Reading Loki: Comics from the Beginning, etc.

Loki readathon status currently: 1972. I discovered comics this past year and am trying to read and post from all the comics Loki appears in sequentially.  Reblogging Loki fanart and modern comics and MCU stuff. Current/recently out comics spoilers tagged #comics spoilers. Readathon posts tagged #loki readathon and #reading loki comics from the beginning. Send me your asks and I'll try to reply with a comic, if I can. Also happy to answer classic comics research questions for fic authors etc. For other (non-Loki) stabby fighty goodness concerning mostly Word of Honor/SHL and The Untamed/ MDZS, my other blog is @bladedweaponsandswishycoats. Twitter @bladedweapons, again mostly Word of Honor right now.

[readinglokicomicsfromthestart]

Loki, my dude, I think there might just be some small problems with your plan. Just minor ones. Probably nothing to worry about... 

Thor (1966) #207 January 1973

[dailylegkis]

did his horns just do the thing cats' tails do when they're scared... cursed

they can do a lot of things, you just dont see much of it

[wenofqishan]

"i mean i theorise that at nightless city he was using resentful energy to actually hold his body together and effectively animate his own corpse" ???? please say more. i'm so intrigued by this theory

not gonna lie i shamelessly threw that side note in there because i wanted someone to ask me about this so first of all thank you for falling into my trap. here’s the theory: wei wuxian is dying or dead from the moment he gets shot by that arrow

after giving away his golden core, wwx is weaker to physical injury than any ordinary cultivator. he lies to jc about how long it takes him to heal from being stabbed because he’s trying to cover up the golden core transfer, claiming seven days when in reality it takes him months to recover if he ever fully recovers at all. then at nightless city he gets shot through the chest. take a look at the deaths in the series and you’ll notice that the wounds cultivators don’t come back from tend to be to the chest or neck. i think it’s safe to say a cultivator could die via direct arrow to the chest even if they had a golden core, which is confirmed by the people below who seem to think that the archer “got him”

after pulling the arrow out, he uses the resentful energy to pull the blood off the arrow. i have no idea what this is intended to imply but with this theory i read it as some kind of temporary “healing” process through resentful energy to literally pull the blood back into himself and hold himself together. it’s the demonic cultivator equivalent of putting himself back together with duct tape. it’s not intended to last because wwx never intended to get out of this fight alive

later in the battle he suddenly starts bleeding from the mouth and sect leader yao shouts “wei wuxian is injured!” but as far as i’m aware (?) he hasn’t been injured since the arrow. this is at the point where he’s absolutely losing it, his sister is dead, and the resentful energy is literally surrounding him and out of control. so i think he just lost hold of what he’s using to keep himself intact. i doubt he’s aware of what he was doing, because if he was he might have just let himself die rather than gone over the cliff. it’s more the innate survival instinct that often drives wwx without him consciously having to try.

anyway something appeals to me thematically about everyone making up these complex stories around wwx’s death, and really wwx was just killed by that random guy whose name he didn’t even know. it’s also my theory for why his body was never found. he’s either taken so much resentful energy into his body that it tears him apart, or once he dies there’s nothing holding his body together at all so it literally just disintegrates

[readinglokicomicsfromthestart]

This is just a psa/ reminder that the Marvel universe contains Throg, Frog Thor, the Frog of Thunder. That is all, have a nice day.

[license2chill]

Shout out to my father in law for giving me his entire collection of og 1980s Throg comics just bc I asked if he’d read them before.

[readinglokicomicsfromthestart]

Oh gosh, that’s so cool! #in-law goals, for sure! (I have not actually read any of the Throg comics in sequence yet, since my chronological read-through is still back in 1972 and my modern reading didn’t start until 2011. Am looking forward to getting there, though!)

[readinglokicomicsfromthestart]

Anybody: I will attack Asgard!

Loki: Hey, that's my job! How dare you! Yes, I may insult/attack/be banished from the realm eternal a solid 50% of the time, but if you think I'm going to let anyone else talk shit about Asgard, I will fuck you up.

A little later:

Loki: Oh fucking hells, I helped them too much before, I can't stop them alone. I'm going to have to--ughhh--get Thor's help.

His possessiveness/protectiveness here is quite sweet, really. Reminds me of siblings, you may think you hate them, but you'll fight anyone else who dares rag on them without your say so.

