For the most part, the majority of Marvel Studios blockbusters tend to open in the same way, with the signature fanfare and logo appearing first. However, several projects have toyed with the established formula to kick things off in an entirely different fashion, and Loki might have been the most surprising yet.
We’ve seen the Marvel Cinematic Universe generate plenty of emotion before a single frame of footage in the past, most notably Captain Marvel‘s tribute to Stan Lee and the Disney Plus version of Black Panther honoring Chadwick Boseman, but the beginning of Tom Hiddleston’s most recent multiversal adventure set the stage for the impact the rest of the episode would have on the franchise at large.
A series of famous quotes from some of the MCU’s biggest names can be heard overlapping, as well as soundbites from important real-life figures including Maya Angelou, Nelson Mandela, and Malala Yousafzai. It really hammers home the notion that we were heading straight into the very furthest reaches of time and space, and as you can see from the reactions below, plenty of fans simply weren’t ready.
Even after thirteen years, the MCU still manages to find a way to upend expectations with something as seemingly innocuous as the studio’s signature logo, while hearing old and new favorites alike really brought the context of Loki‘s Season 1 closer into sharper focus than ever before.
All bets are officially off as to where things go from here, with an innumerable line of Kang the Conqueror variants heading to an infinite number of timelines. There’s literally nothing than can be ruled out at this stage, with Loki making the rest of Phase Four all the more exciting as a result.
