Still pissed about the revelation that Michael Waldron didn’t watch WandaVision before making Wanda a villain in Doctor Strange 2 and dragging her through yet another hero-turned-villain-turned-hero arc? Well, get ready to add another one to the list because Loki season 2 writers have gone ahead and done the same by not bothering to cross-check the God of Mischief’s history in the MCU and effectively retconned a retcon. Yep, you read that right.
In the episode, cheekily named “Breaking Brad,” Hunter X-5 manages to rile up the normally cheery and calm Mobius, who proceeds to slap the living daylights out of him. Loki seeks to comfort his friend and over a pair of key lime pies, he assures him that losing your cool is nothing to be ashamed of. He reminisces about the time he did that very thing, taking a bunch of people hostage and attacking New York with an alien army because he was pissed at Thor and his father. He admits that he tried to use the Mind Stone on Tony Stark and when it didn’t work on him because of the arc reactor, he got even more mad and threw Tony off the tower.
Up until the Battle of New York and being defeated by the Avengers, OG Loki and variant Loki shared the same life and the same sequence of events. Thus, variant Loki’s fond memories here retcon the explanation provided by Marvel after The Avengers’ release.
The official Marvel website specified that while Loki was controlling others via the Mind Stone in his Sceptor, he was in turn being influenced by the Infinity Stone itself, which was fueling his rage and amping it up to dangerous levels. Without the stone’s effects, Loki wouldn’t have gone to such dire lengths where the thought of killing thousands didn’t even faze him. So, it was settled — Loki was the poor baby; it was the stone’s fault, and of course Thanos’ since he knowingly gave Loki the scepter.
Why the shift in tone? What he did in New York established him as an evil character, and seeing the future the studio had in mind for the character, Marvel couldn’t have that. So, they went ahead and retconned it by saying it was the stone’s fault, thus pitching Loki as this wronged and misunderstood, golden-hearted hero.
But the way Loki remembers and describes the battle in Loki season 2, it hardly seems like he was not voluntarily doing what he did. It seems like he was very much in control of his senses and knew what he was doing, consciously choosing to inflict harm. In fact, contrary to expectations based on how the Mind Stone was said to be influencing him, the series also reveals that Loki was aware of the scepter having the stone in the first place.
While Marvel’s official description painted Loki as Thanos’ victim who was manipulated into doing his bidding, Loki season 2 effectively erased that description. So much for Marvel’s “Parliament” and its diligence in safeguarding the MCU continuity.