Not too long ago, when breaking down what made Loki work, ComicBook.com hit on an idea: maybe he shouldn’t be a villain. Maybe he should be a frickin’ Guardian of the Galaxy.
Videos by ComicBook.com
Only we didn’t say frickin’.
Rather, what we said was, “What made Hiddleston such a popular villain from the start was that his Loki is a pathetic, broken thing who has more in common with Rocket Raccoon from Guardians of the Galaxy than he has with the Ronans and Thanoses of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.”
Now, as the Thor trilogy winds down and the third installment of the Guardians of the Galaxy trilogy seems to be on the way, we have to stop and answer for ourselves a question that we raised entirely on accident:
Does Loki really belong in the Guardians of the Galaxy?
Let’s drill down on this a little bit…!
The Lovable Loser
As we alluded to above, the biggest thing that Loki has in common with the Guardians is that he’s kind of a lovable loser.
Like Nebula and Gamora, he is someone who was raised by a parent who was not his biological father, and feels (rightly or not) that he was not treated fairly by that parent.
This, coupled with his checkered past, makes him somebody who the Guardians can relate to.
The fact that both Thanos and Odin fancy themselves “gods” alone gives him plenty to bond with Thanos’s kids over.
And, yeah — at this point he’s gotten beat down by the Avengers, and by Thor twice. He will apparently be a reluctant hero, probably with an agenda of his own, in Ragnarok, which seems like a good place to end that storyline and either kill off Loki a la Malcolm Merlyn’s most recent appearance on Arrow or give him a sense of direction all his own, independent from his brother.
Luckily, here we have a whole other popular Marvel franchise that seems to share a lot of visual DNA with the latest Thor movie…!
Marvel’s Cuddliest Villain
For a long time now, Loki has been essentially Marvel’s cuddliest villain.
Marvel has a fairly well-established villain problem; a lot of them feel one-note and not very compelling, and more of them are just an evil version of the hero they’re fighting.
Loki was a little bit of the latter, but definitely not the former. His motivations and goals are clear, his grudge is understandable (even if misguided) and he’s very likable (some of that comes down to Tom Hiddleston, but let’s stay on point).
Probably the only other Marvel character with the same “squee!” factor has been Groot.
There has to be something kind of hard to resist about the idea of pairing Groot and Loki in scenes together.
Obviously this could happen in Avengers: Infinity War, but having somebody like Loki — silver-tongued and always talking — hanging out with Groot would be kind of inherently a fun dynamic. Add in the obvious confusion that Loki’s rhetoric and lies would cause with Drax, and you’ve got at least two really obvious pairings…in that first batch of Guardians.
What about the next batch…?
Ex-Cons Need Apply
This ties into the whole “lovable loser” thing a little, but it goes further than that.
It is almost mandatory that you not have your shit together in order to run with the Guardians — and we aren’t just talking about the current crop.
There have been persistent rumors that James Gunn cast recognizable and likable actors as the “classic” Guardians from the comics because he hopes to bring that team to the big screen in a future film.
We expect those characters will get a subplot in Guardians of the Galaxy vol. 3, but realistically those thieves, smugglers, and killers are more likely to get real screen time in a future film that does not have as much heavy lifting to do as vol. 3, the third film in a trilogy.
And if you’re going to have a bunch of space-born crooks and disreputable types teaming up to save the world against all odds…well, you see where we’re going with this.
Let’s make this a thing. Loki already ran for President — he can candidate to join the Guardians, right?
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