Loki Appears in the 'Avengers: Endgame' IMAX Poster and People Are Freaking Out

By Mike Redmond | Film | April 3, 2019 |

By Mike Redmond | Film | April 3, 2019 |

When the Avengers: Endgame character posters dropped last week, Loki Twitter lost vast portions of its sh*t when Tom Hiddleston tweeted an “Avenge The Fallen” poster for Loki. And his stans’ logic was mostly sound. Why would an actor tweet a poster of his character if he’s not even in the movie? However, Marvel pulled some shenanigans with the marketing of Infinity War, so as CBR notes, it wouldn’t be off brand for the MCU to troll fans. Hell, Samuel L. Jackson does it just for kicks. But there’s been a development.

Along with a new Endgame trailer, Marvel also dropped the IMAX poster yesterday, and hey, who’s that handsome fella in the corner?

WARNING: What follows are spoiler-ish nerd theories about Infinity War and Endgame, so proceed at your own risk. (P.S. I’m not getting into the implications of Loki’s Disney+ series on his post-Endgame fate because, as of this writing, the official synopsis is it will be set in the past.)

Here’s what significant about Loki’s presence: Unlike the rest of the fallen characters, his death wasn’t a result of The Snapture or “The Decimation” as it’s officially called because Marvel hates fun and/or wants to sell tickets in the Bible Belt. I’m not a mind reader. Anyway, if you’re thinking the same distance from The Snapture is true of Gamora, who also appears on the poster amongst the fallen, not exactly.

If Endgame is following comic lore, the heroes that were dusted in Infinity War are trapped in the Soul World where Thanos talks to Gamora as a child after his victory. She was sacrificed to obtain the Soul Stone, so it stands to reason that she’s hanging out with the rest of the dusted franchises that are absolutely coming back to life. Disney didn’t eat crow to reinstate James Gunn as the director of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 for sh*ts and giggles.

So now that we’ve established that Loki’s presence with the fallen doesn’t make sense, it’s time to consider the possibility that he never really died in Infinity War. One of the more compelling theories is that Loki was disguised as Bruce Banner during the events of Infinity War, and there’s a decent amount of evidence to support that claim. Of course, the more likely scenario is that Loki just Loki’d his way out and slipped away because that’s what the guy does. It’s his entire bag. As for where he went? Well, we know Valkyrie survived the snap, so there’s a good chance at least some of The Revengers are keeping it real.

That said, it’s entirely plausible that Loki really did die and sacrificed himself to save Thor. But that doesn’t preclude him from coming back to life in Endgame. From the jump, there have been unavoidable reports that time travel will be a factor in defeating Thanos and/or bringing back the dead. (Doctor Strange wears a freaking time stone around his neck for God’s sake.) If that’s the case, we could see characters revived from not just The Snappening, but literally any point before it. From the beginning of Infinity War to, sh*t, the entire MCU.

However, the time travel shenanigans also opens up the likelihood that we simply see Loki still alive in the past, and that’s it. Granted, that’d be super boring, we are dealing with a studio who lacks the courage to do butt stuff, so I’d start setting those expectations low. That’s just my advice.