Timely Thorsday #24: Journey Into Mystery

I love the title of this week's episode of Loki. The episode itself is pretty awesome, too. But before I tell you Ticketholders and all of your Variants about that, here's my usual title-related lesson: Journey Into Mystery was a horror comic by Marvel precursor Atlas Comics. As the decades changed, it moved into subject matter such as giant monsters, science fiction, and then mythology, specifically "The Mighty Thor," wherein his villains were also introduced, like the Executioner (Karl Urban in the MCU), the original Enchantress, and our current "mischievous scamp," Loki (Tom Hiddleston). Further information can be found at the link above.

Now, I must apologize for not beginning with a greeting, Ticketholders, but I realized that I've been using the same one for months now, and I felt in need of a change. The usual request of button clicks and comments (which rarely come to pass, if ever) still persist in the land beyond the Void, so go there and do that before I am erased from existence by the ravenous smoke monster that is Search Engine Optimization. Also, a SPOILER Warning! is in effect after the image.

Episode Five of Loki, titled "Journey Into Mystery," begins with Ravonna Renslayer walking through the common area of the TVA as an incredibly symbolic camera rotation effect literally turns the TVA on its head. As it turns, the camera also serves as a tracking shot toward the infamous gold elevator (which is the access to all levels of the TVA complex, including the Tim E. Keepers' (my attempt at a lame Chuck E. Cheese reference because performing robots) chamber and the hinted-at "Nightmare Division." The doors are adorned with an hourglass pattern, which, when coupled with the camerawork, symbolizes the potential resetting of time, and the threat--or promise--of Multiversal Madness. The shot transitions to the smoky, chaotic, Timekeeper room (post-battle), and the smoke transitions into what we later learn is termed "the Void," despite being so crammed full of conspiracy theory and Marvel references (like a vanished warship, a UFO, Polybius, the severed head of the Kree Living Tribunal, Thanos' helicopter--yes, that was a thing--and anything else a Marvel or conspiracy fan could lay their frame-analyzing eyes on) that it is clearly the opposite of a void, which is supposed to be conceptually empty.
With all of this talk of smoke and smoke monsters..., there is a smoke monster in the Void as well. And because color-coded death symbolism, it's purple. And because nothing can be pronounced as it is spelled, I kept Googling "Eliath" instead of "Alioth," so I had to resort to watching someone else's episode breakdown video later in the day so I could have something to say about it. Thanks to Heavy Spoilers for that, by the way. Alioth is a giant, purple, cloud monster from beyond space and time who (in the comics, anyway) indiscriminately destroyed anything it could dynamically stretch its smoky jaws around. This included living things, planets, time, energy, whatever. Here, it pretty much serves as the cosmic vacuum cleaner and gatekeeper for everything and everyone that gets pruned or reset into the definitely-not-a-Void, making it the ultimate Apocalypse Event. It kind of makes me wonder if (since the MCU version of Alioth is purple, a cloud, incessantly hungry, employed by the TVA in a sense, and resides in the Void) Alioth might be a Galactus Variant?
So we pick up where last episode's post-credits scene left off, with Kid Loki (pruned because he killed Thor), Croki (who ate some Asgardian's cat?), Old Man Loki (who glamoured his way into surviving Thanos and got busted decades later for being sentimental), Boastful Loki (who claims to have killed Cap and Iron Man and gathered his timeline's Infinity Stones, but probably not because boastful and Loki), and our Loki make their way to an underground bunker, the outside of which is adorned with such Easter eggs as Mjolnir and a glass jar containing Throg, the Frog of Thunder. While someone is trying to explain to me how a human-sized-or-bigger Thor gets eaten by Alioth, but a sentient frog in a jar is still alive, Loki gets laughed off for suggesting that they try to kill Alioth, and the bunker is infiltrated by a Variant Army that includes Mongolian Loki, Ant-Man Loki, a couple of the pruned Variants we saw images of in Episode Two, and Tom Hiddleston in a dual role as "Vote Loki" (from Marvel's 2016 political commentary issue on Donald Trump's election, which saw Loki running for President and almost winning because when everyone is lying, you pick the candidate who is most honest about doing it?), who is leading the charge until everyone but the core LokiVengers (minus Boastful, who turned traitor and led the Vote Army to the bunker in the first place) turns on each other (because Loki), allowing our heroes-in-progress to escape via sheer luck and Vaudevillian physical comedy. In another Universe, Tom Hiddleston could have easily been the Joker in Heath Ledger's place, is all I'm saying.