Avengers (1963) #116 October 1973

[readinglokicomicsfromthestart]

Another day, another very questionable choice of ally for Loki’s newest plot. (It’s Dormammu, this time)

Is it me or is this 1970′s Loki getting weirdly more muscular than before? (Actually this may well be because this is a different book - instead of the usual Thor book of the day, he’s jumped over to the B story in the Avengers (1963) series.) 

Avengers (1963) September 1, 1973 #115

[readinglokicomicsfromthestart]

WHOMP!

Thor (1966) #207 January 1973

[readinglokicomicsfromthestart]

Winning or losing, what’s really important is that you do it in style. -Loki, probably

The funny part is that it only takes about a page and half to get from that, to this: 

I love how he flips and is instantly JUST as enthusiastically Shakespearian, with his overwrought “All is night! Midnight, evermore!” proclamations, as he was with the earlier  “Loki will reign supreme!” cries. 

Considering he can’t ever be allowed to truly win, permanently, because of the role a trickster is needed for in narrative/Marvel overall, it honestly seems like an excellent and generally optimistic choice. (Yeah, yeah, I know the histrionics is also just the comics genre, but I enjoy reading more into it.)

(Thor (1966) #207 January 1973

[ikol-cosplay]

Absolutely not

[readinglokicomicsfromthestart]

Between hyperfixating for the past week and reading your blog all day and not knowing where my glasses are “Loki” no longer looks like a word

I'm delighted to hear you're getting so into it! (The first weeks of a new hyperfixation are just, idk, intoxicating, right?? Although frankly terrible for productivity and all the other aspects of life, at least for me...haha.)

Here, for no particular reason, have a few fun comics panels! (This is from Loki in the Young Avengers #12 (maybe?? - I did not double check, just pulled from my files):

[readinglokicomicsfromthestart]

Thoughts on Gammafrost, the ultimate rarepair? My wife and I started shipping it as a joke in 2012, but the more you think about it, the more sense it makes

I had to look up that ship name, it's Bruce Banner/Loki, right? Hm, well I'll read Loki shipped with pretty much any canon character(s) if the writing is compelling and the characterization is within the range of my headcanons. I have very very little familiarity with comics!Bruce (the down-side of being so selective when reading comics), so I can't really comment on that. But if I am allowed to do a bit of canon mix-and-match and consider comics Loki/MCU!Bruce...there are some kind of interesting things there.

(Below the cut: contains somewhat longer discussion + comics panels from Journey into Mystery #645)

I'm a little reluctant to use the duality and self-denigration of identifying the Hulk as monstrous as the key element for Bruce, in part because I like the idea of him developing healthier perspectives on it and in part because I think one of the worst scenes in the MCU was that bit where they tried to make Bruce and Nat connect over "monstrosity" where her monstrosity was...not being able to bear children. Which, ugh. I'm not even going to get into that. To be fair, most of my objection there is with that take on Black Widow, but it sort of poisons the concept for Bruce, a bit, as well.

HOWEVER.....I really do like the idea of duality and the contemplation of the monstrous and identification with the monstrous, and I think the point where it connects with Loki in an interesting way is particularly in the Agent of Asgard and after circumstances, where he has both the history of Ikol (the magpie that was old Loki, which, in consuming, consumed his innocent child self as kid!Loki back in the Journey into Mystery reboot, in such a way so as to be haunted forever after by his child self's spectre, "I am the crime that will not be forgiven," as is repeated over and over). But Loki, I think, is not so neatly divisible into two—I think ultimately he is plural, rather. Still, would that give them an interesting point of commonality or way to relate? Perhaps? As far as other stuff...trope-wise I can kind of see maybe a character dynamic of the sunshine hyper one and the grumpy quiet one, which can be fun? I would have to give it more thought, to be honest, though if you have any fics that you think sell it well, I'd love to have recs!

Anyway, it is only vaguely relevant but since I like to give a comics panel if/when I can to people's responses, here—have one from the scene where kid Loki sacrifices himself and eats Ikol, once more becoming his old self: (from Journey into Mystery #645 )

[cactus-joke]

Here it is! The whole grid! I feel like this might takes ages to load for some of you, as it certainly did for me lmao but, it is what it is lol

Thank you all for liking/commenting/following. This series may be over but I’m definitely not done drawing Loki (or our cute Tesseract)! / Let us see what Wednesdays will bring!

