The disappointing streak of Secret Invasion ended by cursing the MCU with the inability to ever create a story with genuine, dangerous stakes that matter or strike fear. And now, Loki has happily jumped headlong into the same dark pit, creating yet another impossible-to-resolve plot hole. What is the studio and its “Parliament” thinking?
We all would happily like to erase Secret Invasion from our collective memories, but that won’t change the fact that Emilia Clarke’s G’iah is now the most powerful being in the entire Marvel universe. She has the powers of almost every superhero and supervillain, thus making it impossible to imagine the side — heroes or villains — she will end up opposing ever winning against her.
Unless Marvel decides to retcon this massive detail, building a story is futile — if G’iah joins the villains, no Avenger can ever stand a chance against her, even if they all joined forces. The same applies to a scenario where she is on the side of the heroes — Ultron, Thanos, Kang, or any of the zillion other Marvel villains would bend under the force of her powers. So, how will any conflict ever last long enough for Marvel to create another saga, unless they purposefully ignore her existence?
As if the G’iah-shaped problem wasn’t enough, Marvel has now gone ahead and given Loki the ability to manipulate time itself. The penultimate episode of the Marvel series ended with Loki realizing that he can rewrite the story, in whatever way he wants and as many times as he wants. Yes, that definitely makes the already unimpressive Kang and his variants look so much more menacing — after all, a literal God, already flaunting some seriously amped-up powers compared to the OG Loki, and now blessed with the ability to time travel and manipulate events, is no match for a villain who was easily overpowered by a few modified ants, right? Right?
G’iah is already the strongest MCU character and now, Loki has the ability to trump her and well, everyone else. It practically kills any excitement for all future adversities set to impact the MCU or any of its trillion realities.
Thanos wanted to become “inevitable” with the Infinity Stones, but the limitless expect of his powers depended on the stones and they could be taken from him – something that did end up defeating him. The heroes who eventually beat the Titan were powerful, clever, and infinitesimally intelligent, but they also had their limits – they could be overpowered and defeated as they were not the ultimate everything.
Now put G’iah or the variant Loki in place of Iron Man in Endgame. Forget either of the two defeating Thanos, the story wouldn’t have logically progressed that far with them present. G’iah would have already crushed Thanos’ and his army into fine dust without needing any of the stones. This variant Loki would have simply rewritten the events, time-traveling back to the moment Thanos attacked his ship in Infinity War or before it, until he won.
The only way for Marvel to weave a story with stakes and palpable danger from hereon is to deliberately forget that Loki and G’iah exist because of course, they will not come running to solve every problem of the universe. But what about when they do join the whole team to beat the threat that either G’iah or Loki can single-handedly end within seconds? How will Marvel justify the need for multiple movies stretching across a dozen hours to defeat one evil? Kill the super-charged and unstoppable G’iah and/or Loki? Retcon the extent of their powers? Just power through, hoping that we won’t notice the pointlessness of the endeavor? Tut-tut, Marvel.
