When it comes to the Marvel Cinematic Universe post-WandaVision there is one question that fans have: is it Mephisto? While WandaVision didn’t deliver on Marvel’s version of the devil, fans had high hopes for Loki — especially after spotting a stained glass window featuring a rather demonic-looking figure in the trailer for the Disney+ series. Since then, series director Kate Herron has called that window a coincidence, but even if the window isn’t a direct nod to Mephisto and even if the devil didn’t do it, as it were, could Loki prove that Mephisto at least exists in the MCU?
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Warning: Spoilers for the first episode of Loki beyond this point. Read on only if you want to know.
In the first episode of Loki, “Glorious Purpose”, Mobius M. Mobius (Owen Wilson) investigates a crime scene in 1549 France where one of the TVA’s Minutemen has been killed. A young boy who witnessed things, informs Mobius that it was the devil who was responsible for it by motioning to a stained glass window featuring the sinister figure. While we know from Herron’s previous comments that the stained glass was not a Mephisto reference, she did say that “it’s more relevant to the themes of our show and it’s not a nod to that character.”
But it could be a confirmation that the actual Devil, aka Mephisto, does exist in the MCU. Since we know that the villain behind the killings of the Minutemen is another version of Loki it is possible that Loki, a known shapeshifter, is using the visage of Mephisto to carry out crimes where applicable. At the time this particular crime takes place within the timeline, France is a predominately Catholic nation and it wouldn’t be a stretch to consider that some faithful at that time would believe that the Devil had literally killed someone. Having Loki play on that faith as well as his knowledge that a figure such as Mephisto exists actually works pretty well.
While this would make for a fairly simple way to confirm the existence of Mephisto in the MCU without actually bringing the character in at this point, there is another potentially more likely explanation for why the child identified the Devil as the killer. A trademark element of Loki’s appearance — both on-screen and on the pages of comics — are his horns. If you look carefully at the stained glass devil, he also has horns. And is wearing green. If the killer is a variant of Loki they’re probably wearing green and horns which would probably look a lot like the devil to a scared kid. It’s also worth noting that Hiddleston himself has said that we’ll find out why Loki wears those horns.
“People wanted to know about the horns. I do remember that,” Tom Hiddleston said during a press conference on Monday. “There was a question of when does Loki wear the horns? Why does he wear them? Is it a ceremonial thing or are they somehow an extension of some emotional intention? Is he particularly malevolent at those times? It was kind of interesting to be asked these questions from outside, I guess, from outside this experience. All will become clear in time.”
Loki is now streaming on Disney+. New episodes arrive on Wednesdays.
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