Looking at Loki

Part Thirty-Five: His Own Worst Enemy

By Wolfen Moondaughter
January 6, 2014

Welcome back to my article series exploring the characterisation of the Norse god Loki within the pages of various Marvel-published comics. A couple of things to note before we begin. Firstly, as Sequential Tart is edited largely on a monthly basis, tarticles can be written as much as two months before they actually go live, and a lot can happen in the comics world in two months. Secondly, while I've generally read issues after the one I'm talking about, I try my best to relate what was going through my head when I was reading, and not take my knowledge of future issues into account. Therefore, theories postulated here may very well be disproven by what's currently on the stands. Now, let's get to it!

Young Avengers #12 starts in Central Park, with a failed attempt by Billy to get the adults to wake up and smell the apocalypse. We see many other superhero teens gathered there.

In Mother's dimension, we see Leah chatting with Patri-Not, trying to figure him out as they play with Tarot cards. What is Patri-Not, that even Leah can't tell? Rather than answering Leah's query about what his story is, Patr-Niot, playing Death (which, mind, isn't always a bad card -- it means change, not necessarily literal death), The Tower (a card of great upheaval and potential destruction; all cards potential have a good side, but that card is the card I hate the most), and The Magician (portrayed as Billy), says, "Tic-tock-tic-tock" and "What you can't outrun." Is he speaking directly to Leah, or to Mother, or to everyone? Will Billy destroy everything? Meanwhile, Oubliette applies poison to fake nails while telling her fellow Noh-Varr exes that their problem is that they can't decide whether they want Noh-Varr or revenge, when they don't actually have to choose. I wonder if Leah would agree, in regards to Loki.

Kate talks with Noh-Varr about the pending battle, while Loki tries to give Billy, who is magically meditating, a pep-talk, even suggesting that Billy be like Scott Pilgrim. (I wonder if Loki chose that as a reference because there are a lot of exes involved in the pending battle!) It's nice to see them act like buddies for a moment. David asks if there's something the rest of them can do. According to Loki, all they can do is protect Billy, and it's not a matter of skill so much as it's about Billy believing that he is a hero. As they talk, Billy and Loki reach for each other's hands, and Billy's magic fades. Interesting; is this something they'd developed during their student-apprentice days, Billy using Loki as some sort of anchor to get out of a magical trance? Is it a friendly gesture? Loki goes onto say that Billy can hold off Mother, and maybe even break the spell, but if not, the rest of them will rescue Teddy and get Billy out, and while Mother is cut off from earth, they'll work with the rest of heroes to get rid of the "plague of possible dimensions." Billy asks what could go wrong (it seems like an earnest question, too, rather than facetious); Loki admits that if the plan doesn't work, Billy, the team, the universe, and hope all die -- or alternately, it could work too well. Billy cottons on then to the fact that such would have the same end result (as in him becoming the full demiurge and destroying everything). For a supposed consummate liar, Loki sure doesn't pull punches with the truth! Billy addresses America then; tears in her eyes, she tells him, "Just don't &*& up."

Once Billy and David leave the room, America tells Loki that she wishes they could stop lying to Billy. Loki protests that what he'd just said was all true. It amuses me that Loki is getting so indignant about no one believing him -- maybe because he fears he's losing his touch. She clarifies that she means earlier, and Loki replies, "It was for a good cause. He pulls the trigger ..." Loki mimics holding a gun to his head as he says this. Heh! So he was telling the truth way back when he'd suggested Billy could kill himself, and lying about having lied about it! "And mother goes away," America finishes. "He can't die. This story has a happier ending than that," Loki insists. I like the multiple ways that statement can work. It could be a promise from Gillen about the comic. It could be Loki wishing for a happy ending for Billy because he feels guilt over having screwed with the kid's life, and he ships Billy / Teddy as much as we do (or, well, some of us in the audience, at least). Or it could be him wishing for his own happy ending. The thing is, none of the three options are necessarily at odds with the other two! America seems to suspect Loki means the last option, stressing that it's Billy's story, saying, "And if you do anything to mess with that, I'll kill your--" "Whatever!" Loki replies, throwing his hands up and walking away. Doubtless he's sick of being second-guessed, but he made his bed, so I don't blame any of them for not believing him; even he has said that various people would be fools to trust him. I wonder if he's extra exasperated here because maybe helike- likes America? Also, I wonder what of his she was going to threaten, since she said "your" rather than "you."