If you want to see more of my art, you can head on over to my Instagram page: jomi066

[ot3-old]

i love every cat in the entire world. every cat on the planet.

[ot3-old]

if there are any cats in outer space i love them too

[readinglokicomicsfromthestart]

Did someone say space cats???

From the Marvel series with Thor and Loki, Original Sin: The Tenth Realm...probably (I did not double-check though)

[readinglokicomicsfromthestart]

Loki: God of Mischief...and Madness

Quite a nice pin-up style treatment here. I’m particularly amused that at the magical attack dogs named Satan and Diablo as well as the “mystic New England” bit. 

Thor (1966) #207 (January 1972)

[readinglokicomicsfromthestart]

[readinglokicomicsfromthestart]

There seem to be some new people finding their way to the Loki corner of tumblr recently (or perhaps finding their way back?), to judge from the uptick in followers in the last week or two. I assume because of the show?

So anyway, new folks: Welcome!! And old folks: Hi again, friends!

Whether you are new or just haven’t thought about it recently, this is an extremely important reminder, almost a PSA, of sorts. 

or, to use the meme version: I don’t know who needs to see this, but:

This version of Loki exists (and is fan-fucking-tastic and you should definitely reflect upon him regularly). 

(This is the version from the 6 issue eponymous “Loki (2019)” run. It falls a few years after Agent of Asgard.)

Ok, end of message, have a nice day!

[readinglokicomicsfromthestart]

Nice to see you on my dash again! Missed your content :-)

Aw hello! ...Rolls up, god knows how many weeks late since I didn't notice this notification, with Starbucks and the sincere intention to get back on my daily update schedule... (TBH, partially Marvel Unlimited is to blame because they changed some tech features to the browser-based access to their comics archive in a way that makes it considerably less convenient to make screenshots. Between that and cdrama fandom, I've been a bit remiss...)

Anyway, Thanks, friend!!

Here, have some random comics panels! These are a couple that I'm especially fond of! Since I was trying to sell folks on reading Agent of Asgard in another post recently, they're from that. Featuring canon genderfluid Loki as god(dess) of stories, facing off against one of her former selves:

Agent of Asgard #16

[readinglokicomicsfromthestart]

Hi. I've been wanting to read Marvel comics for a while now, but I have no idea how to start or where to start. Is there any chance you could explain? If not then it's fine, but if you can then thank youuu 🖤

Hi! Sorry I didn't see this before! I think, to start with, you will probably want to pick some criteria or way to narrow down what you want to look at—there is simply so much, it will be overwhelming otherwise. Being a Loki blog, that is what I am best equipped to recommend. In that case, I would suggest what I started with, which is a series of 3ish books that go in a sequence and are basically the backstory of the most recent incarnation of comics Loki. For that, you would want to start with:

Journey into Mystery (2011) #622. If you look at either of the reading order links I posted below, those alternate with another series in a bigger story. However to start with, you can also just do the main JiM ones:

Journey into Mystery #622-645 (there are a few others that get put in here, some from The Mighty Thor and New Mutants - see the reading list)

Then go to Young Avengers (Marvel Now!) #1-15

Then go to Loki: Agent of Asgard #1-17 (Agent of Asgard also has some bits that crossover with other books and short arc about Thor and Loki's sister (The Tenth Realm #1-5 Original Sin) - but also see the reading order.)

Reading order lists:

https://cmro.travis-starnes.com/character_details.php?character=46&page=17&list_type=2&limit=25&order_listing=1

http://chantofthemagpie.blogspot.com/2018/02/loki-reading-order-marvel-comics.html

Editing to add (and sorry to be a tiny bit political for a second): The first link also has direct links to the comics on Marvel Unlimited, the official place to read them with subscription. While there are places that post the comics for free, if it is within your means, please please try to read them in a way that allows the artists and writers to get paid. The subscription is essentially the same price as a lot of streaming services, and gives you access to almost everything Marvel has put out from the beginning up until 6 months previous. Which is, like, tens of thousands of comics. As far as the “why help giant corporations?” question: yes, Marvel is be a big company. However, it is still incredibly difficult to make a living as an individual comics creator. More support also means more comics in the future. (This is technically most relevant if you are reading a current/ ongoing book (rather than the older material on MU), since it can influence whether that book gets canceled or continued, but even if you are reading older things like the ones I mentioned above, it is a good choice to make, if you are financially able.)