This is Why: Journey Into Mystery

I am not going to lie: I have not generally cared for Loki, even as much as I love Thor.  Now, I don’t mean I didn’t care for him the way that the Aesir don’t care for him, which is to say they attempt to murder him and make him shovel goat shit, which is pretty understandable considering the fact that he’s generally the kind of douchebag who does something like “usher in Ragnarok” or “cause the destruction of Asgard”.  That seems kind of a reasonable response, really.

No, when I say that I didn’t care for him, I mean that, from the perspective of a narrative, the idea of a guy who is a jackhole and will always be a jackhole because that is literally his job description, left me a little flat.  It doesn’t mean that I didn’t love all those old Thor stories, but I definitely don’t latch onto them the same way that I always wanted to.

J. Michael Straczynski‘s relaunch of Thor and the world of Marvel Comics’ Asgardians definitely went a long way to changing my perceptions, but what really started bringing me around was Kieron Gillen‘s work on the series and especially his Siege: Loki one-shot.  The idea of a character who was so desperate to escape the very idea of fate that he would willingly manipulate the entire world just for a shot at freedom intrigued me like nothing about the character had so far.

And then he died.  He escaped the bonds of fate and the Norns and Hel, at least until he was, as was always going to happen because this is comics, after all, resurrected.  Thor, desperate for the companionship of his brother who, you know, wasn’t always a hateful prick trying to destroy everything his brother held dear, brought his brother back because he missed him.  It was heartbreaking and it was wonderful and Matt Fraction should probably be given an award for it or something.  The thing is… he brought him back as a kid.

And mannnn, if people didn’t get pissed.  But you know what?  Don’t bother listening to the displeasure.  That kind of change is maybe, and I will fight anyone who disagrees, one of the best decisions ever made about Loki as a character, in terms of the sheer possibilities it allows.

The stroke of genius in bringing Loki back as a child is tied in brilliance perhaps only with letting Kieron Gillen write him again.

Internet,  Journey Into Mystery is amazing.

Yes, it’s only two issues in.  But so far, as part of Gillen‘s continuing work with this world and this character?  This is the Loki story I’ve been waiting for since I started reading comics.

By taking the hateful, adult Loki – a known quantity – off the table, what results is a fascinating look at fate and what it means to be your own person.  Loki doesn’t remember what he did.  He doesn’t remember all the resentment and the thousands of years of manipulation and lies.  But everyone else does, of course.  They don’t know Kid Loki.  They know Asshole Loki and until recently they were living in the rubble of his life’s work.  And lord, do they want to murder him.  Wouldn’t you?  Like I said, from everybody else’s point of view, it’s entirely understandable.  This whole “I’m just a kid, why does everybody think I’m lying all the time?” thing could just be another shtick, another fuck-up by Thor, the one person who always wanted to give Loki another shot because they’re brothers and that’s what brothers do.  Like Bruce Springsteen sang, “A man turns his back on his family, well he just ain’t no good.”

Is that Loki?  He’d like us all not to think so.  When we meet him, he’s wondering why nobody, not even the mysterious group that is Internet People, will ever believe what he says.  We see him investigate a mystery only to find the shade of his past self, cast him down and bind him to his will, vowing to be his own Loki and nobody’s tool.  Knowing nobody would ever give him the benefit of the doubt, he keeps it a secret.

Which is exactly what the old Loki would do.

So how free is he?  How much of his own man can he actually be?  He’s still the same person, just minus all the history.  Can he change it?  That’s the big mystery of the whole series, even as he starts assembling a crack team of evil monsters to save the world from the Serpent.  Which, again, isn’t exactly un-Loki-like.  This is the big tension of the series, of course.  Sure, he might cry when he returns from the roots of the World Tree, Odin’s secret newly learned.  But it is, as he admits, “but briefly.”  Will that be his own fate, too?  To be a new man, but briefly?

Thor doesn’t seem to think so, and the relationship between the two, however little is seen, is one of the best parts of a stellar beginning to the series.  Thor wants to give his brother the benefit of the doubt; he doesn’t see the destroyer of Asgard; he sees his brother, whom he loves and with whom he played as a child.  This is the boy who playfully tricked him into riding goats, for god’s sake.  How bad could he be?  Well, he could be really bad.  But for now?

“You are not as wicked as they think.”

Thor wants it to be true.  We want it to be true.  We could all be very wrong.  But for now, seeing Thor tousle his brother’s hair and put his arm around him, seeing them smile, is enough.  Loki wants to do right by his brother, and that makes me glad.  Glad is not a feeling I usually feel with the character, of course, and that’s one of Gillen‘s biggest successes.  He’s tricked me into loving the trickster, just like his brother, and love is a hard thing to portray well in comics.  He writes a character who makes me laugh constantly, who’s up to no good but maybe also trying to save the world for once.

Doug Braithwaite is absolutely the artist to draw this, especially paired with colourist Ulises Arreola.  They nail the myth-ier creatures, like the Hel-Hound Loki tricks.  Braithwaite draws an Asgard that feels giant and scary and awe-inspiring all at once, an Asgard that feels like a dream.  The scene where Kid Loki meets the eerily luminescent shade of his past self, rising above his abandoned helmet, is so creepy and perfect I actually had to look away sometimes, my skin was crawling so much.  It’s perfect, all of it, but especially Kid Loki, who is simultaneously a playful child – a kid brother, for gods’ sake – and something so unknown, so sinister that I can’t help but be drawn in.  I want to be proven wrong.  I want him to make a better life, just like he says he wants to.

Of course, he could just be fucking with us all.  That’s a very real possibility and that constant tension is one of the core issues of the series.  But for now, I’m enthralled and I’m curious about what’s happening next.  I desperately want the next issue to arrive so that I can pore over it and try to figure out the truths behind everything.  I want to have new pages to turn.

This is why I read comics.