Summary

  • Loki season 2 faces the challenge of multiverse fatigue in the MCU, but its unique approach to the concept sets it apart from previous multiverse-related criticisms.
  • The key to avoiding repeat mistakes is to closely tie the multiverse to the characters and plot, as seen in Loki season 1's focus on Loki himself.
  • The hopeful precedent set by the Loki season 2 trailer suggests that the series will continue to embrace the most interesting elements of the multiverse concept, such as time-slipping and exploring the Kang mystery.

Loki season 2 has a difficult trial ahead of it regarding the multiverse fatigue that appears to have crept up in the MCU. Loki left a lasting impression with many viewers due to its far-flung multiversal plot, and its more personal story of the 2012 version of Loki learning what his life would have been like had he been in the main MCU timeline, instead of being pruned from his own by the TVA. As one of the highest-rated and most popular Disney+ Marvel shows, prospective viewers are naturally excited to see a follow-up season, especially after the Loki season 2 trailer teased an adventure through time as well as the multiverse.

However, some of the teases regarding Loki season 2 having a more in-depth story hint at a complicated matter for the show to face. Loki season 1 served as an introduction of sorts to the multiverse, and its successor evidently follows the same path. But with the MCU multiverse proving an increasingly risky topic for the franchise, further exploration into this concept is a more tumultuous prospect.

Loki Season 2 Deeper Story Risks Repeating Some MCU Multiverse Problems

Loki and Sylvie from Loki season 2 with a sign for Zaniac in between them

While Loki season 2's multiversal teases have garnered a lot of excitement from audiences who fondly remember the first season, the follow-up season comes with its own distinct risks. When Loki season 1 released, the multiverse was a new concept - one so new, in fact, that the Loki season 1 ending essentially worked to set it formally in place. However, two years have passed since then, and a fair amount of multiverse exploration has taken place in that period, both in and out of the MCU itself.

As such, if the Loki season 2 story explores the MCU multiverse and the way it works more, this could risk repeating previous issues in terms of overly explaining how the multiverse works, and spending too much time on cameos in a way that the MCU has already received criticism for in the likes of Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness and Ant-Man & The Wasp: Quantumania. However, despite a seemingly increasing sense of fatigue surrounding the multiverse and the tropes that come with it, Loki season 2 is set to fare better than these other counterparts so long as it follows some of the core tenets that the first season followed.

How Loki Season 2 Can Avoid Repeating The MCU's Previous Multiverse Mistakes

loki_glitching

The key issue when it comes to superhero multiverses is how closely the characters within the series relate to the concept, and what purpose it serves within the plot itself. For example, The Flash's multiverse controversy came from the fact that the posthumous cameos in the movie didn't need to be shown to convey that part of the plot, and that Barry Allen's story didn't require a colossal multiverse scene to work, which led to audiences feeling that the way in which the scene was made was needless. Loki season 1 avoided this fate by having its multiverse as closely related to the God of Mischief as possible, primarily showing multiversal variants that were Loki himself.

The Loki season 2 trailer sets a hopeful precedent for the chances that the follow-up will continue to approach the multiverse in a way that isn't at odds with audiences, but rather embraces the most interesting elements of the concept. This is because the main explorations of the multiverse are Loki's "time-slipping" - a direct consequence of the first season - and the Kang variant Victor Timely, who seemingly holds the key to the Kang mystery set up in the Disney+ MCU series. With all this in mind, hopefully the series is able to deal with this often tricky story element in a way that gets audiences fully excited for the impending bigger multiverse stories.

Key Release Dates