According to a newly updated character bio on the Marvel website, Loki is officially off the hook for all the villainous plots and schemes he pulled in the first Avengers movie. Fans will remember that in that Joss Whedon-directed film Loki (Tom Hiddleston) takes command of an army of Chitauri, travels to Earth via a wormhole, and attempts to enslave the human race. This purely evil move seems a bit out of character when you look at Loki’s role in the rest of the MCU. But that’s OK because, as reported by Comic Book Movie, the trickster Norse God was actually being mind controlled the whole time.
“Gifted with a Scepter that acted as a mind control device, Loki would be able to influence others,” reads his biography on the Marvel website. “Unbeknownst to him, the Scepter was also influencing him, fueling his hatred over his brother Thor and the inhabitants of Earth.” Considering this reverse mind control was never once mentioned on screen, this is some pretty serious retconning on the part of Marvel executives. Clearly, they’ve realized what a fun side character they have on their hands with Loki and didn’t want his relationship with the Avengers to be spoiled by the fact that he tried to kill them all one time. Now this colossal dick move can be hand waved away by saying, “No, no, it was actually just Thanos the whole time.”
As Comic Book Movie notes, this softening of Loki’s backstory may be in preparation for a potential live-action Loki miniseries rumored to be coming to Disney’s streaming service. If that’s the case, we can probably expect to see some less subtle retconning of Marvel characters in the future. But that’s pretty much par for the course with comic book universes.
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