Meanwhile, the conflict between Sylvie and Renslayer resumes in Tim E. Keepers,' with the Judge feigning ignorance about the "Void" and having Miss Minutes stall for time until the Minutemen arrive. Again, I ask how someone could screw up so colossally early in their career, know absolutely nothing of Earth-shattering value about her place of work, and still get a promotion. Either she's giving He Who Remains some...oral pruning...or she's been co-running the place with Kang the entire time.
Surrounded, outnumbered, and still in possession of Renslayer's baton, Sylvie prunes herself and goes in search of Loki in the "Void." While narrowly surviving an encounter with Alioth, Sylvie makes a brief enchantment connection, and gets a much better (and slightly less impossible) plan in her head than "let's team up and kill it!" Before she can find Loki, though, up drives Mobius in Pixar's pizza-delivery car that they put in everything. Now, you're forgiven for thinking that this means Mobius is a Loki Variant, too. But remember, the "Void" is a dumping ground for everything that the TVA prunes or resets. It just so happens that Lokis (and the people they don't betray, and Asgardian frogs in jars) are better at surviving than anyone else.

Back at the TVA, Renslayer interrogates B-15, who I guess wasn't pruned last time. This is what happens when you watch psychedelic Marvel things at four in the morning, people. B-15 gives her best Silence Of the Lambs tribute, toying with the desperate villainess and telling her that Sylvie will be the one to see beyond the curtain of the TVA because "you just want it; she needs it."

Then we get an epic showdown of CGI proportions, as Sylvie and Loki (who definitely don't love each other despite the hours of buildup and subtext to the contrary) use the power of..."friendship" to enhance each other's powers and enchant Alioth while Old Man Loki distracts it by conjuring a full-scale illusion of Asgard before going out like a boss...if you've ever seen your boss shout "Glorious Purpose!" before being eaten by a giant, purple smoke monster, that is. Seriously, this dude is one of my top four favorite Lokis, and he's barely been in one episode. Unsurprisingly, Sylvie (who may be my favorite Loki even though she doesn't consider herself one) and Loki are successful in turning Alioth green and opening the way to the "space beyond the Void."

There is no post-credits scene this week, so I'll leave you with the following thought: if the "Void" is the ultimate Apocalypse Event (a moment in history that is theoretically incapable of becoming a Nexus Event), a certain person is trying to preserve temporal order and keep their cosmic police state in power, that person knows that (a) there are two Variants of the same individual who are capable of turning an Apocalypse Event into a Nexus Event, (b) the individual these Variants are based on is skilled at not dying, and (c) pruning sends Variants to the "Void," why would said person abduct said Variant for no apparent reason, let her go to become their enemy, have another Variant of that individual taken into custody, give the two Variants opportunity to meet and connect with each other, and then cause them to both get pruned into the one place that could threaten the temporal order? Actually, now that I think about it, Renslayer wanted Loki to be killed instead of pruned, and Mobius was the one who suggested that he be brought on as a consultant for the Sylvie case. So maybe He Who Remains and Kang are both in play, and He Who Remains is using Mobius to use the Lokis to overthrow Kang and Ravonna so He can get his house back. Hell, at one point in the show, Mobius speaks reverently about wanting to be there at the End Of Time when everything is put in order. So who's to say Mobius isn't a dethroned He Who Remains, and Kang didn't un-90s his god-cave and trash his cosmic jetski when he took over the place?

Remember to click and comment below, and I will see you this weekend with a Black Widow review (now that everyone who gets advanced screenings and a paycheck for their opinion has already said their piece). Also, stay tuned for the finale of Loki next Wednesday on Disney+.

Tick E. Tmaster,
Wow!