The battle commences, the mayfly people being brought into our dimension and fighting the bulk of the teen heroes, while the current Young Avengers roster (sans Teddy) infiltrate Mother's dimension and fight Leah's crew, with semi-Demiurge Billy facing off against Mother. David is keen to rescue Teddy, but Kate is surprisingly less than sympathetic, sarcastically agreeing that they should "save him from the mess he got himself into."

Leah hits Loki with a magical blast, saying that she's "longed to do this for eons." David notices that Billy's not doing so great and asks who has a plan. Leah says that she thinks a certain someone does, that all of this has been his plan. She then repeats what Loki said a while back to Teddy, "Whims and daydreams are all it takes for a reality warper's power to go astray ... without realizing one could summon their secret, darkest desires ..." Loki realizes that she's referring to his missing power (he's a reality warper himself, after all). What have I kept bringing up? The fact that Loki was cognizant of the fact that his wants made a poor master. And what did he want most? His power. But he needed to stop screwing up his life with his penchant for misusing power (and perhaps become a better person in the process) more than he wanted power.

"You really are your own worst enemy," Ghost Kid remarks (truer words were never spoken). "And a guilty conscience ..." "Is a terrible thing," Leah finishes in Ghost Kid's voice. There's no question that Loki brought this upon himself, not just by killing Kid or banishing Leah or manipulating the rest of the team (especially Billy), inviting repercussions at the hands of external beings, but also by his own intent (even if it was subconsciously). The question is, is Kid actually Leah infiltrating Loki's mind, or is Leah a manifestation of Loki's subconscious? If it's the latter, than that would certainly put a new spin on Leah's talk in the previous issue about how she might not be bad but Loki is -- if she's really Loki, then it's him doing the bad things. It also raises a couple of questions. For one, was the Leah in that mayfly dimension the same Leah, or did Loki's subconscious get the idea to create this Leah based on having seen the real one again? For another, when she talked about wanting to do this for eons, was that just a matter of keeping up the persona of Leah for another moment, or has Loki had it in for himself for eons?

Young Avengers #13 answers the question of Leah's existence immediately, in the Tumblr-parody "previously" section, by saying "Leah was Loki this whole time?? Sort of. His guilty conscience, anyway." But it gets even more complex than that later on, so I'll just wait to start ruminating on this point.

During the battle in Mother's dimension, as the battle wages on, Noh-Varr is faced with the realisation that, while he likes Kate, it's Oubliette, whom he'd thought he'd lost forever, who is his dream girl (despite her extreme flaws). I feel for Noh -- that's a hard situation to be in -- but I also understand why Kate's none too impressed with his statement.

America and her own ex, Ultimate Nullifier, seem to be at an impasse -- until Nullifier aims his blaster at Loki, saying that he bets that "the nerdy geek in the dumbass hat" can't dodge him. America takes the hit (and is unaffected); Loki is shocked and seems touched. America tells him, "If we don't save each other, we've got jack." Loki yells for people to listen; a smirking Leah helps him out, informing everyone that Loki has something to say. Loki begins by saying that the Loki whom his body had belonged to had become good. He then confesses to having killed that Loki and taken over, to having manipulated them all, to having made a deal with and then betrayed Mother, and that he wanted to control magic through Billy. I wonder how much of that made any sense at all to the rest of the Young Avengers, and how much seems like crazy ramblings. I also wonder if anyone else is going to find out about him killing his other self -- like Thor. Loki goes on to say that he didn't want to do it -- and that he desperately did, and this is all his fault (which David has an I-told-you-so moment over). While the first two points may seem contradictory, it's in keeping with his acceptance of how he wants power but understands that it's bad for him.

Leah is encouraging, asking, "Doesn't that feel better?" -- and then she disappears, the rest of the exes dissolving with her! They were all part of his guilty conscience?? I guess I can see Leah-Loki having the exes chat with each other in order to keep up the ruse with Teddy and later Mother -- or maybe she was thinking out loud through them as she ruminated about people's behavior. But how did she know so much about the love interests of the Young Avengers in the first place? Well, maybe there was a lot of off-screen discussion amongst them that we weren't privy to. Also possibly of note in this scene: Noh-Varr, seeing Oubliette fade, tries to talk to Kate, but the damage is clearly already done and she knows saving Teddy is more important than salvaging their romance.

