The following story contains major spoilers for Loki Episode 4, “The Nexus Event.” Stop now if you don’t want to be spoiled.
- For the first time, Loki has a credits scene during Episode 4, “The Nexus Event.”
- The credits scene picks up with Loki in a brand new setting following his pruning at the end of the episode.
- When he looks up, he hears a voice, and sees four new characters: all versions of himself.
Is there any better teaser in modern entertainment than the Marvel credits scene? We’re not even just talking Marvel Cinematic Universe—the Fox X-Men and Deadpool movies even did their own thing, getting viewers hyped for the future even after the film was over. But where the MCU movies will take months (sometimes years!) for resolution to those tantalizing credits scene teases, there’s been much quicker resolve in the Disney+ era—WandaVision and The Falcon and the Winter Soldier both featured credits scenes midway through their run, and gave fans just enough juice to really get excited for the continuation that would follow only a week later. And now Loki, with its Episode 4 titled “The Nexus Event,” is following suit, introducing new characters and even a new world.
Now, in case you thought Loki getting pruned by Ravonna Renslayer before the end of his six-episode limited series would be a permanent thing, well, you were wrong. Instead, the credits scene shows Loki waking up in an unfamiliar world, pondering his whereabouts. After all, everyone else he’d ever seen get pruned (including his pal Mobius only a few moments earlier) basically just looked like they were being wiped out of existence. “Is this Hel?” he asks when he first awakens, thinking he’s finally made his inevitable arrival in the Norse underworld. “Am I dead?”
But then he hears the unfamiliar voice—to him we should say, though to movie buffs it’s anything but—of Richard E. Grant, the Academy Award-nominated character actor. “Not yet,” he says. “But you will be, unless you come with us.”
Marvel Studios
Cue the tease! Cue the dramatic, awesome Loki theme music! Cue Loki looking up and not only seeing a character played by Grant, in traditional, comic-accurate Loki costume, but three other variants of himself, in front of a barren, post-Apocalyptic looking, wasteland setting. Oh baby. We’re in the Loki homestretch, and it seems like things are about to get really fun. Hopefully a Mobius reunion is right around the corner too.
Obviously, there are very few words even spoken in the Loki Episode 4 credits scene. But in just that one single shot, there is so much going on. This episode already hinted at Blade (!!!) and Thor: Love and Thunder, and now it’s giving us this runway for a really exciting final two episodes. Let’s take a closer look, shall we?
Boastful Loki
Marvel Studios
This Loki variant is played by Game of Thrones actor Deobai Oparei, and is credited as of now as “Boastful Loki.” He’s got a sweet fur coat—not too far off from Zemo’s, in fact—and some form of a hammer. Is this Mjolnir? Is this a cousin of Mjolnir? Is this from an alternate timeline where Loki was worthy? We’ll find out soon enough.
Kid Loki
Marvel Studios
There’s also a child Loki, referred to here as “Kid Loki.” This variant is played by Jack Veal (who appeared in Netflix’s The End of the F**king World), and is seen in a traditional Loki costume, with some small horns on his head, and is holding a Crocodile (We’ll get there in a bit, don’t worry.)
Marvel Comics
We’ll see what’s to come, but let’s particularly note that Kid Loki is canonically a member of the Young Avengers in the Marvel Comics. That’s another one for the ledger; just this year alone, the MCU has introduced Billy and Tommy Maximoff, Eli Bradley (introduced via his grandfather, Isaiah Bradley), and now Kid Loki to the mix. We’ve long known Ant-Man’s daughter, Cassie Lang (who will again appear in Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania), and either in late 2021 or early 2022, the MCU will introduce a Kate Bishop in the Hawkeye series played by Hailee Steinfeld. All of these characters have superhero comic backgrounds. The pieces seem to be there for an eventual Young Avengers storyline, but it could also just be a bit of world-building for now. Kevin Feige and company have got the option if they want it, essentially.
Classic Loki
Marvel Studios
A Loki often intertwined with Kid Loki is an Old Loki, also known as Ikol (Loki reversed: I-K-O-L), and also known as King Loki. This appears to be the version of the character played by Richard E. Grant. (You may have seen Grant recently in Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, the AMC series Dispatches from Elsewhere, or his Academy Award-nominated turn in Can You Ever Forgive Me? Great actor.) He’s the one doing the talking in the post-credits scene.
Marvel Comics
To spare you the full comic backstory here, the basic idea is that this Loki is a bitter, older, wildly ambitious version of the present Loki; he’s the future, conquerer, more violent, version of the Tom Hiddleston character we’ve been seeing for years on screen. We’ll see how the MCU version of the character plays out, though; Richard E. Grant sometimes seems a bit too jovial to ever get that dark. Given that it is a Loki, after all, chances are we’ll see at least a bit of double crossing and conniving.
Crocodile Loki
Marvel Studios
Full transparency: no idea what’s going on with this little fella. But Pet Avengers is a thing, and Thor has history of turning into a frog in both the comics and animation. Is it a stretch to imagine a world where Loki has, either on purpose or by accident, become a crocodile full-time?
Hell, even remember the story Thor told about his childhood with Loki in Thor: Ragnarok? It’s an absolute classic:
“There was one time my brother transformed himself into a snake, because he knows how much I like snakes, and so I picked the snake up to admire it, but then he turned back and went ‘AAHH! It’s me!’ And then he stabbed me.”
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So…it’s canon! Let’s just see how this all plays out. Sounds fun.
The Setting: New York City
Marvel Studios
Folks: that’s Stark/Avengers tower, circa 2012-2017 or so (before the team moved to Upstate New York during the events of Avengers: Age of Ultron and Spider-Man: Homecoming). We don’t know too much of what’s happening here, but this sure looks like a wasteland version of NYC in yet another reality. Is this where all pruned beings are sent? Will we see Mobius here? Will we see that guy who was pruned right out of existence in the first episode? We’ll just have to wait to see.
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