disagree with what im gonna say here BUT. i think the run which best encapsulates why i love the character and the universe, as well as having essentially a very long guided tour through some of the most significant points of the thor sub-universe within the larger MU, is jason aaron's huge thor run from 2012 to 2019 (along with everything else happening in the thor universe at that time, covered by al ewing, kieron gillen, and marguerite bennett in a few also very good spinoffs).

this is the series where the God Butcher comes from, where Jane Foster becomes Thor, where loki is canon genderfluid in Agent of Asgard, where thor fights capitalism, and much more. it's not perfect, especially in terms of characterisation when some characters get thrown between their own miniseries and the main run, but it really encapsulates what I love about thor in his comics, and it's the run that, over the course of collecting the five huge paperback collections u can get it in, made me fall in love with this sub-section of the MU

proper reading order under the cut, plus brief explanations of crossover tie-ins and so on. it looks complicated but it's basically just cos marvel loves to re-start with a new #1 every so often to keep sales up, and because i think you should read the accompanying spinoffs. if you don't want to read the excess spinoffs (although agent of asgard is VERY good) just stick to things with 'thor' in the name.

Thor: God of Thunder (2012) #1-17

Loki: Agent of Asgard (2014) #1-5

Thor: God of Thunder (2012) #18-24

then the Original Sin event happens, the Watcher dies and a bunch of secrets are revealed...

Original Sin (2014) #5.1-5.5 (essentially a loki & thor miniseries tie-in, relevant to both series)

and THEN when Original Sin continues, Nick Fury (evil now, don't ask) whispers something into Thor's ear, and Thor drops his hammer on the moon and cannot pick it up! oh no.

Thor: God of Thunder (2012) #25

because the marvel universe never stops having big events, an event called AXIS happens immediately after, and results in a bunch of 'heroes' and 'villains' being 'inverted' - the 'villains' becomes 'heroes' and vice versa. both thor and loki are involved in this, covered in:

Loki: Agent of Asgard (2014) #6-11

and if you're wondering what happened to Angela after that Original Sin tie-in:

Angela: Asgard's Assassin #1-6

Thor (2014) #1-8 and Annual #1

THEN Secret Wars happens, basically 8 month timeskip and the multiverse is ending and another earth is about to crash into the main earth. don't worry about it.

Loki: Agent of Asgard (2014) #12-17

Secret Wars continues, the multiverse died and a new 'Battleworld' is created. basically it's a patchwork of all previous universes held together by Doctor Doom (don't worry about it). Marvel cancelled every single book and everything to turned into battleworld tie-ins:

Thors (2015) #1-4

1602 Witch Hunter Angela (2015) #1-4

... and then everything goes back to normal.

Mighty Thor (2015) #1-6

Angela: Queen of Hel (2015) #1-7

Mighty Thor (2015) #7-14

Unworthy Thor (2016) #1-5

Mighty Thor (2015) #15-22

Generations: Unworthhy Thor & Mighty Thor #1

Mighty Thor (2015) #23, #700-706 (they reverted to legacy numbering, don't worry, you didn't miss 677 issues of the series)

Mighty Thor: At the Gates of Valhalla #1

Thor (2018) #1-11

and then The War of the Realms begins, the big thor-centric crossover which ends the run. the issues of that main series and the concurrent thor series should be read in release order which looks like this:

War of the Realms #1

War of the Realms #2

Thor #12

War of the Realms #3

War of the Realms #4

Thor #13

War of the Realms #5

War of the Realms #6

Thor #14-16

and a concluding epilogue miniseries:

King Thor (2019) #1-4

[formerheroeswhoquittoolate]

reading through your blog makes me want to get back into reading comics (I've kinda been slacking with reading anything recently).

Also feel free to recommend some comics if you want

OH MY GOD?? yes absolutely you would be my favorite forever!!!

anyway I think you've read fraction/aja's hawkeye already (or maybe that was rosh) but in that vein there's also an all-new hawkeye series by jeff lemire (2015) and another hawkeye series that focuses on kate bishop by kelly thompson (2016). from there you can also read hawkeye: freefall and hawkeye: kate bishop, both of which are much more recent. and technically you don't have to read them in that order at all! but it Will make more sense.

there is also a series called loki: agent of asgard that I personally think everyone on the planet should read (and I made my high school english teacher read it!! high point of my senior year)

also, ms. marvel! it was the entry point into comics for a lot of people I know and the early stuff (g. willow wilson, 2014) is. it's so good. and it's a good entry point into things like agents of atlas, champions, etc. you've probably also heard a lot about blindspot, he's from charles soule's daredevil (2015) and I love him to pieces! and the whole rest of that series is absolutely brilliant as well.

and if you are interested in the x-men. hoo boy. honestly you just kind of have to hop into it with both feet and run around like a chicken with its head cut off for a little bit. I talk about laura kinney a lot (because she's one of my favorites) so if you're interested in her I would absolutely recommend all-new wolverine by tom taylor (2015). if you're interested in the general x-men saga as a whole... uh. what I did was read avx and then just kind of flail around in the weeds of Characters I Liked until I knew what was going on. which takes some dedication and once you know what characters you like I'm happy to help you follow their arcs! it's really rewarding once you get into it but you do have to flounder around a little bit first.

[ndscottsummers]

i want to see meggan hang out with the loki from agent of asgard (2014). their themes of shapeshifting as an expression of identity and finding your own identity outside of the expectations of others click together really well.