Whether Leah and the Ghost of Kid are remnants of the original Kid or just Loki's guilt manifested as a delusion, it seems I wasn't far off the mark when I suggested that Ghost Kid's intent was to goad Loki into being a better person! I'm giddy that Loki confessed! I wonder if Leah was also trying to help Teddy and Billy, and Noh and Kate, by making them test their feelings, to see how real they were. If Leah and the Ghost are manifestations of the original Kid, was Leah's cruelty, in how she spoke to Teddy and in luring the team into battle with Mother, a matter of tough love? Was she confident that they would all get through it somehow and therefore not worried that they were in peril with Mother, or had Kid been tainted by the copy as much as it seems that the copy was affected by him, and gained a cruel and selfish streak that only cared about making Loki better and not about what happened to the others in the process (which would be kind of ironic)? I also wonder, if Leah had succeeded in learning what Patri-Not is, would she have clued Loki in?

Whether the guilty conscience is at least partially the actual Kid or just an autonomous manifestation of the current Loki's conscience, Loki has something of a breakdown, ending up on the ground in a fetal position. He says that the old Loki was the murderer, and he was just the weapon used. "I'm not the murderer, I'm just identical to him. I had no choice." "Maybe then," America replies. Even if Loki is entirely right -- and America's response suggests that she thinks he could be, at least to some extent -- he also seems to be trying to rationalise what's happened. As I basically suggested in my ruminations regarding the comic prequel for The Dark World, no one wants to face it when they've done something monstrous, and trying to do so can be more than they can mentally handle. The prior Loki might not have batted an eyelash, and this copy was programmed to be like him and to do certain things, but once he stepped into this Loki's body and took on some attributes of him, he could no longer handle what he'd done because Kid couldn't have. I think that's what America is telling him: that when he killed Kid, he might very well not have had a choice, but he's changed since then, and now he does have choices. That means now he has to face what he's done since changing: i.e., manipulating and betraying them all despite gaining the ability not to. Maybe this is why Leah became a therapist: because Loki clearly could use one.

Loki notes the glowing star on America's wrists and asks her to end him before he can talk his way out of it. He's afraid of himself, and doesn't want to do more harm. Scowling, America says she's not going to make anything easier for him. And I don't exactly blame her; while I don't think it's entirely why he's asking, his death would mean he wouldn't have to face or fix what he's done, and would be a relief from his guilt. But he has a point himself: letting him live is risking him doing more evil. The fact that she chooses to take that risk means she's either more vindictive than practical, or else that she believes he's both capable of and willing to do the right thing. Considering that there's always a chance that the whole thing with Leah and the confession is an elaborate ruse, the latter would be rather brave of her. I'm giving him the benefit of the doubt, though (surprise, surprise). I know his collapse-under-the-weight of-his-guilt thing has a lot of the fandom rolling their eyes at him, but the angst hits a bunch of my redemptionistra and hurt / comfort-fiend buttons in all the right ways, making him sexy as all get-out to me. (Excuse me while I wait for a minion to gather up the puddle of goo I've melted into, and have them stick me in a Wolfie-shaped mold and pop me in the freezer for a bit ....)

David faces Patri-Not, who directs them all towards Teddy, who in turn is in the vine-y chair shape. Patri-Not says "What you can't outrun." I guess he's saying to focus on Mother right now? Kate orders Loki to "unchair Teddy" (as Mother had turned teddy into a chair again), which Loki does with the runes for "L-P-TH-W(or V)-F-H-B M-W(or V)-R-U-Y-J(or Y, I think)." Teddy emphatically thanks Loki; Kate says not to thank him. I know she has every reason to feel that way -- not just because of Loki's manipulations, but because he may have, however inadvertently, broken up her and Noh -- but it still makes me sad, as she was the kindest to him before. Perhaps, given how she spoke about Teddy earlier, it's just that she's a firm believer in personal responsibility (especially after sending so much time with the maturity-impaired Clint Barton).

However angry she might be, though, it doesn't stop her from asking Loki if it's time to get out of there. He replies that they could, but it wouldn't do them any good, pointing out that Billy is trapped, and so Mother would get to devour everything. He adds that Billy "didn't go full Demiurge. Semi-Demiurge, I guess. Or Semiurge maybe?" America glares, and Loki, putting his hands up placatingly, reckons that it's "probably not the time for wordplay." He really is a nerdy geek, getting distracted by semantics under the circumstances! I love it! I think knowledge may be in competition with magic for his affections.

