Loki’s Avengers Powers Callback Mirrors His Worst MCU Crime

Warning: SPOILERS for Loki episode 3.

Loki episode 3, “Lamentis,” features a callback to the God of Mischief’s worst MCU crime with one of Loki’s specific powers from The Avengers. While the trickster is known for his scheming ways, he was at peak villain fighting Earth’s Mightiest Heroes as he attempted to take over Earth. In the 2012 ensemble film, Loki was noticeably more ruthless, going out of his way to harm people and cause destruction. Granted that Thanos supposedly used the Mind Stone to control Loki at that point, his actions in the 2012 ensemble film were still arguably his most nefarious ones. 

Amid all the crimes Loki committed in The Avengers, which includes sending troops of Chitauri into New York and terrorizing people, his most impactful crime was killing Agent Phil Coulson. While Nick Fury spearheaded the Avengers Initiative, his S.H.I.E.L.D. operative was the common denominator in establishing a link among Marvel Studios’ Phase 1 films. He appeared in both Iron Man movies, The Incredible Hulk, and Thor, and in most of those films, he directly interacted with the heroes. Given his established relationship with the MCU’s founding characters, Coulson’s death in The Avengers was difficult to accept. It also functioned as the primary motivator for the Avengers to come together against Loki. 

In his Marvel Studios/Disney+ show, fans were reminded of this crime when he repeated the same move he did leading up to him killing Coulson. Loki decided to stick with the Loki variant named Sylvie, after successfully tracking her in 2077. Following a short stint visit to the TVA headquarters, the pair found themselves accidentally transported to Lamentis-1. Unfortunately, with their TemPad out of battery, they’re stuck in the moon that’s on the brink of total destruction. As they both gauged each other, they engaged in various fistfights before calling a truce; at one point, Loki projected an illusion in front of Sylvie to distract her, only to appear behind her and get the upper hand. This is exactly how he murdered Coulson in The Avengers; the only difference is, he wasn’t out to kill Sylvie.

Eventually, Marvel changed course and resurrected Coulson with the help of Fury. He spearheaded S.H.I.E.L.D. with his adventures playing out in Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. on ABC. But even though he survived, Coulson never factored in MCU films. In fact, it’s even uncertain if the original Avengers found out that he survived Loki’s attempted murder. While Marvel TV’s projects technically exist in the same universe as its big-screen counterparts, Coulson’s path never crossed with any of Earth’s Mightiest Heroes’ again. The character did appear in Captain Marvel, but only because it’s a period narrative set in 1995, way before Loki’s actions in 2012. 

While it’s been years since the God of Mischief’s murder of Coulson in The Avengers, it’s worth noting that for the version of the character in Loki, it’s recent. This variant of the character is fresh from suffering defeat against the Avengers when Loki stole the Tesseract and deviated from the Sacred Timeline, being subsequently arrested by the TVA. The Loki variant was able to see some of his own “greatest hits” from what was technically his future, but is mostly unaware of how the rest of his story had originally played out. The trick he pulled against Sylvie was a strong callback to his most devastating crime in The Avengers, showing Loki is set to explore the character in more depth while telling a new story.

Loki releases new episodes every Wednesday on Disney+