So next week we'll be watching the last episode of What If...?, and
you know I've got a helluva lot to say about that show. But that raises
the question of why I never reviewed Loki. Well, I tried to. I just found
that I didn't have much to say about it. Although, I enjoyed all of the
fan service in the latter episodes (who the hell would've thought we'd
EVER see a live action version of Throg?), I found myself bored to tears
during the middle episodes. The first two episodes were some much
needed contextual world building. But after that, everything kind of
flat-lined and got boring. And the pace didn't pick back up until the
second to last episode. But honestly that was less because of the story
and more because every frame was chock-full of easter eggs. And seeing
other versions of Loki (and witnessing them betray each other) was a fun
experience. It felt like things had flown off the rails and we were
watching a completely different show.
And of
course we were introduced to Kang (he was more of a benevolent Immortus, to be
technical).
And my greatest fear in them adapting Kang to the big screen
was that his convoluted, almost nonsensical history would be impossible
to translate properly.
He has the only wiki page I've ever seen that starts with a disclaimer
on how confusing it is.
But they did it perfectly. And I'm not going to sit
here and explain the history of Kang; men with more time than me
have tried and failed (see above). I've been reading comics since I could read, I
consider myself a Marvel historian, and my best summary of Kang is
"Imagine what would happen if Elon Musk was ten times smarter, but was also a violent ego-maniac with a god-complex. And then he discovered how to time travel." And there's like five different versions of him running around at any time,
and the most evil one is basically unkillable. The rich guy at the head
of the government? He's actually Kang. Who built the pyramids? Kang.
That superhero who just appeared out of nowhere and is insanely
powerful? Kang. If you travel to the end of time and space who will you
see? Kang. When he's written well, he's one of the scariest villains,
because he's almost omnipresent. You may kill this version of Kang, but
surprise! Another Kang just came back from killing the dinosaurs. And
another version of him is ten centuries into the future conquering all
of space. And both of them may be ten times smarter, meaner, and more
powerful than the one you just killed.
Yet just in forty minutes (and arguably one scene) they
completely communicated how menacing, and dangerous of a character Kang
the Conqueror is.
This ending felt like it was ripped straight out of a Black Mirror episode...
So my Loki review would've just been me complaining about being bored and then ranting about how awesome Kang is.