David tells Teddy to go to Billy. When Billy expresses doubts, worrying that he'll just make things worse, David basically says that it doesn't matter if Teddy is real or just a wish of Billy's, that their love is real (voicing how I've pretty much felt on the matter). Teddy wonders why David didn't say all that before, and David says he wanted to know what it felt like himself. Patri-Not starts to say, "What you can't outrun." David yells at him to shut up, reminding me a little of Loki saying the same at one point -- perhaps they aren't as different as either of them would like to believe. Patri-Not says, "Denial." Since Patri-Not took Tommy under David's nose, could Patri-Not be tied specifically to David?

Teddy goes to Billy through a portal made by a now-powered-again Loki and tells Billy about Loki's manipulations. Billy asks if Teddy thinks Loki was lying about them; smiling, Billy says he doesn't care if Loki was -- they (he and Billy) aren't. I breathe a sigh of relief that they're back together. (They better stay that way in the last two issues, Gillen!!) After a kiss, as Billy gets ready to clean up the mess he made with Mother, Loki, in old form, wonders in disgust if love is really going to save them all. America, tears streaming, replies, "Of course it is. Anyone who thinks otherwise gets stomped into paste." David expresses happiness for the couple; Patri-Not again accuses him of being in denial, suggesting again that he might be more on Loki's page -- or that Loki might be on David's, if he too is jealous of the couple's happiness.

As Billy looks over his options, he recognises that he has the power to do things, but that it also takes responsibility, and he's not ready -- yet. "No one escapes. Thankfully," Patri-Not says. I assume Patri-Not is talking about the mayfly beings. Billy asks if they can have Tommy bacl; Patri-Not denies him, fading away. Billy remarks that he could have saved everything; Loki points out that he also could have broken it, saying that the boy hasn't a clue in his "pretty little head." Yeah, I still can't help but wonder if Loki is attracted to Billy, even if only because of the boy's power.

The battle wraps up, and the kids head back to Central Park. There, Billy asks if what he'd just gone through was the Demiurge moment; smiling, America says no, but that it was "a good warm-up." And maybe that's part of why America isn't pummeling Loki: because even if Loki didn't intend for it, the experience may have prepared Billy to handle being the Demiurge without destroying reality. Avid seems to be greeting old friends, while Kate hands the soul-bow back to Noh. For Billy's part, when he's reunited with his confused parents and introduces them to his friends, he's actually about to include Loki among them, when Teddy asks where Loki is.

Billy has every right and reason to kick Loki to the curb, after the guy manipulated them all and risked the lives of pretty much everyone in the universe, yet Billy doesn't. Loki needs to be more thankful for the power of love, because surely Billy's joy at being reunited with his parents and Teddy, and at having not destroyed the universe, is what's allowing Billy to overlook the fact that it's Loki's fault that Billy was put in the position of losing his parents and Teddy and having to risk becoming the Demiurge in the first place. Perhaps he figures that Teddy might have realised he could be Billy's construct anyway. The same goes for becoming the Demiurge -- at least this way he got some training and guidance he might not otherwise have had. It may all have been Loki's fault, but Loki wasn't the only means by which any of it might have happened.

That's one of the things about Tricksters: they are luck-makers through which things eventually come out as they need to, regardless of whether or not the Tricksters mean for things to go that way. Through the Tricksters, lessons are learned (even if the Tricksters are students themselves). Maybe Billy feels sorry for Loki, seeing Loki's madness and how it led him down a road Loki regrets -- just as Billy's own mistakes did. Maybe Loki's confession (as related by Teddy) proved to Billy that Loki can be better, if given a chance and guidance, as Loki and the others gave Billy.

So now Loki has at least one friend, in Billy. The fact that Teddy wondered where Loki went suggests that Teddy is his friend now too. The fact that America didn't kill Loki, or even hit him, suggests she might be as well. I really hope that Loki continues to have positive interactions with them (and Kate) after this series is over.

For his own part, Loki watches them from above, answering Teddy's question with "Loki's gone." Obviously this can be taken literally, as Loki is no longer down on the ground with them. But does he also mean it in the sense of recognizing that the Old Loki is gone, or is he extending it to mean that that he intends not to be Loki himself anymore? And why did he leave? Because he's ashamed? Because he feels undeserving of friendship? Because he was afraid of how they would look at him henceforth? Because he's afraid of hurting them again? Or something else?

See you next month, for the Young Avengers wrap-up!

For the Love of Loki — My review of the first Thor live-action film (at Pink Raygun), with heavy Loki-centric commentary.
Thor: Tales of Asgard — My review of the animated film, with some commentary on Loki.
The Avengers — My review of the film, with some commentary on Loki.
Marvel.com