Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks, so let us talk about the ‘Loki’ S2 finale instead – or not. How about we talk about ‘The Marvels’ movie in its’ place.
First, ‘The Marvels’ work. They work because the
film is part of MCU’s current transition theme, and ‘The Marvels’ executes it
on the level of AoS’ S4, which is to say, very well. ‘The Marvels’ movie has
three main leads, (not counting Nick Fury), and all of them share the Marvel
name. This is one of the reasons as to why MCU used all three of them together
– to simplify the Marvel-ous situation, and to resolve several of the problems
that had haunted this aspect of the MCU franchise.
Moreover, what did MCU do with them next? Carol
Danvers, who was played by the problematic Ms. Brie Larson, (remember the
commotion around the first ‘Captain Marvel’ film?), seems to have heroically
sacrificed herself so that the Karee new home planet could have its’ own sun.
She is off the board, at least for now.
Then, there is Ms. Photon, who is associated with
S.W.O.R.D., which is not a part of MCU anymore, apparently, since there was
neither hide nor hair of it since ‘WandaVision’, (WV), but that didn’t stop
‘The Marvels’: S.W.O.R.D. had a brief (re)-appearance, amounted to nothing, and
now that Photon is in a parallel/alternate universe, odds are that S.W.O.R.D.
will never appear in MCU ever again. (Not that the new S.A.B.E.R. was any more
important to ‘The Marvels’, yeah). This way, a knot is quietly resolved in the
‘old’ MCU, and we get another shy introduction into the multiverse…
Speaking of the multiverse, what about Loki, ‘Loki’,
and the TVA? This resolution was less satisfactory: Loki ended up taking over
HWR’s old job, while Sylvie and agent MMM are running/not-running TVA. Pause.
In the ‘Loki’ S1
finale, Sylvie was in HWR’s old digs, doing his job, (maybe), while Loki was
trying to get all of the TVA armed and armored against the new Kang, (and we
got a Kang in the ‘Ant-Man 3’ movie, remember?). Well, ‘Loki’ S2 arrived, we had Sylvie back out in
the wild again, we barely had any Kang in the person of Victor Timely, and the
(ex)-judge RR became a mini-villain, who got sent into the Void. Agent MMM,
Loki and Sylvie can attest that that is not as permanent as it might appear.
Where is the multiverse, though?
Nowhere in sight, unlike ‘The Marvels’. Somehow,
despite all of its’ talks about the ‘sacred timeline’ and what else have you, we
never got to see any alternate timelines, aside from an occasional glimpse and
all. Fair enough, but back to ‘The Marvels’?
Back at ‘The Marvels’, we got Carol Danvers safely
taken off the board, (with enough wiggle room to bring her back, if needed),
and Photon equally safely re-positioned in such, well, position, to introduce
the multiverse, and the X-Men, into MCU if necessary. Finally, we have KK, the youngest
Marvel, in a position to re-start the Avengers with Kate Bishop and a few others
– but keep in mind that MCU’s Avengers are a mess since the ‘Endgame’ movie, so
our heroines would need to re-start from almost a blank slate, and, in addition…
In addition, ‘The Marvels’ had no characters from
the KK previous TV show at all, (aside from KK’s immediate family)? Obviously,
no characters from overseas would appear, given how Pakistan has backed the
Taliban in the real life to drive the U.S. from Afghanistan, but you would
think that Bruno or some other Kamala’s classmates would make an appearance,
however briefly – but they don’t, so the odds of the KK series having an S2 is
unlikely. What else?
Ah yes, ‘The Marvels’ primary villain, Dar-Benn,
whose motive was to… restore a Kree home planet, so that they would be able to
live now that the Supreme Intelligence died, and their planet is dying. Hell, by
dying herself, Dar-Benn was able to launch a process that caused Carol Danvers
to complete the process and save the Kree. Hooray? Hooray. This makes Dar-Benn
better – a better leader than Fury is, whose attempts to help the Skrulls
failed epically on one hand, and on the other, no one is mentioning the events
of SI either. There is no mention of Gravik, or Giyah, or Ms. Sonya, etc. Somehow,
the Skrull separatists of SI transformed from MCU’s potential big bad into
nothing – there’s no mention of them in the greater MCU anymore, just as there’s
no sign of Marvel’s ‘InHumans’ anymore either. What else?
…Well, a ‘Mean Girl’ reboot is coming in 2024, and
it might be a musical; ‘Cats-2019’ say hi from their distant past and remind
people that musicals belong on stage, not on the big screen – but we digress
from MCU.
If ‘The Marvels’ work overall, ‘Loki’ S2 feels more
like a reset that MCU tried to do subtly, but failed – something that MCU is
infamous for. We have discussed this before, (especially in AoS), so let us
focus here on the fact that the final resolution has a feeling of being final –
Loki’s (this Loki’s) journey is at an end; he found friends and love…and lost
them, for good, it looks like. Sad, but MCU has been known to pull twists like
this, and if this is so, then good luck to ‘Loki’, (and Loki), and a happy
send-off to their respective stories!
…This is it for now, though. See you all soon!
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