The New Avengers: Doomsday Poster May Have Accidentally Spoiled A Big Plot Twist
“With the big bendy horns!”
Designing superhero costumes is an acquired skill, and not one that allows for many extraneous elements. As Edna Mode said in The Incredibles, “No capes!” For that reason, costumes in the Marvel Cinematic Universe may be cool to look at, but they’re usually skintight and don’t allow a lot of impractical style to shine through.
However, there’s one big exception: Loki. Loki’s horned brass helmet is big, imposing, and has appeared multiple times through different eras and different variants. Now, it’s coming back in a big way — and may inform his appearance in the movie itself.
In a recent Korean poster for Avengers: Doomsday, we see an eclectic group of Avengers facing off against Doctor Doom’s Sentinels. There’s Shuri, Gambit, Loki, Captain America, Charles Xavier, Bucky Barnes, Thor, Yelena Belova, Cyclops, Sam Wilson, and Reed Richards. These characters look more or less how we expect them to look, but there’s one big difference: Loki’s golden horned helmet is back.
Loki’s helmet first appeared in Thor, and it has gone through a number of evolutions since, including a full helmet in Avengers and a slightly simplified headpiece in Thor: Ragnarok. But in Loki Season 2, when Loki sacrificed himself to heal the multiverse, his helmet is replaced by one of black and gold marble, much like the material used in the Citadel in the Void.
But this Loki isn’t the only one we’ve seen wearing the helmet: most Loki variants wear some version of it too, including Sylvie, President Loki, Classic Loki, and even Alligator Loki. With that in mind, does this mean this is a different version of Loki than we’re used to? The post-credits scene in Avengers: Endgame Encore showed a TVA-era Loki, but that version of Loki never wore the headdress, so it would be strange for him to suddenly have it on.
Most Loki variants in Loki Season 1 are shown wearing his famed horned helmet.
Considering how the headdress has become a bit of a signifier for Loki variants — they’re even referenced when Matt Damon’s Actor Loki appears in Thor: Ragnarok — this may be the biggest clue we have that the main Loki we see in Doomsday may not be the one that we first met all those years ago. Loki is one of the few MCU characters with multiple variants we’ve seen already, so this wouldn’t be a big shock, and his original character’s storyline was already wrapped up in Loki Season 2.
If there’s one thing that all those Loki variants proved, it’s that no matter what the multiverse, Loki’s mischievous spirit is the same, even when he’s nothing but a reptile. If a variant takes Loki’s place in the MCU, will the fans be willing to accept him?
